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“May-Lynn Tapia. She was twenty-six and taught kindergarten over at the elementary school.” Ash leaned back in his seat and studied him for a long moment. “Listen, Connelly. Whoever did this to May-Lynn is clearly fixated on your book, and if I were a betting man, I’d lay down money on the probability of their obsession shifting to the book’s writer. You. So you need to be careful until we catch this guy. That means no more sleeping on Veronica’s porch.”
“How does every-fucking-body know about that?”
“It’s a small town. People talk.”
He was starting to prefer the anonymity of Seattle, where he knew the neighbors in his high rise by sight and not name. “I can’t leave her alone, and she won’t let me in.”
“Do you have reason to be worried about her safety?”
“No,” he said a little too quickly, mostly trying to convince himself.
Ash just stared at him with narrowed eyes.
“All right, maybe,” he relented after a moment. “It’s just... a weird feeling I’ve been getting lately like I’m being watched. But it only happens at her place.”
“And you mentioned an intruder?”
“Not an intruder. A lurker. Or…” He shook his head. The more he thought about it, the more he wondered if he’d dreamed the whole thing. “Honestly, Ash, I’m not even sure I saw what I thought I saw. I was tired. It was dark. The photos I took of the window showed nothing. So… I don’t know. I could’ve been imagining it.”
“But it spooked you enough to call the police,” Ash pointed out. “And I read your book. You’re not the kind of guy to spook easily.”
“Yeah, not usually.”
Ash nodded. “Then I’ll station a deputy at her door as well as yours.”
Oh, she was going to love that. “She can’t see them.”
Ash grunted noncommittally.
“I mean it. Right now, her house is her sanctuary. It’s the only place she feels safe. If she loses that… I don’t even want to think about what it would do to her.”
Ash’s expression softened. “I’ll tell them to be discreet.”
Connelly slapped a hand down on his laptop to close the lid, then scrubbed at his face. “This is so fucked. Did May-Lynn have family? I feel like I should do something for them.”
“I’d prefer it if you didn’t contact them. We’re not releasing the information about the connection to your book to the general public.”
“It’ll get out,” Connelly said. “Small town.”
Ash scowled. “I’m aware, but I plan to have this guy in handcuffs before it does.”
“I’ll do anything I can to help.”
“Good.” He pulled a battered green leather notebook from his pocket and flipped to a clean page, then held out a pen. “Start by making a list of anyone you’ve ever pissed off.”
Connelly stared down at the blank page for a beat, then accepted the pen. “You’re going to need a bigger notebook for that.”
Ash smirked. “That long, huh?”
“Let’s just say I wasn’t a popular guy when I left the Air Force.”
“Okay, what about your readers? Have you received any weird fan mail recently?”
Connelly froze with the pen posed over the paper. He looked up, and his expression must have given him away.
“Fuck,” Ash said, drawing the word out. “You have.”
“Not fan mail, but…” He slowly set the pen down. “I do have a restraining order on a woman in Seattle named Sara Parker. I met her at a writer’s conference. She said she was an aspiring author, and we became friends. Then more than friends, but things started getting weird, and I ended it.”
