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For just a few minutes, she’d thought the pounding in her chest was going to kill her. While she’d been terrified at the idea, a part of her had been relieved, even hopeful, and those thoughts had terrified her more than the panic attack.
She knew she didn’t want to die. She wanted peace, a rest from her own head. She wanted to return to a time when her fear of Terence Birch wasn’t the most dominant thing in her life. A time when she’d known there was no one watching her from across the road as Birch was sure to be doing right now.
As the panic attack had subsided, leaving her body weak and shaken, she’d given in to the tears that were never far from the back of her throat. She’d allowed the sobbing to wrack her defeated body while wondering how her once enviable life had been reduced to this.
And as the sobbing had begun to subside, she’d known that she no longer had the strength to fight this on her own.
‘Hey, babe,’ Devon said, switching on the centre light. ‘What the hell?’
Devon immediately rushed to sit beside her and clutched her hand. ‘What’s happened? What’s wrong?’
Stacey took some steadying breaths. She had no idea how this was going to go.
‘Is everything okay? Is your mum…?’
‘She’s fine. Everyone is fine,’ she said, squeezing her wife’s hand. The concern on Devon’s face was doing nothing to ease the ball of anxiety in her stomach.
‘I need to talk to you, Dee. You’re not gonna like it.’
‘Hey, come on. I’ve told you before that nothing can break us.’
Stacey hesitated, not quite knowing where to start.
‘Come on, babe, you’re really scaring me now. Have you met someone else?’
‘God no,’ Stacey said, squeezing her hand. ‘Nothing like that.’
Devon’s face instantly expressed relief before resetting right back to concern.
She had to find a way to get it out. She couldn’t cope on her own for one more minute.
‘Do you remember our last big case, the psychics?’
Devon nodded.
‘I had to interview the man who found the first body in the graveyard, Terence Birch. It didn’t go well,’ Stacey said, wishing she could go back to that day and ask Penn to question him.
‘He had form, for stalking. Do you remember when we got home after that driving lesson and someone jumped out from behind the bushes?’
It took Devon some time to recall, but she eventually nodded.
‘That was Birch.’
Stacey could see that a hundred questions were forming on Devon’s lips, but she held them back.
‘During that week, he turned his attention on me. I started seeing him everywhere. At first I thought I was imagining it, and then I thought it was some weird coincidence, but then he started sending me messages, flowers, more messages.’
Stacey gulped as the emotion caught in her throat.
Devon looked horrified. ‘You didn’t tell me, babe?’
The tears gathered again at the hurt in Devon’s voice.
‘I couldn’t. I felt guilty, like I’d done something to invite it. At first, I wasn’t sure, and by the time I confronted him—’
‘Jesus Christ,’ Devon exploded, releasing her hand and launching herself up from the sofa. ‘You confronted him and you didn’t even tell me?’
Stacey nodded, feeling the sickness grow inside her.
