5. Chapter Five
Chapter Five
HATTIE
I gritted my teeth. Come on, Savannah. Pay attention . Instead, she was half watching TV above my head and chatting about the hockey game with the guys at the bar. I wanted to get the inventory over with, but I should have waited until Tyler was on shift.
“Jack Daniels Black Label,” I said for at least the third time, leaning my side against the bar.
“Didn’t we already do that one?” Savannah huffed.
“Yes, but you still haven’t given me the number.”
“Really?” She looked over at me, her brows pulled together.
I sighed.
“Point six,” she finally said. “I don’t get why we do this.”
I wasn’t surprised by her statement. She hated when we did inventory and made sure we all knew how useless she thought the process was.
“To keep track of waste.”
“I think it’s dumb.”
“Yes, I’m aware.” I rolled my eyes. “Ready for the next one?”
We’d only gotten through two more—Savannah had what we liked to call squirrel brain—before my sister peered over my shoulder and broke out in a salacious grin. “Hello, Detective Dylan,” she purred.
Hugging the clipboard to my chest, I spun and gave him a small smile.
He returned the expression, then turned back to Savannah. “Picking up a carryout order.”
“Let me go see if it’s ready.” She disappeared into the kitchen.
“Can I talk to you?” He rested his forearms on the bar and angled in close enough that I could smell the mint on his breath.
Things had been quiet since I’d run into him at the coffee shop a couple of days ago. Thankfully, I’d received no more flowers or texts. Even so, maybe he’d found information about the number. I’d assumed no news was good news. Now, though, he was here, so maybe that wasn’t the case.
Apprehension settled in my stomach like a lead weight. “Um, sure.”
“Is this the guy who’s been sending you flowers?” Michael called from the other end of the bar. He and his friends had been at it again. They were clearly taking the it’s five o’clock somewhere phrase too literally.
“Oh.” I shook my head. “No.”
“Flowers?” Dylan asked.
“Yeah—”
“Here you go,” Savannah said as she appeared at my side. “One to-go order for the sexy detective.”
Sometimes I thought my sister’s life goal was to see how many people she could make feel uncomfortable. But I couldn’t hide my smirk when he pretty much ignored her, keeping his gaze fixed on me as he took the bag she held out.
“Let’s talk outside.” The intense stare he was giving me told me not to argue.
And I wouldn’t. I didn’t need Savannah—any of my siblings—or The Dock’s customers up in my business, so I nodded and followed him out the door.
Once the front door shut behind us, he turned to me. “Someone sent flowers to you?” His tone was sharp, his expression rigid.
“Yeah…” I crossed my arms in front of my chest.
Why did he seem so angry? I suddenly felt like a child getting ready to be scolded.
DYLAN
Jesus. I needed to chill. Instead, I was being unreasonably angry, and all because Hattie had received flowers. Women got flowers all the time. Hattie was allowed to get flowers. She wasn’t mine. I had no right to be annoyed.
So why didn’t it sit right with me?
“What about the phone?” Her arms were still crossed, her posture still defensive. “Isn’t that why you’re here?”
“Yes.” Right. I came to talk to her about the phone, not to snap at her because some guy was sending her flowers. So what if she was dating someone? Good for her. I tried to relax my shoulders at that simple idea, but my body was strung tight. I needed to ignore her dating life and deal with the phone. “Definitely a burner. Bought at a gas station down the road and paid for with cash.”
She shifted from one foot to the other, grimacing. “Maybe I should be worried about the flowers, then…”
Gut clenching, I searched her face, hoping to understand the meaning behind those words. “What do you mean?”
What did receiving flowers from a man she was dating have to do with the burner phone?
“I mean I wasn’t even sure they were for me,” she added with a shrug.
Arms crossed, I narrowed my eyes, waiting for her to explain. How did a person get flowers and not know whether they were for them? That seemed like nonsense.
She sighed and flung her arms out to the sides. “The card wasn’t even signed. Or addressed to me.”
My stomach twisted painfully at that admission. The flowers were from an anonymous source? Way to bury the lede, Hattie . It was amazing how that admission could make me both relax and stress. It didn’t matter whether she wasn’t dating anyone. I couldn’t date her either way. So I needed to worry about the creep that was obviously stalking her.
“And no one texted me to ask about flowers they’d sent.”
My eyes felt like they were bugging out of my head. “Yeah, stalkers don’t typically check in with their victims.”
