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“Moira, this is Dan Freemont. He’s a detective with the Charleston Police Department. He’s here to help.”
I finally noticed the other man standing just off to the right of Ben. He was attractive. A little older. I pegged him at hovering around forty with his graying hair that was a little bit longer than convention and could use a trim. But what really got me was that he looked like he had just left a biker bar.
“Hi, Moira. Can you tell me what happened?”
He had kind brown eyes. And I didn’t know why, but that helped me. I cleared the lump from my throat. “I returned from the market and was putting my groceries away. I think I left the milk and eggs on the counter.”
“I’ll get them while you talk,” Ben said firmly, with no room for argument. Not that I had any fight left in me. Those images and the text message had sucked all the fight from me.
“You were saying?” Dan said calmly, garnering my attention.
“Um, yeah, sorry. I got back from the store and was putting the groceries away when Tater started barking and growling up at storm at the front door. I thought he might be barking at the neighbor’s cat or a squirrel. But his growls seemed off, more insistent and threatening than usual. So I walked to the door and spied that envelope dangling from the tree out front.”
“And you went out to retrieve it?”
“Yeah. Stupid, now that I think of it, to run outside like that half-cocked.” I shook my head at my own stupidity. It’s not every day you discover you’re the stupid woman in the horror movie that runs up the stairs to get away from the killer in the house instead of trying to get out of the house.
Dan smiled. “I’m glad you think that way now. But there’s no point in beating yourself up over it. But what happened next?”
“I pulled the envelope down and went through the photos. And then I got a text message from them.”
“Can I see the message?” Dan asked.
I handed over my phone after unlocking it and bringing up the messages. I watched Dan’s expression as he read through the list of texts I’d received.
“Okay, so here’s what I’m going to do. I’m going to open an investigation into this matter. I’m going to go out and take some pictures of the fishing line. If you could go into your security system and give me the feed for the last few hours. And if you could get me the company information, I want to get all the records for the past few months.”
“All right.” I nodded. This was good. They were positive steps I could take that would hopefully yield results instead of simply waiting around for the next attack.
“Now Ben mentioned you think it’s one of your patrons at Madame X’s.”
“Yeah, it’s the only thing I can figure. I rarely go anywhere else but the club or grocery store. Unless it could be one of the neighbors, and I doubt that.”
“Why do you say that?” Dan asked, tilting his head.
“Because I’m the youngest person on this block. On the right are Holly and Nigel Sherwood, who just celebrated their fiftieth wedding anniversary. On my left is Dorothy Jenkins with her five cats, who’s just shy of her seventieth birthday. And on the opposite side of the street, there’s Michael and Julia Duckles. Michael owns his own company and is away most weeks. While Julia has a personal trainer come to her house and stay for hours. I could go on but won’t bore you with the details of their tawdry affair.” Because it was none of my business who Julia boned. I did find it rather amusing her husband appeared to have no knowledge of the affair. And truthfully, I’m not sure he would care.
“Okay, well, I’m going to need a comprehensive list of your neighbors. You can get it to me sometime this week. It’s more to be on the safe side and eliminate them from the list entirely. And I’m also going to need a list of your employees.”
“Why?” I trusted my employees, or they wouldn’t be employed by me.
“Again, it’s better that my department and I go through the list and eliminate potential suspects. It will give you peace of mind and is more of a starting point in a case like this. Once we’re able to eliminate who is not a suspect, then we can take the steps necessary to catch this guy.”
“Okay. I know it’s not any of my employees, but I will defer to your expertise.”
“Good. Now, I’m going to go call this in, and we’ll get this process started. Here’s my number. Call me if anything happens. Even if you don’t think it’s important. Understood?”
I nodded, taking his card. What else was I supposed to do or say? This was so far out of my wheelhouse, I didn’t know how I was supposed to respond. And I hated that I didn’t know how to handle it on my own. I’d handled everything life had thrown at me. But this was above my pay grade.
I felt Ben return to my side. I hated how comforted I was that I wasn’t alone. That he was here, and I didn’t have to face this terror alone.
Ben sat with me on the couch as Dan welcomed a few uniformed officers to the house and they collected the evidence they needed. Even Tater instinctively understood the gravity of the situation and refused to leave my side.
Through it all, I felt as if I wasn’t really in my body. Like I was viewing this happen to another person. Because who in the world would really want to stalk me? I wasn’t remotely interesting. I ran the club, danced occasionally, gardened, and spent time along the dock in the backyard. I was considering getting a small boat to take through the channel on warm days. I spent days off by the pool.
That’s it. The sum of my daily life wasn’t all that interesting. I didn’t understand why it would snag someone’s attention to the point that they would stalk me.
Ben touched my arm. I jerked and looked over at him. The kindness and concern in his gaze were almost my undoing. “Come on.”
