Chapter 7
Greer
“Poison?” Allison reads aloud for the fifth time.
“Yeah, I don’t know.”
“Has he ever referred to you with a pet name before?”
I shake my head. “No.”
“I don’t like this.”
“And you think I do? He’s escalating.”
“Clearly,” she breathes, handing me back my phone.
“You have to tell the police. It’s your only option. You need to tell them you’re worried you’re being targeted. They have the handprint, the fingerprints, and you can take them the notes and texts. Maybe they can trace the number.”
I bite the inside of my cheek. Going to the cops feels wrong. Sure, whoever this is has some obsession with me, but they haven’t hurt me, and who am I to go to the cops now, when I didn’t all those years ago, when it truly mattered?
“They’re going to dismiss me.”
“Not with me there they’re not. Let’s go. Melody, watch the place until close, will ya?” Allison says, to which Melody only gives a salute.
“You know, they’re my staff. Not yours.”
“Hey, you boss Chip around when you’re at my office.”
“That’s different, Chip is a fucking moron.” I sling my bag over my shoulder as Allison smirks.
“There’s my best friend I know and love. Come on, let’s go tell the police about your stalker.”
“God, when you say it like that…”
“I don’t know how you lived this so long without telling anyone, without telling me!”
“We’ve been through enough together. I didn’t want to add on.”
“Blasphemy. It’s my job as your best friend to take on whatever it is you’re dealing with, G. I owe you so much.”
“Stop saying that. No, you don’t.”
“Yes, I do.” She stops, turns to me, and stares into my eyes with her dark, commanding ones. “What you did for me, for us, is the only reason I am who I am; stop diminishing that fact.”
“Stop glorifying my murder of an innocent man.”
“You don’t know he was innocent,” she counters.
“And you know he wasn’t?”
“No. I’m just saying. You’ve built this man up in your head like a fucking saint. What if he was a rapist? What if he beat his meat to goat videos?”
I can’t help the laugh that flutters out. “What is the matter with you?”
She smirks widely. “A lot. We don’t have time for me to regale you with the list today, however.”
She unlocks her car, and I slide into the luxurious feel of the rich leather. Her car is pristine, every detail looking brand new. We both make good money, but she chooses to flaunt it, where I’ve always chosen to burrow mine away in savings like a squirrel preparing for winter.
When we get to the precinct, Officer George is the first face I see. He’s manning the front desk, of all places.
He looks up, laughing a little awkwardly at seeing me here. “Hey, Greer.”
“Is this the officer you’ve been dealing with?” Allison asks, her tone soured into full-on lawyer mode.
“Yeah, actually. It is.” I narrow my eyes at the man, and he stands.
“Let me just get someone for you.”
“Your captain,” Allison scolds.
“Right. I’ll get the captain.”
“I think he peed a little,” I whisper. “You love to throw all that power around, don’t you?”
“It makes my lady dick hard. Not gonna lie.”
I fight a smirk as a tall, broad man with dark hair and vintage round-framed glasses walks up. He can’t be more than mid-forties, and he’s a sight for sore eyes.
“Ladies. Officer George has caught me up to speed on what he’s been helping you with in recent weeks.
What can I do for you?” He puts his hand out toward Allison, sussing out the lawyer in the room immediately.
It’s like watching two lions in a pissing contest when she offers her hand to him with a disgusted look on her face. “Captain Leigh.”
“Allison Cheney, Esquire.”
“The Allison Cheney?” the captain asks, and their dance of domination continues another round.
Officer George has scurried off, and he and another officer are whispering, both seeming concerned.
“The one and only. My client here has been dealing with your office for quite some time and feels she’s getting nowhere.
With a stalker running around the streets of Oakland, I’d think you’d want to lend her any help you could, but her encounters have only escalated without any answering assistance from you or your officers. ”
“Ms. Cheney, you know better than I do that without a name or real evidence, there isn’t much the department can do.”
“He’s been inside her home.”
“What would you like me to do, give her a dedicated unit sitting on her house at all times?” the captain jokes.
To which Allision snaps, “Yes. That’s exactly what I want you to do. Thank you for being so kind and generous with city resources. It shows how much you care about the citizens of Oakland.”
She’s backed him into a wall, and I’m watching him slide down it, his nails raking the wallpaper to ribbons on his descent.
“Well, I—”
Allison’s stare hardens, and suddenly, I feel like a five-year-old watching their parents square off.
“I’m happy to do it. I’ll give you my best.”
“Surely not Officer George,” Allison says, a mirthful lilt to her tone.
He clears his throat. “No. Obviously not.”
“Shaw!” Captain Leigh calls, and a head swivels around, dark eyes finding mine.
“Yeah, Cap?”
He’s equally as tall as the good captain, with blond hair and brown eyes that could melt the panties off a nun.