Hattie’s silky brown hair brushed her shoulders as she shook her head, not looking at all concerned about the situation. Only confusion showed in the lines of her brow. “It was all such a mystery because, according to Jamie, a young boy handed them to her and said they were for me.”
“He probably slipped him some money to do it.” I explained away something that didn’t seem to be a mystery. A gesture like that wouldn’t have seemed harmful to a kid. But who was the kid? I might be able to talk to him.
“We couldn’t even figure out who the kid was. It doesn’t seem like he belongs to any of the families we know.”
So much for that idea.
She shrugged. “I didn’t think anything of the flowers until I got a text telling me not to throw them away.”
“Was that the message you said you deleted?”
She nodded. “Yeah. It came right after I threw them away.” She tilted her head, her brow creasing again. “What’s wrong with your face?”
“Why? Does it look like I’m having a stroke? Because that’s how I feel.” Rhett had always been a little oblivious, but I didn’t realize it was a full-on family problem.
Her lips turned up in a smirk.
Jaw locked, I huffed. “This is not funny.”
“Maybe not.” She shrugged, still trying to hide a smile. “I just never realized you were so dramatic.”
Was she serious right now?
“I’m not being dramatic.” I balled my fists at my sides, my body taut with annoyance and concern. “You could have a stalker. There could be a person wandering out there with plans to hurt you. Yet you’re laughing.”
She sucked in a breath, and her eyes widened. “Are you trying to scare me?”
“Yes. Yes, I am.” A little fear might help Hattie take this all a bit more seriously.
Finally, she was quiet as she stared at me. Maybe I’d gotten through to her? I shouldn’t have been surprised that she was being so laid back about this. In my experience, the vast majority of people didn’t understand how dangerous a stalker situation could be or how quickly it could escalate. Almost like the stalker’s anonymity would keep the victim safe.
“If it was such a big deal, why did you wait two days to tell me about the phone?”
It was a fair enough question. “Remember the big fire yesterday on the outskirts of town?”
“Yeah,” she said, arching one brow.
“It was declared arson. Once the blaze was out, we had to secure the scene, then wait for the state to take over.”
“Oh.”
“I ran the number after I saw you on Wednesday, and I would have come by yesterday if not for the fire.” I cleared my throat. “But also, I didn’t know about the flowers.”
She cocked her head. “If you’d known about the flowers, what could you have done differently?”
“It took me twenty minutes to find out about the burner phone. If I’d had any idea you’d been receiving flowers, I could have followed up on that the same day.”
“Why?”
“Because it’s evidence of escalation. These things typically follow a pattern. And these patterns usually lead to the victim being hurt or kidnapped.”
“But I haven’t gotten another text since then.”
I pinched the bridge of my nose. “’Cause I blocked the number.”
“You blocked it?” She cocked her head.
Shit. I may have overstepped by doing that. Honestly, though? I hadn’t really even thought about it before I did it. Just didn’t want some creep continuing to bother her. Now I was reconsidering that decision. More texts could help paint a picture of what we were looking at here. It could be anything from a teenager with an innocent crush to a crazy-ass stalker that intended to do harm.
“Huh. Why didn’t I think of that?”
I sighed. It was a good thing, actually, that she hadn’t thought of it after the first weird text. Otherwise we would have no information to go on.
I couldn’t walk away until she understood that this could be dangerous. “Hattie.” I gripped her shoulder, squeezing gently. “You really need to take this seriously.”
She looked up at me. Her light blue eyes held a bit of uncertainty, but at least she gave me a slight nod.
“What did Randy find when he inspected the tire?” If someone was messing with her car on top of sending anonymous flowers and weird texts, then the police needed to be involved officially.
“He put a new rim on and said I shouldn’t have any more trouble. It’s been fine since then.”
I nodded. “If anything else weird happens—anything at all—call me, okay?”
She glanced back into the restaurant. “Everyone’s staring at us now. They’re going to think I’m lying about you not being the one who sent the flowers.”
I scanned the group. She was right, of course. Every person at the bar was watching us. Good. Let the town gossip. I’d love it if the stalker thought she was dating a police officer. Let him come after me.
Shit. My stomach sank. I’d need to talk to Rhett, and soon. I wouldn’t want him to hear from someone else that I was dating his sister.
“So you’ll call me if anything else happens, right?”
“Yeah.” She worried her bottom lip between her teeth. “I will.”
I couldn’t tell if she meant that or was just saying it to placate me. Regardless, I’d be looking into it.