Chapter 5

in which our heroine tries to avoid the awkward truth

Stephanie had never felt smaller than she did right now. Not when she went into labor completely alone and petrified. Not when the first note came. Not even in the diner last night. Sitting here on Adam Chase’s mother’s couch, the same one they used to sit on to do their homework together. She helped him with English and he helped her with algebra. They were the perfect couple, he used to joke. Each of them was bad at something the other one was good at. They’d kissed for the second time on this couch.

How had she remembered that? What kind of a person kept count? Being home, especially in his home, was doing something to her brain.

The first time had been after a football game. They’d lost, and she’d been sympathetic. She’d thought he might need some space, or some ego stroking, or some time with the guys. But when she’d tried to give him any of those, he’d put his fingers to her lips and the words he said still echoed in her brain.

You know what would make me really feel better? She’d been too nervous to reply. What would really make me feel better would be to get one kiss from you.

Her face felt hot at the memory of that first kiss, contrasting the cold of the room.

Okay, maybe more than one. He’d kissed her again, full of life and youth and forever. She’d whispered his words back to herself when she’d fallen asleep that night. Okay, maybe let’s never stop.

She’d protested. She’d tried to give him a chance to catch up with the guys. Nah, they don’t kiss nearly as good as you do.

It was the kind of first kiss movies were made of. She’d been in a fairytale, a multicolored dreamland and she never hand to wake up. Until the last time. That had been different. The less said about that, the better. That was before he’d changed.

Now here she was, how many years later, freezing and boiling at the same time, waiting for him to ask her questions that she didn’t plan on answering.

It was too real. When that last note came and it talked about Jessie… the thought intensified her chills. She’d just run. She’d been so sure that Langford was safe. Now he was here, and Adam was here, and it was just too real. The multicolored dreamland felt a million miles away.

Certain, sturdy footsteps came from the kitchen and it was time for her trip down memory lane to come to an end. She boxed up her thoughts and put them away like she always did. It was better that way anyway.

“Ben’s coming in to take notes.” Adam had changed out of his church clothes and his t-shirt stretched across his massive chest. What was he eating to look like that? He looked like he’d doubled in size.

In a moment Ben was at the desk, looking anything but awkward. Wiggling his mouse to wake up his computer, he looked like he did this every day. Come to think of it, he probably did. Adam wasn’t the only one who’d grown up since she’d been gone.

“I don’t know what he’s going to take notes about. I told you everything I know.”

Adam scratched his jaw, yesterday’s stubble long gone. She didn’t know which she liked better. The stubble was rugged. The close shave made her wonder what his skin felt like. Maybe the stubble was better. She wasn’t sure.

Don’t you dare let yourself think about him like that. Guys like this are called heartbreakers for a reason.

“Actually, you told me everything you don’t know. Now we’re going to find out what you do know.” He perched on the edge of the other sofa. “Ben, are you good?”

“Yes, sir.”

He turned back to Stephanie. “So, thanks to your helpful executive summary last night, here’s what we’ve got. Flowers. Notes. Have I got it so far?”

This place was making her edgier than she ever had been in New York. His attitude was like frostbite, the bay windows felt huge and exposed. She stared out towards the forest behind the house. It looked like a sick playground full of hiding places. She pulled her arms a little tighter around herself.

“Something interesting out there?” His voice dripped with irritation.

“Am I in the principal’s office or am I under arrest?” She glared at him. “Because if it’s neither of those, you can probably drop the attitude.”

Adam pinched the bridge of his nose and sighed. “Sorry.”

To be fair, he did look sorry. He looked like stress was eating him from the inside. He always did this when he was tense. He’d been brittle like this when they’d been applying for colleges. He’d wanted so badly to get into college in New York. He’d spent weeks doing nothing but writing, eating, and pacing.

She felt bad for him. Not bad enough to put up with another interrogation session, but bad enough to soften her tone. “It’s just… the window. I feel like a sniper target.”

He turned and jerked the curtain shut. “Better?”

She nodded.

“Okay, can we start at the beginning? Just tell me how it started and we’ll go from there.”

It wasn’t a struggle to remember. “The first year it was a carnation.”

When she’d gotten the first flower, she’d thought it was innocent. Maybe somebody from inside her building. It was huge and impersonal, apartments full of too many single people living like sardines. It was weird, but it was just a flower.

“Not the spiky thing then. What year was that?”

