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And then, staring into the darkness, Marlowe realized that she could make out a form.
Her knees went weak.
Wallace was over in the corner, lying on the floor, partially hidden behind Karen’s desk. Rushing over to him, she saw that there was a bloody crease across his temple. Stunned as well as worried, Marlowe fell to her knees beside the man, feeling for a pulse.
At first, she couldn’t find one. Forcing herself to calm down, she tried again and finally detected a faint beat. Wallace was alive.
She almost cried.
“Oh God, Wallace, you gave me such a scare,” she told him, addressing the unconscious man as if he could hear her. She had no idea what had happened to the bodyguard. All she could think was that he had to have tripped on something and wound up hitting his head on the corner of the desk when he went down.
But whether that did or didn’t happen didn’t matter right now. There was a far more immediate problem to be handled.
“We’ve got to get you to the hospital,” she told Wallace as she took her cell phone out of her pocket.
But before she could even hit the number nine, a voice came out of the darkness and said, “I wouldn’t do that if I were you.”
Startled, her heart pounding almost wildly, she got up quickly and turned around toward the voice. She saw an average, nondescript man stepping out of the shadows and coming toward her.
As he came into the light, she realized that the man was holding a gun.
It was pointed right at her.
For the last several days now, she had had this strange, uneasy feeling that she was being watched. A feeling she could
n’t shake, even though no one had shot at her or Bowie in over a week. With effort, she had managed to convince herself that the only one watching her was Wallace and that she was being paranoid.
But now she saw that she’d been wrong.
There was something definitely wrong with this man, she thought, but she couldn’t let fear get the better of her. Wallace needed medical attention, and she was the only one who could get it for him.
“He needs an ambulance,” she insisted, beginning to dial her cell phone.
“He doesn’t need anything,” the stalker told her darkly. When she continued to dial, he barked, “Put the phone down. Now!”
Afraid he would harm Wallace further, Marlowe did as the stalker told her, never taking her eyes away from the man.
“What did you do to him?” Marlowe demanded, doing her best to use an authoritative tone.
“What did you do to him,” the stalker parroted, mimicking her voice and making it sound high-pitched and singsong. “It’s always someone else who has your attention, isn’t it?” he snapped. “Never me. Well, now I have your attention, don’t I?” he asked, mocking her. His eyes narrowed, resembling small laser beams. “Now you have to pay attention to me, don’t you?” he asked—and then he swung the gun toward Wallace, aiming it at the man’s head. “Because you know I can snuff your friend out. Just. Like. That. Right?” he taunted.
“Don’t!” she cried before she could get hold of herself. “Please don’t. You have my attention, my complete attention. I swear it,” Marlowe told the man with feeling. “Just don’t shoot him.”
The man sneered as he looked at her contemptuously. “You don’t even know who I am, do you?” he demanded. He looked familiar, but only in a vague sort of way. For the life of her, Marlowe couldn’t recall where she had seen him before, or even if she had seen him before or was only imagining it. But she sensed that if she said that to this man, it could send him over the edge or have some other dire consequences. She wasn’t ready for either Wallace or her to pay that price.
So she lied.
“Of course I do,” Marlowe told him in her warmest, friendliest voice.
For just a split second, she could see that her ruse was working and he believed her. But then his expression transformed into an ugly mask of pure hatred and, his face turning red, he shouted, “Liar! You don’t remember me. I’ve been in love with you for over two years now but you never even gave me the time of day. Never even knew I was alive,” he shouted, his face growing even redder.
“That’s not true,” Marlowe insisted, even as she racked her brain trying to remember seeing him somewhere. Desperate, she came up with an idea. “Of course I knew you were alive. But you know how it is, how my father is,” she told him. “If I let my father know about you, about how I felt about you, he would have made your life a living hell.” She lowered her voice, as if confiding information to her stalker. “He doesn’t want me paying attention to anything—or anyone—except for the oil company.”
Though it sickened her, she drew closer to the man, playing up to him. “I pretended not to notice you so that you could go on working here.” She was making it up as she went along, praying that she had guessed right with this wild stab in the dark she was making.
The man’s pale, gray face lit up, really pleased. She had guessed right, she thought triumphantly. The stalker did work here in some capacity.
But where?
