6. Chapter Five
CHAPTER FIVE
MARGERY
M argery was still looking at the stuffed animal sitting on her coffee table. She didn’t know how long she had been sitting there.
Hours .
The sun had gone down, and it was back up now. She was exhausted, but she was also completely freaked out. Her mind kept going back to Ethan and his sign-off.
Had he told one of his friends, and they were playing a sick joke on her now? Because Ethan couldn’t be alive. There was no explanation.
The police officers who were there at his car crash asked Bonnie and Margery to identify the body. They told her they weren’t sure Bonnie was going to come, and they needed somebody who knew him really well. She saw the body on that cold table. Bonnie had come in several minutes after her and broken down.
She had seen his body. There was’ no way he could be alive. There was’ no way he set this up to send gifts so many years after his death. He couldn’t have known he was going to die.
Margery’s phone went off loudly, and she jumped. Who was it? Why were they calling her? She grabbed her phone, which was sitting right next to her, and saw Adalisa’s name on it.
“Hello?” she asked when she picked up.
“Margery? Are you okay?” Adalisa asked.
She could tell that coworker was worried about her. Her voice was off. Pure exhaustion? She figured it was that, but Margery thought she also detected a little worry or panic in her own voice. But that could just be because she knew what was going on. Her coworker didn’t.
“Yeah, everything’s okay,” Margery replied.
She wasn’t going to talk about everything over the phone. She didn’t know if she was going to tell Adalisa about it. It just didn’t seem like something to talk about, but she knew her friend would ask about it the next time she saw her. Which hopefully wouldn’t be so soon.
Margery needed some time to think about what she was going to say and how she was going to say it. Would Addy believe her? Would she tell her she’s going crazy?
“Okay. Are you coming to work today?” Adalisa asked.
Her eyes went wide. Shit. So much had happened in the past twelve hours that she had completely forgotten about her job.
“Shit. I need to get changed, and I’ll be on my way,” Margery rushed out. “Give me ten minutes.”
“Sounds good. No rush. You can be a little bit late, and you won’t be penalized,” Adalisa replied before she hung up.
Margery placed her phone next to the front door and quickly rushed to her room to get changed. She had completely forgotten that she had to work the rest of the week. It wasn’t just because of the stuffed zebras. It was a culmination of that and the guy attempting to rape her. She was on edge.
If it was that easy for him to just sit on her porch and force himself into her house, anyone else could do it. Should she get a better alarm system? Should she get a gun to protect herself? There were so many questions that Margery didn’t know how to answer. She didn’t have anybody to ask.
The first person she would have asked was Ethan because he knew about this stuff, but he was dead. Couldn’t ask a dead person questions.
Margery quickly grabbed her phone and rushed toward the store. She didn’t care if she looked like crazy running down the street. She had seen several people do it since she started working at the shop.
“You look like shit,” Adalisa commented as she walked through the door.
“Thanks. I had a hard evening and night,” she replied as she put her stuff behind the counter.
“Did you get any sleep at all?”
Margery shook her head. “No, I didn’t. I...”
Was she really going to tell Adalisa what happened yesterday? She didn’t even know if there was a police report since they didn’t take her statement. What if nobody believed her? What if Officer Matthias told them not to take her seriously if she ever called? She was screwed if that happened.
“What’s wrong?” Adalisa asked.
“It was really eventful. And not in a good way. Do you really want to know?” she asked.
She didn’t want to talk about it if Adalisa didn’t care about knowing. Margery should have known she would have wanted to know. She was asking so that if she did or recognized her mood, she wouldn’t want to know the details.
“With you looking like that, I want to know. It has to be something major for you not to have any sleep and look like you are about to run.”
She was right about that. Margery had thought about running away. But what good would that do? She didn’t know anything or how to keep herself hidden. If she moved, her stalker could follow her very easily. He could be watching her right now, and she wouldn’t know it with how exhausted and shaken she was.
“Margery?” Adalisa asked. “Are you sure you’re okay?”
“I’ll be okay,” she replied. She had to be.
“Do you want to tell me about what happened yesterday and last night?”
She knew her friend wasn’t really asking. She wanted to know, and she was going to find out.
“So, I didn’t get ice cream yesterday. The shop was busy. I decided to order it and have it delivered, so I went straight home. As I got closer to my house, I saw someone sitting on my porch. I slowed but continued to get closer because I needed to see who it was. I was a man, he had a gun.”
Margery closed her eyes for a brief second and took a deep breath. She could see the scene replaying in her mind over and over. If she would have turned around once she spotted him, would he have hurt her? Could she have gotten away earlier?