“I don’t remember. Let me think.” Jessie had been… three? Four? Definitely in preschool, anyway. Not that she’d be saying that out loud. “Eight? Nine years?”

“Think hard.” His eyes were piercing. They’d been warm once. Now they were like flint.

“I am.” As the years had gone on, it had been hard to keep track. It didn’t feel like a problem until later, but by then, with Jessie and work and struggling to get by, everything had started to blend in.

“Then think harder.” Adam didn’t even try to stifle his frustration. He shoved his hands in his pockets and stalked back towards the darkened bay window.

“Feel free to stop asking questions. I’m sure you’ve got bad guys to catch.”

“I can think of one particular bad guy who would be a lot easier to catch if you could do a slightly better job of answering my questions.”

“She’s trying, Adam,” Ben said from his desk. There was a note of warning in his voice. She liked it. He wasn’t letting Adam play boss man all the time, then.

“She’s trying my patience.”

She inhaled as slowly as she could and tried to remember that he was helping. He was being a jerk about it, but that was nothing to be surprised about. At least he was taking it seriously, which was more than she could say for the Brooklyn Police Department.

She wrestled to clear the fog out of her brain. She’d just started working at the library that summer. When was that? “Nine years.”

Adam let out a loud breath. “Nine years. You’re sure?”

She nodded.

“How often?”

“Every summer.”

“Same time?”

“Yes. Always.” Every year, on the same day. That’s why she was in such a rush to get out of New York in time. That’s why she hadn’t stopped to say goodbye. She didn’t want to get another one. “Like clockwork.”

“Any significance about the date?”

“Not that I can think of.” And she’d thought about it forever.

Ben looked up from his keyboard. “Anything the rest of the year?”

She shuddered. “I get notes.” Her body stiffened and she worked to hold herself still. There was no need to rock back and forth. The CDs said she should anchor herself in her surroundings. She needed to find something to focus on, something to look at, something to think about besides the fear.

“What kind of notes?” Adam was back to pacing now.

“I love your dress today. You look so pretty in the summer. You look good enough to eat.” Her voice shook at the last one. Stare at something. Anything. “That’s a nice vase.”

He stopped and turned. “He’s been in your house?”

“What?” She craned her neck up to look at him.

“He sent you a note saying you had a nice vase. He’s been in your house.”

“Oh. No. I meant that’s a nice vase.” She pointed to the coffee table.

He glanced over. “It’s my mother’s. Can we focus?”

She let out a little laugh. If only he knew. “That’s what I’m doing.”

He was moving again. “Okay, so, creepy notes the rest of the year. Flowers in the summer.”

“Can you stop cracking your knuckles?” The noise made her nauseous.

He looked at his hands and stopped, mid-stretch. “Sorry. So the first year it was a carnation.”

She swallowed hard. “It was pink.”

“You hate pink flowers.”

She hadn’t expected him to remember that. She used to rail against them around Valentine’s Day. Pink flowers are for people who can’t commit to red. Or Mother’s Day. It was easy to make jokes about Mother’s Day flowers when you’re not 18 and pregnant. “I hate them even more now.”

“I’ll make a mental note. What was it the next year? Not a carnation again.”

“No.” Somehow she didn’t imagine he’d be noting her choice in flowers. “I don’t remember what it was. Does it matter?”

“It might.”

“It’s hard to remember. One year it was a daisy. There was a sunflower.” She didn’t want to drag it all back up. She’d come here so she could lock it away in a dark closet and forget it. “Last year it was a lilac.”

She couldn’t even look at flowers anymore. She’d had to leave the Georgia O’Keefe exhibit at the Museum of Modern Art. She’d almost thrown up in a garbage can.

“OK. Daisy. Sunflower. Lilac, you said?” He gripped the back of his neck as he walked towards the covered window.

“I remember thinking, you’ve got to go to a lot of trouble to get a lilac this late in the year.”

“And what was this one? The spiky thing?”

A wave of nausea threatened and she struggled to suppress it. “I don’t know. I’ve never seen one like it before.”

“Maybe Ben can look it up.”

A thought occurred to her. “I can just ask JF.”

“JF, from high school JF?” He stopped his pacing circuit and looked her way. “Do you guys still hang out?”

“He stayed in New York after college.”

“What’s he going to know about flowers?”

“His mom’s into horticulture.”

“Figures. Okay. Try him.” He turned to Ben. “If he doesn’t have anything, hit the internet.”

