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“You could have been killed that day.”
“I could have, but I wasn’t.”
Mike had been mere milliseconds from pulling that trigger, and Grant didn’t have much time for putting together some great plan. He’d simply taken advantage of a split second of distraction as the police arrived. Mike had turned to look behind him, and Grant had jumped on him, pushing his arm away from them both.
The gun had gone off, but no one had been hurt thankfully. He’d patched the hole himself, and with the new paint no one would ever know.
“I still can’t believe what he did. It’s like I never knew him at all. When I saw him that last day, he was a total stranger. He didn’t even look like himself.”
“He was playing a part. He was a great actor, and he had everyone fooled. You shouldn’t feel bad about it, Mia. He had his own wife fooled and she lived with him every day.”
“I never wanted him to love me.”
Love? Mike wouldn’t know the meaning of the word.
“He was obsessed. The kind that was destructive and dark. I doubt he’d ever loved anyone but himself. He only cared about his needs. That’s it. Everyone else was simply a pawn in the sick game he was playing.”
Mike had, indeed, been Mia’s stalker. He’d been obsessed with her since she’d moved to Florida running from Kevin. Somehow, Mike had fancied himself some sort of savior, keeping her evil ex at bay.
His fantasy world had grown and deepened over the years, becoming more colorful and less rooted in reality.
He’d had a diary going back almost two years on his laptop about all the things that he and Mia were going to do once they were together. The cops had found the dark clothing in his closet that he’d worn to break into Mia’s home. They’d also found searches in his history about crimes where someone had faked an attack to cover other crimes. He had websites saved that talked about slow-acting poisons, too. He’d debated different ways to kill Lane to get her out of the way, but he hadn’t done anything. He hadn’t taken any action.
Until Grant.
Once Mia and Grant started dating and were clearly serious and in love, Mike had to do something and fast. He’d followed Mia when she’d traveled to see Grant, telling Lane that he was on a guy’s trip with his friends. He’d watched her, sent texts, and even tried to break into her home, hoping to scare her into his arms. Somehow, he’d pictured himself a grand hero saving the damsel in distress.
Getting into her house hadn’t been a problem at all as he and Lane had a spare key. What he hadn’t expected, however, was that Mia had changed the alarm code. When he’d set it off, he’d run scared, terrified that she might recognize him.
He’d tried it once again, but only to shake her up a bit more. He’d never intended to try and actually break into her home. He simply wanted her terrified.
Eventually, he’d decided on a method to get rid of Lane - a fake home invasion – sure to bring him maximum sympathy from everyone around him. Especially Mia. He’d watched a few YouTube videos and learned where to stab himself so as not to inflict any real damage. Once he’d set on a method, he’d sent Mia a text threatening her friends, setting things up to blame Mia’s anonymous stalker.
Familiar with his neighbors, he’d known most of the houses that had cameras, and he’d managed to not be seen the night he’d broken into Mia’s house. But he hadn’t thought through the whole motion sensor light when he’d given his statement to the police about his own home invasion.
It was always the small details that tripped up a criminal.
When his brother Steve had tried to make Mike see sense that had been the catalyst for sneaking out of the house and going to see Mia. His brother was threatening the world that Mike had carefully built up, and he couldn’t handle it being toppled.
He’d been angry and agitated, only knowing that he needed to talk to her and see her. His brother was wrong, and Mike was going to prove it. But Mia hadn’t been there, and his catastrophic thinking had jumped to the worst possible conclusion. She didn’t love him, and she never would. Life simply wasn’t worth living. Later, he’d told the police that he wanted Mia to blame herself when he was dead. He wanted her to grieve and be sad the rest of her life. That way he’d live on forever.
After being taken into custody, Mike was placed in a psychiatric facility. Once medicated and stable, he’d at first tried to blame Kevin Fuller when he was questioned by police, but eventually he’d admitted to what he’d done, saying that none of it was his fault. It was Lane’s fault, somehow, although he couldn’t quite articulate as to why.
Not surprisingly, he’d also blamed Grant because he’d turned Mia away from Mike. He’d go back and forth, blaming Mia as well in one breath and then saying that she was the most perfect woman ever in another. Not a lot seemed to make sense.
Mike would have more psychiatric testing to see if he was competent to stand trial. Either way, he wasn’t getting out anytime soon.
Kevin Fuller, on the other hand, had been granted parole, but it wouldn’t be released for ninety days. They didn’t expect to hear anything from him, but Grant was going to be vigilant just in case.
“I think he loved Lane. At least in the beginning. Before I came along.”
“None of this was your fault,” Grant replied firmly. “All this evil was cooked up by one person - Mike Ellers. He is solely responsible for what happened to Lane.”
“I think about it sometimes, you know,” Mia said so softly he barely heard the words. “Was she scared at the end? Did she even know what was happening? I think about that and I––”
She broke off, wrapping her arms around herself as if to ward off the horror of her own thoughts.
Pulling her into his embrace, he placed a chaste kiss on her temple, wanting nothing more than to take away all the horror and replace it was happiness and love. She was going to need some time to heal, but he’d make sure she’d get whatever help she needed, professional or just someone to hold her when the nightmares were bad.
