“Being your stalker.”
The words were a weight dragging her to the depths of confusion.
“Sebastian is not stalking me. You have evidence that proves Tony Brooks left those messages. That’s what you told me. Tony Brooks is my stalker.”
“We’re not convinced of that anymore.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Gabrielle.” Brad reached for her hand. She snatched it from his grasp. “Sebastian has been with you when you’ve received each threat. That’s a well-known pattern of behavior for certain stalkers. To see their victim’s reaction to their threats up close.”
“No. You’re wrong.”
“Listen to me,” Brad insisted. “Two things never made sense when the first message was left at the beach cottage. First, you were supposed to move into the main house, not the beach house. That last-minute change would be hard for an outsider to know. The second is that your trip to see Damian Hester was a secret. Sebastian had to sneak you in under cover of night. Even if the stalker found out you’d taken up residence at the beach cottage, how could he have known that you’d be gone in the dead of night? Who tipped him off?”
“You’re implying that Sebastian told Tony Brooks to vandalize my home with bloody goat hearts and write the message on my wall? That’s ridiculous.”
“Not so far-fetched now that I know he was with you when Damian wrote the message to you. He could’ve easily relayed the information to Brooks as part of his sick, twisted plans to stalk you. When you returned to the island that night, he purposely didn’t dock close to the beach house. Instead, according to the statements you and Mr. Luttrell gave the St. Felipe detectives, the two of you spent over an hour walking three miles from the furthest dock. Conveniently, that hour gave Brooks time to put those goat hearts in the cottage and get out without being caught.”
“You can’t expect me to believe this.” Squeezing her eyes shut, Gabrielle exhaled slowly.
“No evidence links Brooks to the second and third threats. No fingerprints. Nothing. Sebastian had the best access to put snakes and the note in your purse. He’d been with you all day, but more likely, he did it after the two of you had returned to his house for the evening,” Brad continued to lay out his case. “Now we have this flower delivery. Tell me this, why did you jump to the conclusion that they were from Sebastian?”
Gabrielle stalled. No way in hell was she telling him that Sebastian broke into her hotel suite, evaded his supposed top-notch guards, and spent the night with her. She had to come up with a lie. “While I was staying with him, he would sprinkle hibiscus petals on the bed to make his home feel fancy for me. I think he was embarrassed that it wasn’t as luxurious as King Estate. Not that I cared about any of that.”
“You must admit that Sebastian had motive, means, and opportunity to be behind all three incidents.”
“You’ve made some connections to Sebastian based on circumstantial evidence, but there’s no motive for him to stalk me. I’ve lived with this man for over a week. I was literally with him every hour of every day.”
Brad motioned for another officer to come over to their table. The officer handed Brad a file, then returned to his position near the door.
“He’s stalking you to make you dependent on him. To make you need him more than anyone else in your life. Once he has that, he’ll start to cut you off from your family and friends until he’s the only person you have. It’s a typical M.O. of stalkers.” Brad opened the file and placed several pages in front of her.
“We got a warrant and confiscated Sebastian’s computer from his home and cell phone records. The only person who has watched more of your videos since you announced your return to the Palmchat Islands than Sebastian Luttrell was Damian Hester,” Brad said with disgust. “In a few weeks, Sebastian has watched so many of your videos we don’t know how he’d have time to do anything else. One night, he watched ten hours of content from your website without stopping. The man is obsessed with you.”
She wondered what the police would think if they found her journal that the stalker had stolen. The endless pages dedicated to her complex feelings for her bodyguard. She was sure what she wrote about Sebastian could be interpreted as her obsession with him. At times, she felt that way. The intense emotional connection they shared made her long to be near him. The way he understood her like no other person ever had. The unexpected and undeniable compatibility. If Sebastian had anything like her online platform, she wouldn’t have been able to stop herself from watching his videos repeatedly.
But what convinced her deep in her heart that Sebastian wasn’t her stalker was that he’d shared this exact fear with her. Poured open his heart and soul and told her what worried him the most about his attraction and connection to her. She knew he would never do anything to hurt her.
Staring into Brad’s stony face, she couldn’t convince him of Sebastian’s innocence.
Gabrielle had no choice but to do the next best thing.
Warn Sebastian that the cops were coming after him.
Chapter37
Sebastian stared at the windows of the fourth floor of Hotel Braganza across the street. It was a postcard-perfect day in St. Felipe. Conrad town center was busier than usual this afternoon. Locals crammed the sidewalks, laughing and carrying bags stuffed with fruits, vegetables, baked goods, and every goat dish imaginable from the Farmer’s Market held monthly on the island. The happy faces passing him soured his mood further.
“I don’t think this is a good idea,” Lachlan told him for the hundredth time.
Sebastian hadn’t listened to his friend when Lachlan showed up at the municipal jail with Octavia Constant, one of the best attorneys in the Palmchat Islands. He hadn’t listened when Octavia got the cops to release him after twenty-four hours of the ninety-six they could’ve held him. And he damn sure wasn’t going to listen to him now.
He’d been blindsided when the cops pulled him over on the drive into Conrad, demanding he come to the station to answer questions as a person of interest in the stalking of Gabrielle. When he refused, they handcuffed him, hauled his ass to the police station, and threw him in jail on an exploratory hold. Something he’d never would’ve been subject to if this was America. But Palmchat Islands laws gave the police four fucking days to hold a potential suspect without arresting them to continue to gather evidence. He later learned from Octavia that they’d gotten a warrant to search his home and had confiscated his laptop and security surveillance system. There was nothing he could fucking do to stop them.
But Sebastian didn’t care what they thought.
There was only one person’s opinion of him that mattered.