She didn’t know what to say. She didn’t want to get JF involved, but he seemed to know everything about everything. She’d worked so hard to keep him out of it, to keep everybody out of it. The silence was crushing sometimes, but what could she ever say? She reached for her purse to get her phone. He’d probably text back right away. She’d do anything for a distraction at this point.

“You should send a picture. Kind of hard to describe.”

She froze. She couldn’t send a picture. She couldn’t look at it again. She’d stop breathing. She’d throw up for real this time. Every muscle screamed as she tensed. When she raised her head, Adam was staring down at her.

“I – I can’t.”

He seemed to understand. His voice softened like it had last night. “Do you want me to do it?”

All she could do was nod. Her hand shook as she passed him her phone. “It’s in my contacts.”

He reached for it and his fingers grazed hers. How was he so warm when the room was so cold? “Let me take care of it. I’ll be back in a minute.”

“Just ask him if he knows what it is. Don’t say anything about… don’t say anything else, okay?”

“I’ll take care of it.” He held her gaze for a little too long and his eyes seemed full of consideration. How did he go from so harsh to so gentle like that? She bit her lip and tore her glance away.

He hated seeing her like this.

There were days when he wished he’d done something different with his life. On good days, he told himself he was doing the world a favor. Somebody had to chase down the bad guys, and it was better him than some poor schmuck with a family. But on days like this one, he wished he wasn’t always looking at the seediest side of humanity. He wished he wasn’t constantly surrounded by sin and crime and fear.

He was good at math. He could have been a corporate accountant. He was strong. He could have been a bouncer. Although there was no less sin or crime or fear in either of those. He stifled a laugh. He must be stressed. He didn’t start laughing at times like this until it was really bad.

A youth counselor, maybe. Or human resources. Anything to get away from the depravity. But these days were few and far between. Most days he was just grateful to be a single guy with no kids. At least then it didn’t have to affect anybody but himself. He and his brothers were perfect for the job, he knew. But it got to him when he let it.

He took the flower from the top of the fridge. He’d stashed it there when they’d got back last night – she was so short she wouldn’t see it. She didn’t need to see it. Ben was right. She’d been through enough already.

He couldn’t hide his disgust as he took in the details of the flower. Its petals were like switchblades. Even without the note it would have seemed threatening. Stephanie would hate this thing. She was a red rose girl from way back. He’d felt like such an idiot asking her what kind of flowers she liked. Red roses are classics. Why fix it if it ain’t broke?

When he’d got her some on their first Valentine’s Day, the look on her face made him want to give her anything. He hadn’t had a lot of money, but what he had, he spent on her. Her and gas. All he wanted to do back then was get in the truck and drive her as far away from everybody else as he could get her.

He scrolled through her contact list to find JF. Talk about a bizarre world. He started to scan the messages out of habit but stopped himself. He shouldn’t look. These were her personal texts. There was no reason to start spying on her. Not yet, anyway.

There sure were a lot of them, though, going back months. A surge of protectiveness ripped through him before he could halt it. He was not going to start getting jealous of JF, of all people. The day he was jealous of JF was the day he hung up his hat and quit life. Besides, there was nothing to be jealous about. She was a free woman. She’d made that mighty clear. Let her text whoever she wanted.

She hadn’t even been in his house 24 hours and he was already dizzy from the emotional turbulence. Shock and annoyance and anger and jealousy – it was too much. He was a simple man. This was enough turmoil for a whole year. More than enough. He needed to calm down.

It wasn’t her fault he was being a basket-case. Their history was ancient. Just because he’d fallen apart when she left doesn’t mean what they had was something special to her. Sure, she was a mess now. She’d seemed pretty broken up when she’d seen him. But she’d also had a stalker for the better part of a decade. He couldn’t start turning it into something it wasn’t. It didn’t make sense to start making connections where they didn’t exist. He wasn’t the one making her shaky.

God, I’m trying to keep my cool. Help me out here. You got me through Afghanistan. Can you get me through an evening in my own living room?

He paused to steel himself. God helps those who help themselves. He was going to help himself to a hefty portion of patience and God could kick in the rest.

He took the picture, dashed off a quick text, and went back to the others.

“It’s done,” he said, handing her back her phone. “I deleted the picture when I was finished.”

Now all they could do was wait.

He made himself sit down. In the silence, the clock’s ticking seemed to echo through the whole space. He looked at Stephanie, cradled in her own arms, leaning forward and staring at the floor just ahead of her.

“Are you cold?”

“A little.” She didn’t look up. “I didn’t have air conditioning at home.”