“He told me to get closer, and I had to because of his gun. I didn’t have anything but my knife in my purse, which wasn’t going to do much at a distance. He put the gun against my head and told me to unlock the house; I did. He pushed me to the floor, and said he was going to have fun with me, but somebody saved me.”
“Who?”
Margery shrugged her shoulders. “I don’t know who. I didn’t know him, but he saved me, and then I called the police. Apparently, the guy with the gun was a known rapist they were trying to catch.”
“Well, I’m glad the guy was there. I’m so sorry you had to go through that. Do you need to take some time off and relax at home?” Adalisa gave her a quick hug.
She shook her head. There was no way she wanted to be in her house right now, not when she had the newest stuffed animal in there; not when she didn’t know how he had gotten into her house.
Was the police officer her stalker? Was that why Officer Matthias said it was a secret admirer? Because he knew who the person was?
No, that didn’t make any sense. The officer who had handcuffed Diego only looked at her once. It couldn’t be him. And when he did look at her, it wasn’t the same stare she felt when she walked down the street.
Call her crazy, but there were different stares, and his wasn’t the right one .
“I’ll be okay. I am just a little on edge,” Margery gently said.
“And that’s okay. If you do need time, let me know. There’s no shame in taking some time off when you were almost attacked.”
But it wasn’t just that. It was the stuffed animals appearing and throwing her off, but Adalisa didn’t know that. She wasn’t going to tell her about it unless she asked, which she had no reason to.
Adalisa placed her hand on Margery’s shoulder. “Are you sure you’re okay? Did anything else happen? I know being attacked would shock you, but you just seem more on edge if that makes sense. You’ve been through some pretty rough things, and I don’t know, you seem spooked? You’re looking around like you’re trying to find something.”
She was? Margery hadn’t even realized that she was looking around.
“And by that shocked expression means you had no idea. So, something is definitely up. Do you want to talk about it?”
“I don’t know,” she replied.
“I’m here if you change your mind. If you don’t, then no worries.”
Adalisa had been there for her through a lot. She was someone she had met after Ethan died, she helped her get through everything. Sure, it was almost two years after he had died, but she knew about the accident that killed him.
“I’ve gotten three more stuffed zebras,” she blurted out.
Adalisa’s eyes went wide as she stared at her.
“All with different words on them but signed the same way. The way Ethan used to sign his letters to me. ”
Adalisa’s face softened. Anytime Margery mentioned Ethan, Adalisa always looked sad for her. A lot of people did. They knew how much she loved Ethan, how much she adored him, and they had planned on getting married.
“Oh, honey,” Adalisa gently soothed. “So many people can sign things the same way. It could just be a guy you went out on a date with.”
Margery shook her head.
“I know it’s hard. I know he was the love of your life, but he’s dead. He can’t come back to life. I’m sorry, boo.”
Tears filled Margery’s eyes. “I know you’re probably right. But it’s his sign-off. Nobody else knew about it. He kept it a secret, and I didn’t let anybody else read his notes.”
Margery wasn’t going to tell Adalisa how the last stuffed zebra came into her house. She didn’t know how Adalisa would react.
“I feel his eyes on me whenever I’m outside. Just… What if he did come back to life?”
And now she sounded crazy. She knew that, and so did Adalisa, but she couldn’t stop herself from saying it. She hadn’t really thought about it before, but she felt Ethan’s stare’. Call her crazy, but she remembered what it felt like when Ethan looked at her almost eighteen years ago.
“I think you’re really thinking about this too much. You need a vacation. You can go to my aunt’s cabin. It’s close to the city, and you can get some much-needed sleep. You won’t have to worry about anything. Not a lot of people live there,” Adalisa said. “You can go tomorrow and stay several days.”
“What about my shifts this week?”
It was really tempting to go on that vacation. Margery was absolutely exhausted, but she couldn’t sleep at home now. Not when the person had been there without being detected.
Maybe this was exactly what she needed. Maybe Adalisa and the police officer were right. She had to be overthinking this. There was no other explanation—the person must have broken into her house twice to put the stuffed zebras there.
Margery wanted to laugh out loud, but she knew Adalisa would look at her strangely. Now, she was trying to convince herself that someone hadn’t broken into her house, that it was a secret admirer and not a stalker, that it wasn’t Ethan’s sign-off.
She sounded crazy trying to convince herself of all of that. But maybe Adalisa was right, and she needed to go to the cabin to relax and figure things out. Maybe it was exactly what she needed. And she was going to take it.
“I’ve got you covered. Don’t worry about that. Tomorrow, go to my aunt’s cabin and relax. You’ve earned it.”