23. Belly-up
TWENTY-THREE
BELLY-UP
Jules
Turns out mentioning that you have a stalker and that it just might have something to do with a disgraced former astronaut is a big deal.
Dr. Rebecca Sato is concerned with my emotional and mental welfare. Luke wants to choke me out for not coming to them sooner. And Jackie looks like she’d cut a bitch to be the first in line on the choke hold.
I had thought that telling Jackie in front of witnesses would have made it easier. That if she was in her work environment, she would stay logical and calm.
The death glare she’s lasering at me from behind her glasses tells me I was wrong.
A few members of the human resource and public relations departments have been called into a larger conference room and are now watching the news on a projector screen. So talk of my emotional state will have to wait.
Honestly, I’d prefer the choke-out to feelings .
Emily clicks the remote and the screen goes blank. We just replayed all the news articles and stories that Susan, Whipple’s girlfriend, has reported on since quoting her anonymous source. Seeing them all back to back hasn’t helped my emotional state.
“I’d like to strangle that woman,” Emily says, setting the remote down on the table. It seems the compilation hasn’t helped her emotional state either.
I nod at the woman. “You take Susan, I’ll take Whipple.”
“I’m pretty sure that won’t help the situation,” Luke says, his normal happy expression gone.
“I’ll strangle them both then,” Jackie says, speaking for the first time since I admitted I had a stalker and earning shocked glances from everyone, myself included.
Her eyes narrow, the murderous gleam in her eyes strengthening.
“After I strangle you for not telling me you have a freaking stalker .”
“Jesus.” Jorge, the human resources guy, throws up his hands, looking a bit uncomfortable. “Can we all stop talking about strangling people?”
“Yes, he’s right. This isn’t helping,” Doc says, folding her hands over her very large pregnant belly. “Let’s start at the beginning.” She looks at me. “Jules, when did you first start getting messages from this person?”
“Her stalker ,” Jackie corrects, still giving me the evil eye.
“Whipple,” Joe adds.
“We don’t know for sure it’s Whipple.” At my expression, Luke backs up. “But he does seem like the likely suspect.”
Doc nods. “We’ll let the police handle that. For now, just run us through what’s been happening."
I blow out a breath, watching my hair float away from my face for a few seconds. “Okay. So this is what’s been happening…”
I spend the next twenty minutes going over the social media private messages that started the week I got back from the International Space Station, the random text messages from anonymous numbers I keep blocking, and lastly, the package delivered to my condo.
There was a slight gasp of shock when I mentioned the drugged beer.
“Are you serious right now?” Jackie’s chest heaves. “This psycho drugged you? He came to your home ?”
I nod.
“And… and you didn’t you tell me?” I’ve never heard her voice so high.
“I—”
“You’re my best friend, you idiot!” She slaps her hand on the table. “I may be new to the whole having a social life and friends thing, but I know you’re supposed to share this kind of stuff with your friends.” She pauses, glancing between Doc and Luke. “Right?”
“Yes.” Luke’s nod is terse, all jolliness gone. “And as a military woman, you should know to report such things to your superior.”
Not liking the atmosphere, I take a deep breath, ready to make a joke and downplay the whole stalker thing but stop when Jackie takes off her glasses to rub her watery eyes.
Shit. She’s crying. And this time it isn’t from overwhelming happy emotion from me planning her wedding. It’s because she’s mad. At me. A sick feeling rolls through my stomach.
Jackie’s never been upset with me before. Not when I blackmailed her into going to a Texas saloon. Or threatened to set her up with a co-worker. Or even when I joked about exposing her closeted cowboy romance novel addiction to her co-workers.
But she’s upset now.
“I’m sorry, Jackie,” I say softly, not even recognizing my own voice. “I didn’t think… Well, I just didn’t think it was a big deal.”
She scoffs, reaches up to push up glasses that aren’t there, and flushes when she ends up poking herself between her eyes.
“Well, Ms. Starr, I can say for certain that it is now, most definitely, a big deal ,” Luke says, leaning back in his chair. “The next step is to call in the police and open up an investigation so we can catch this dipshit.”
“No. First a full blood panel,” Rebecca says, eyes narrowed at me. “Whatever it was probably has already passed through your system, but we’re double checking.” She glances down at where I’m rubbing my sternum. “And we’ll make sure to fully re-evaluate everything .”
Ugh. “Fine.”
Luke nods at Doc. “You can do that while we call the police.”
