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Bain snorted.
“What?” I asked him.
“You wouldn’t treat me like any other customer,” he pointed out.
He was right.
I wouldn’t.
He would always be special and always come first.
But he didn’t need to have his big, fat ego fluffed anymore.
“Hmmm.” I scrunched up my face. “What’ll I get you?”
“How about…” Sunny looked at the menu. “A coffee and a chocolate milk.”
“I’ll have a Dr Pepper.” Bain smirked.
As if I didn’t know everything there was to know about Bain. Well, everything that he allowed me to know about him, anyway. Bain was a mysterious man, and I soaked up everything he gave me like a sponge.
I rolled my eyes. “I was talking to Sunny, Bain.”
But I got their drinks nonetheless, setting them down in front of them while halfway listening to their conversation.
“What else happened that makes you think they’re interconnected?” Bain asked. “Just because they are all dead…”
I moved to the window where our cook, Lionel, had just set some food out for one of our regulars. “Thanks, L.”
Lionel winked and went back to the podcast. He always had one earphone in, listening to whatever up-and-coming podcast he could find. The last time I’d asked him what he was listening to, it was about the benefits of using chicken liver to catch catfish. The time before that, it’d been why clowns wore clown shoes.
He was eclectic like that.
Taking the food to our regulars, an elderly couple in the corner that’d been coming every Monday afternoon for years, I headed back to the counter to hear part of Sunny’s response to Bain’s earlier question.
“…don’t know my team just yet. They’re all new, or leftovers from the previous sheriff’s time. I’m not sure who to trust yet or who to believe. The newbies are getting their footing just like me. Consequently, nothing concrete is telling me that these are related, only a deep-seated gut feeling that’s sticking with me hard,” Sunny finished.
I sidled up to them. “Gut feelings are usually the best indicators of truth,” I said. “When I was getting stalked, at first Braxton, my ex-husband, didn’t believe me. But I just had this feeling in here every time I was out in the open.” I pressed my hand against my heart. “It was just this sick, tortured feeling. Every time I stepped outside of my house, I could feel eyes on me. The hair on the backs of my arms and neck would stand up straight. I would get this fight-or-flight response… and I never wanted to be alone. Luckily, I went to him about the feeling.” I gestured toward Bain. “And he was there the day that my stalker decided to go from stalking to murdering.”
“I’ve never actually heard this story,” Sunny said. “I read the police report, though. On all of you.”
Sunny leveled that look on Bain, as if he expected Bain to have some problem with it. Bain didn’t.
“I’ll tell you what happened,” I stated quietly.
• • •
“Bain,” I whispered, feeling sick to my stomach. “Do you ever get the feeling like someone is watching you?”
Bain, who was fresh out of the military and eating at Moe’s with Hilary, Braxton, Holt, and me, looked at me curiously.
“Sure, a lot,” he admitted. “That thought saved my life quite a few times when I was in the field. When we were deployed, I had this gut feeling that there was someone or something out there waiting for us. So we took a different route than we normally would based on that feeling. The next crew to come on didn’t heed the warning that I gave them as we switched shifts. Half their platoon was killed in the blast that was set up under some dirt and debris on the side of the road. The other half was killed via gunshot wounds. They lay in wait just inside the abandoned village.”
I blinked.
“That’s… wow,” I said softly. “Okay.”
“Why do you ask?” he asked, leaning back in the chair.
Braxton chose that second to come back from the bathroom and Hilary and Holt, who’d been talking to the couple right inside the door, laughed loudly at something they’d said.
Braxton hesitated on his way to the table, then turned directions to go toward Holt and Hilary.
My heartbeat left my throat as I said, “I think someone’s stalking me.”
His eyes narrowed for a few long seconds before he asked, “Why?”
I licked my lips.
“Well, it started out a few weeks ago when I’d leave the house. I’m taking core classes at the junior college north of here. At first, I felt like someone was just watching me, yet I could never really find anyone to corroborate my feeling. In fact, I still haven’t found anyone. But the feeling has grown exponentially.” I hesitated. “I’ve been getting these things. Braxton says that the neighbor’s cat is doing it… but that cat’s never come up onto our front porch before. The closest it’s ever gotten was the side yard. But the dead things have been coming almost every single morning like clockwork.”