“Do they all look like that?” Allison whispers.
I shrug, remaining stoic. If they see me making light of this, they’ll only continue to take it as such, even if Allison’s carefree banter is making me feel less tangled in knots.
“I need you on a fixed detail at Ms. Allen’s residence.
We have a stalker on the loose, and he’s not in our database.
I need you to be alert. If you need to take someone with you, you can have your pick of officers, other than George.
” The captain’s piercing eyes find Allison, and I don’t doubt for a moment he’s considering asking the tornado of a woman out.
“Cap, you know how stalkers are, that could take weeks to resolve, and I have the Brent Cavendish case that just landed on my desk.”
I suck a breath in, feeling like the room’s closing in on me as Allison keeps a straight face but grabs my hand in hers. “We should probably speak to you about Mr. Cavendish while we’re here. But somewhere more… private.”
Shaw, who looks more like a detective than a duty officer, leans against the front desk. “What the hell would you know about a dead man in the woods?”
I whimper, and Allison pulls me in as my tears fall like rain. My body is shaking, and I can’t think past the image of Brent at dinner, us laughing, and my almost texting him afterward.
“All the recent murders, all of the men you’ve been finding with the Nightstalker signature, Greer dated them before they died. I think her stalker is killing them after contact.”
Shaw straightens, looking me over with a critical eye. “And you’re just now coming forward, why?”
“Because no one believed her about the stalker. Your office treated her like a mockery, sending the fucking desk boy to do a detective’s job.” Allison’s grip tightens on my shoulders, and it becomes the only thing I’m holding onto, clinging to for dear life so I don’t faint.
“Forgive me, Ms. Cheney, but your client can speak for herself, can she not? Is she mute?” Shaw snaps.
“Shaw!” Captain Leigh reprimands.
“She can, but she doesn’t have to.”
Captain Leigh gives Detective Shaw a stern look. “I believe interrogation room two is open.”
Shaw sighs. “Right this way, ladies. Seems you might be the lead I’ve been waiting for.”
After over an hour of drilling, Allison finally leads me out of the station. I’m relieved of my shoebox of notes, and for some reason, I hate that I had to turn them in.
They’re the only things keeping me sane. The proof that my stalker’s real. That I’m not losing my fucking mind.
“Want to stop and get a bite to eat somewhere? My treat?” she asks me, and I sniffle and wipe my tears away.
“No. Just take me back so I can get my car, will you?”
“You could stay with me tonight if you want. We could go get Bear and binge something on TV and eat ice cream.”
Her offer is kind, and I know she’s just trying to be a good friend to me, but the idea of sleeping anywhere but my bed, in my space, feels overwhelming.
“No, thank you. I want to be home.”
The ride to my car is filled with Allison’s chatter about what the next steps will look like in the case.
Then she drops me at my car and follows me all the way home, where Detective Shaw and one of his lackeys sit on the fenceline of my property, looming like a beacon of safety right outside my door.
I move through the motions of my after-work routine robotically, letting Bear out, feeding him, showering, and then plopping down in front of the TV with a barely warm microwaveable dinner and a glass of wine.
I should have tea, like I always do, but I’m too impatient to soothe my nerves, and I’m anxious to have the buzz of alcohol gracing my veins.
It’s technically the second glass, since I chugged the first while watching the microwave cook my dinner.
I scarf down my food, have one more glass of wine, and then fall into bed, deliriously buzzed and relaxed as the world fades away and the worries of today weigh down beneath the haze of red wine.
Gasping awake, I look around. It’s still dark, and the room’s spinning. Glancing at the clock, the numbers glare back at me.
Three a.m.; I’ve only been asleep for an hour.
Fuck, I can tell, too.
Alcohol still weighs my body down, causing me to wobble on my feet when I head for the bathroom. I don’t know what had awoken me, but Bear is asleep on the foot of the bed, unalarmed by whatever it was.
Probably another bad dream.
I relieve myself, wash my hands, all while leaving the lights out and my eyes closed, hoping that’ll help me to fall back into a stupor easier.
However, before I crash back toward the bed, an arm snakes around my middle.
Fear spikes through me as I open my mouth to scream as loud as I can so the officers outside can hear me, but a hand slaps over my mouth.
Leather-scented gloves cover my scream, and the arm holding me tightens.
He’s here.
My time is up.
He’s finally decided that I’m not worth the hassle of toying with anymore, and he’s come to finish me off.
Part of me is thankful.
I’ve been waiting for karma to come and end me for ten years, and it’s come in the form of a large man, with massive hands, that smells like… Fuck is that sandalwood?
I can’t reconcile that my killer smells good before his lips dust over my ear. “You’ve been a very bad girl, pretty poison.”
His nickname for me tightens the fear twisting my stomach into knots, and I whimper as my tears fall over his leather gloves.
“Bad girls get punished.”