Police reports and stuff. Time spent giving this asshole my attention. Time sent away from work. “Is that really necessary?”
“Yes!” Jackie surges to her feet, this time pounding the table with her fist, making everyone jump. “Yes, it is very necessary, Jules!”
Wide-eyed, I nod.
Of note? Don’t mess with Jackie when she’s upset. She’s scary as fuck.
“Okay,” I draw out, nodding while easing back from my friend with her bonafide crazy eyes. “Then that is what I’ll do.”
Appeased, Jackie sits down again. Luke and Emily share an amused look before wiping their expressions when my best friend glares at them.
Jackie takes a deep breath and somehow, in one blink to the next, unearths a legal pad and pen as well as dons her glasses.
“First things first,” she declares to the room in a prim manner, like she hasn’t just had a mini-tantrum.
“We need to put together an order of operations. Steps for finding this stalker and ensuring Jules’ safety.
” When no one talks, she narrows her eyes at the room. “Agreed?”
Not wanting to feel the wrath of the nerd, everyone nods.
“I knew that illness excuse was bullshit at the airfield.” Bodie’s voice echoes in the cavernous Neutral Buoyancy Lab as he exits the dive suit room.
We’re about to train for a new EVA, one Ian has planned that will move the exterior wires to the inside of the International Space Station walls.
This will minimize the possibility of our main computers getting hit by space junk, like they had a few months back.
Bodie looks like a weirdo wearing LCVG. But then again, we all do. They’re basically white mesh bodysuits with various tubes strapped on.
The liquid cooling and ventilation garment performs the vital functions of regulating our temperature, both here and in space.
In addition to a cooling system, the suit also acts as the air return, drawing in atmosphere from near my extremities, circulating breathing gas and equalizing pressure in the suit.
In space it’s done through our extra modular unit (EMU) backpack, but here at the NBL it’s supplied by pool-side equipment that runs through an umbilical hose connected to our suits.
“Yeah, yeah.” I slide forward on my butt, threading my legs into my dive suit pants that the EVA trainers laid out for me, already in my thermals and LCVGs.
The process of getting into my dive suit, which is an astronaut’s suit worn for spacewalks but modified for water, is a time-consuming process.
“Seriously though,” Bodie says, sitting his ass down in front of his suit. “You okay? You need anything?”
Yesterday it was decided that NASA would keep the existence of my stalker in a “need-to-know” capacity. People whom I’m working with directly, like Bodie, need to know.
I lie back on the mat by the pool, the smell of chlorine tingling my nose, while the crew adjusts my boots. “Yeah,” I say, serious. “I do need something.”
He nods, his expression determined. He took the news of the return of Whipple well. Well in that he didn’t freak out and threaten me like Jackie. Bodie’s a great guy to have at my back, and since informing him of the stalker situation, he’s been almost overly considerate. “Name it.”
“Make sure to give me adequate light down there while I work, flashlight.”
Bodie’s brow lowers as his eyes narrow. But the dude is smiling. “Hardy har har.” Then he sticks his legs into his suit while I laugh in earnest.
I had a long, boring, and somewhat uncomfortable talk with a lot of people at NASA and the police. They’d taken my phone, which I thought I would hate, but it was like a boulder had been lifted as soon as one of the detectives bagged my device.
No more photos, gifs, and texts conveying various threats. No more having to hide or lie to people I care about.
Like Holt.
I really need to tell Holt. But I didn’t know how to explain his place on the list of “need-to-knows.” He isn’t my husband or part of my support staff. He isn’t family, and now I’m not even sure I can call him a friend.
I mean, the cowboy definitely needs to own up and fucking apologize for a lot of the shit he said, but I realize that I may have exacerbated the situation. Just a bit.
And coming clean to him about the texts that pissed him off so much is something we both need.
But apparently not today.
NASA knew I was riding my last nerve after the fiftieth time the police made me go through all the details of my stalker’s contact with me.
They decided to cut me some slack and scheduled some training time in the NBL.
The pool, over two hundred feet long and a hundred feet wide, is going to be my sanctuary for the next six hours.
Not even the feel of my maximum absorbency garment strapped to my ass (NASA never says “diaper”) can get me down.
Once Bodie and I are secured into the bottoms of our suits, multiple EVA support staff help us up off the floor. Including Ian. I have a feeling Jackie tasked him with babysitting me, along with Bodie, while Whipple is still out and about.