He didn’t like her calling anywhere else home. This was supposed to be her home. “Sounds hot.”

“Smelly, mostly.” She gave him a little smile. “Fresh air isn’t fresh there. Opening the windows will get you a breeze, but you won’t always want it.”

He took a few steps into the kitchen and came back with a long-sleeved shirt. He didn’t relish the idea of the image of her in his favorite shirt being etched in his memory, but the woman was clearly freezing. He’d try and look away.

A buzz from the phone startled him. It sat there on the coffee table, lit up and waiting. “Do you want me to get that?”

She pressed her lips together and her eyes had the glisten of tears held back. She nodded.

He reached for the phone and looked.

It’s a bird of paradise. Why?

At least they had a name now. He walked over to Ben and held the screen up, not wanting to say the name out loud. Ben nodded and made a note.

“Do you want to text him back?” He slid the phone back onto the coffee table as unobtrusively as he could.

She reached for it, barely looking, and tapped out a response. When it was back on the table, he strained to see what she’d written.

Thanks. You’re my favorite trivia nerd.

It was only then that the reality sunk in, what her life must have been like over the last nine years. Always pasting on a smile, staying pleasant, not letting anybody know the sinister effects always at play. She must have had to hide the truth constantly. The weight of it must be unbearable.

The phone jumped back to life. I’m your favorite everything nerd.

She looked at it and smiled, barely with her lips, let alone her eyes. The joy in the girl he’d known had been replaced by overwhelmed defeat in a woman. She’d changed so little, but so much. “JF knows everything.”

Ben looked up from his typing. “Does he want a job?” He was trying to make it light and Adam silently thanked him for it.

“He works in IT. Something to do with databases. I don’t know.” Her body had relaxed a little, some of the stiffness of her muscles seemed to have dissipated. Maybe she was warming up at least.

Ben laughed and went back to his screen. “If he can make my computer run faster, he’s hired.”

They didn’t know much more than they had, but at least they had something. They knew what the flowers were, they knew when they came, and there was obviously some significance to the date. She wasn’t interested in talking about the kid’s father, and that was never a good sign.

A mysterious ex, and flowers that come on the same day every year. A normal stalker would have escalated by now. Standard issue stalk and kill situations didn’t drag out for a decade. There were too many coincidences here. It had to be something to do with the dad.

“Adam?” Ben looked up, a spark of knowledge flashing in his eyes. “I got something.”

He hurried over to the desk.

Ben motioned to the screen. “They’re wedding anniversary flowers. Carnation is a first wedding anniversary flower. Bird of paradise is the ninth.”

Adam scanned over the list. Lilacs were on there, sunflowers, daisies. Everything she’d mentioned. Wedding anniversaries. That was creepy.

“Steph, can you come and look at this list?”

Her face was grey as she slowly stood up. She looked so unsteady on her feet, he wanted to take her arm or her hand, anything to give her some support. At this point, he’d probably be doing more harm than good.

She inched her way over to the computer screen and her color went from grey to white. She stared for a moment and slowly closed her eyes. Her nod was almost imperceptible.

Anniversary flowers. Nine years. Missing ex. Possibly angry, missing ex. And a kid without a dad. There was no way this was a coincidence. Whatever she was hiding was the source of all this. If she wasn’t going to give him the information, that was no problem at all. He’d get it another way.

He strained to keep his voice level and measured. There was no point in stressing her out any more than she already was. “Do you know what they might be anniversaries of?”

“The date means nothing to me.”

“Can you think of anything that’s been going on for nine years? Anybody you met around that time? Anybody who moved into your building? Started work at your office?” He stepped back to give him some space even though every part of him said to stay, get closer. His heart and his body were betraying his good sense. “Anything to do with Jessie?”

She stood motionless, eyes still closed. She shook her head.

None of them said a word. None of them moved. After an eternity, she spoke. “I have to go call Jessie and Pam.”

“Of course.” He stepped back further. “Do what you need to do.”

Her movements were lifeless as she gathered her things and walked like a puppet to the stairs. He waited where he was until she’d reached the top and he heard her bedroom door close behind her.

After a few moments he reached into his pocket and took out his own phone. He dialed quickly and waited.

Adrenaline flooded through him and his heartbeat pounded loud in his ears. He would get to the bottom of this, with her or without her.

The phone clicked and he heard the voice he was looking for.

“Mike, it’s Chase.” His voice was a low rumble. “I need a birth certificate.”

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