Page 37 of Stalkers Anonymous

“Just say you’ll come sit with me while we wait for the police. I’ll take care of the rest.”

And I will. I’ll hunt down the fucker who did this and make sure they never have the chance to come near her again.

But first, we have to call the police.

“Don’t call them, Cole. Please. He didn’t mean it. He—”

“Why are you protecting him, Emma? Do I have to wait for him to kill you before you let me do something?”

I get her situated in my car with the heat on full blast and pull out my phone. I dial 911, keeping my eyes on Hailey while I answer the dispatcher’s questions about our location, the nature of the damage, if anyone is injured. No, no one’s hurt. Yes, we’ll wait for an officer.

Hailey leans back in my front passenger seat, staring off into the distance. “This was him. It had to be.”

“The patient from the hospital?” I ask. This is the first time she’s acknowledged it’s a male patient. That alone makes my blood burn hotter.

She nods. “He knew about Chewy. He knows my car. And now this, after the note on my windshield.” Her voice cracks slightly, pulling at my heartstrings. “Do I sound paranoid?”

My heart breaks as she begins to spiral, trying to place the blame anywhere but on the person who did this. “You’re not paranoid.” I turn toward her, taking her face between my hands and forcing her to look into my eyes. She instinctively wraps one of her small hands around my wrist, meeting my gaze. “This is serious. You need to tell the police about him, and about the note. About everything. You need to get this documented to protect yourself.”

“They’re not going to do anything. He hasn’t actually threatened me directly. I shouldn’t have even—I shouldn’t have even used his pronoun, I don’t think. I don’t know. Is that a privacy violation? I—”

Her words shut off abruptly, like a power outage in the middle of a storm. I use my thumbs to stroke her cheeks, and she closes her eyes. She’s already accepted that the system won’t protect her. That she’s on her own. I fucking hate that for her.

But she’s not on her own. Not anymore.

I’ll do everything I can to keep her safe.

Two uniformed officers arrive fifteen minutes later—a man who looks to be in his forties and a younger woman—both with tired eyes and slow, heavy steps. Isn’t it a little early in the night to look this over it? They take photos of the damage, ask Hailey questions about when she parked, when she discovered the vandalism.

“Any idea who might have done this?” the male officer asks, pen poised over his notepad.

Hailey glances at me, and I give her an encouraging nod.

“There’s a patient at the hospital where I work,” she begins. “His behavior has been…concerning. Asking personal questions, mentioning details about my life he shouldn’t know. A few days ago, I found a note on my windshield that said ‘I’m watching you.’”

The female officer’s expression sharpens slightly. “Did you report the note?”

“No, I… I thought maybe I was overreacting.”

“What’s this patient’s name?”

Hailey’s brows are furrowed, and she’s pulling at the hair tie on her wrist, stretching it out, then letting it snap back against her skin. It feels wrong, especially when she’s been so careful not to tell me anything personal about this guy, but I know patient privacy laws make exceptions for circumstances like this. I can practically hear Tyler’s voice in my head, encouraging me to step away so she can have this part of the conversation with the officers in private. So I won’t know the name of the man whose nose I’d love to feel crumple under the force of my fist.

I tell that voice to shut the fuck up.

“Lars Winters.”

Both officers exchange a look I can’t quite read. The woman makes a note. And so do I, because what the fuck was that?

“We’ll include that in the report,” the male officer says, but his tone suggests he’s already written this off as purely coincidental. “Unfortunately, vandalism is pretty common in this area. We’ve had several reports in the past few months.”

“Several reports of someone carving B-I-C-H into a specific car after leaving a note that says ‘I’m watching you’?” I ask, unable to keep the disgust from my voice.

“Vandalism in general,” he clarifies, totally unbothered by the pointedness of my question. “Random property damage, theft, that sort of thing. Without security footage or witnesses, there’s not much we can do beyond filing a report for your insurance. Considering whoever did this couldn’t even spell, it was likely a couple kids up to no good downtown. If this had happened to me, I wouldn’t look beyond that.”

“There are cameras up and down the street,” I point out, gesturing to the nearest one mounted above a business sign.

“Private security, not police jurisdiction. You’d need to contact each business owner to request footage, and they don’t always cooperate without a warrant. It’ll take several days to get a warrant, and that’s only if we can get a judge to sign off on it.”