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Now I had to sell my brother on the idea. He and Jerry were my financial and emotional partners.
It didn’t take long. Jerry chimed in after dinner that night to say, “Brilliant! We’re in!”
Davie nodded. But he threw a nasty wrench in things, “Location doesn’t matter. Our idiot burger-boy vandal is still out there. He’ll just follow you to the new place. We’re better off waiting to move the business till he’s gone for good.”
I didn’t understand the look Jerry gave him. Not until much later.
But then and there, when Davie said, “Our idiot vandal is still out there,” I just lost it.
I didn’t know he was free. Roaming the city.
I thought he was locked up.
Now I hear he’s out there.
Still making my life hell.
Rather than throw a fit, I fell into a deep, deep funk like nothing I’d ever experienced. I rolled my chair to my room and shut myself in.
Leighton
Genevieve and Davie would be point for the P.I. firm for the stalk-the-stalker campaign. I was more or less out of that now. I thought it was interesting that they never used the stalker’s name. Had I ever even heard it? Didn’t matter. He’d soon be history.
I got started on the new acquisition plans, also with Genevieve. She did the work of preparing an offer—very low—on the old bakery building.
I was reviewing her proposal before she sent it to the owner when Davie texted that he was downstairs. I answered that I’d come down.
He looked done in.
“Samantha’s taken a turn for the worse, and it’s my fault,” he said.
“Davie?! Did she fall? What?”
“No. Man, I let it slip that her same ol’ stalker was still free. I forgot she didn’t know! And if that weren’t enough to shake her, I let fly that the idiot would just follow her to the new businesslocation, so why bother moving her bakery? She went really, really quiet and just rolled herself to her room. I blew it. Just blew it.”
“I’ll go talk to her!”
“No, man. It’s been hours. She won’t let Jerry or me in. Not answering us through the door. Not coming out of her room. But …”
I waited. Got impatient.
He sighed, “When Jerry went to her door, and said to her, if that’s the way it was, he would callyou,thatgot a reaction.”
He stopped talking. I was dying here and he wasn’t explaining!
“Sorry, Leighton.”
“What. Did. She. Say?”
He heard my panic and stepped back a couple of steps. “She shouted, ‘Don’t let him come here! I can’t see him!’”
Davie probably thought I’d sock him. But I was too choked up.
Davie apologized profusely, and said, “I’m meeting your sister. Mind if I come up with you?”
We went to the offices together, and when Genevieve greeted Davie, I headed upstairs. Home. I couldn’t focus on work.
I tried Samantha’s number. Voice mail.
