Chapter 7 I’m Everywhere
I’M EVERYWHERE
Little-girl Sasha had been a different person.
Well, not entirely different. Same skeleton.
Same memories. Same birthmark atop her knee.
But she was free from anxiety. She embraced things as they came.
Electricians kept late hours, so she had grown up not seeing her mom till bedtime.
And by then, Sasha had already finished her homework, made carbonara, read the latest Hollywood Reporter, and binged two movies on HBO.
She had loved not needing oversight as a kid.
And, if she were honest, she knew her mom wasn’t capable.
For most of Sasha’s childhood, Marcia was either rewiring an office building or sleeping.
And though Marcia adored her look-alike baby girl, her primary relationship was with heartbreak.
Self-sufficiency had rescued Sasha. It gave her purpose!
What couldn’t she do? On her sixteenth birthday, she cooked a three-course meal for her friends.
She felt grown. She felt like a character on Girlfriends.
She felt like nothing bad could ever happen to a person like her, a girl who knew how to caulk a tub and forge a notary stamp.
And, for a long time, this held true. She sailed through Spelman’s film and television major.
She breezed through a thankless entry-level position at Garfinkle Talent Agency.
By twenty-seven, she was a VP. As one of only a handful of top casting agents who lived in Brooklyn instead of LA, she enjoyed a level of freedom unlike most execs her age.
The two thousand teens were an electrifying time to be young in New York City.
And Sasha was in the eye of the storm, gallivanting through Le Bain, 1 OAK, and the Jane Hotel (actually, she was slightly left of the storm, as she was usually in a corner monitoring box office stats on her phone).
In early 2022, Sasha cast a six-episode army thriller for HBO Max.
It was a juicy ensemble cast; she needed eight male actors in major roles.
So, she auditioned forty of Hollywood’s hottest up-and-coming actors—and, in under a month, she’d cast all eight roles.
She had to work quickly because HBO was notoriously fickle.
If she didn’t come up with talent, fast, they would’ve lost interest.
The show, Zone of Action, was a massive hit.
And it landed Sasha an Emmy for Best Casting in a Limited Series, Anthology, or Movie.
It was a huge win for anyone, and especially a twenty-eight-year-old Black woman.
But she didn’t feel it. Sasha never slowed down to feel anything.
Instead, she was endlessly compelled to move forward, do more, get greater gains.
So that night, she had two glasses of champagne at the ceremony, skipped the after-parties, and went back to her hotel to prep for her next casting.
In the abstract, she knew it was a big deal. But she was too focused on achieving some fuzzy, ephemeral goal that she couldn’t quite define. The Emmy was the first stop on the train. But if she got off the ride to celebrate, it might leave without her.
Back in Brooklyn the night after the Emmys, she was having a cozy night in.
Around midnight, she was sipping SleepyTime Tea under a luxurious down comforter—in a shade of saffron she’d landed upon after four months of focused research.
Her apartment was her sanctuary. A cozy one-bedroom (that she owned!) on the second floor of a Prospect Heights brownstone.
Outside, leaves danced on the early fall wind.
Inside, she was warm, toasty, and vibing.
Until she heard an outrageous crash in her living room.
Sasha sprinted out of her room and found a brick in the middle of a zillion shards of glass.
Someone had thrown it through her window.
What the fuck, what the fuck, she whispered, gingerly tiptoeing through the glass to pick up the brick.
“CUNT” was written on it in white marker.
With a yelp, she dropped it immediately.
Heart racing, she scurried back to her room, grabbed her phone, and called the police.
A doughy, baby-faced cop arrived an hour later.
He looked like a Teddy Graham. Yawning into his fist, he took photos and fielded Sasha’s rapid-fire questions.
Surely this was a mistake, right? Any leads?
Maybe they were aiming for Gloria Katsune’s apartment, right under me?
She has enemies because she shoots her water gun out the window at toddlers and dogs. Want her number?
Sasha was rattled, but not terrified. The whole thing felt like a random act of Brooklyn violence. She threw out the brick. Insurance paid for her window. Life moved on.
The following Tuesday, around midnight, she received thirty phone calls from an unknown number. Still, Sasha wasn’t super-fazed. It was probably bored teens. There was simply no other explanation. Why would anyone want to harass Sasha?
A week later, same time, Sasha was fresh from the shower, wrapped in a towel and headed to the kitchen.
She passed her recently repaired bay window.
And then froze. Had she seen something weird outside?
An inhuman scowl? Fangs? No, couldn’t be.
Holding her breath, she retraced her steps back to the window and peered through the blinds.
Someone was standing across the street, under a tree.
Staring at her. They were wearing a bright neon-orange warm-up jacket, oversized leather gloves—and a Wolverine mask, the cheap plastic kind you got at Ricky’s Halloween superstore.
Slowly, Wolverine pointed an index finger and thumb in her direction, and pantomimed shooting her. She screamed. Then, it walked away.
This time, when Sasha called the police, she wasn’t calm. She was hysterical. Because now it was official. She was being terrorized. And she had no idea why.
A week later, around midnight, some sixth sense drew her to the front door—where she found a ten-page letter wedged underneath.
Ten pages of: “TIME TO PAY THE BILL TIME TO PAY THE BILL TIME TO PAY THE BILL” in all caps.
What bill? What had she done? And to whom?
Whoever it was, they were hunting her. Watching her.
Practically holding her hostage in her own home.
When Officer Teddy Graham showed up this time, he told her that “time to pay the bill” wasn’t a real threat.
Next Tuesday at midnight, Sasha was ready. She stood in the center of her living room, wielding a butcher knife, her eyes darting between the front door and the street-facing bay window. This time, there wasn’t a knock. It was another text assault.
I didn’t know you went to Spelman
Nice shirt, whore
I’m everywhere
Dropping the phone, she glanced down at her Spelman sweatshirt. This time, she skipped the police. Trembling uncontrollably, she googled “private investigator or detective brooklyn.” After sifting through a few sponsored posts and obvious scammers, she saw:
DANE & SON DETECTIVE AGENCY
Licensed, experienced full-service private investigators proudly serving New York–area clients, specializing in stalkers, skip-tracing, surveillance, child custody, alimony, missing persons, and high-profile clientele matters.
It wasn’t until Sasha saw the word in the profile that it hit her. Stalker. Frantically, she called the agency—though chances were slim that a sane professional would answer a 2 a.m. call.
“Uggblerrggh,” a man’s voice rasped groggily. “Nadine? I mean, Naomi? Ughhh, I forgot to text you when I got home. I know you hate that. My blood alcohol level’s on blackout.”
“Who is this?”
A pause. “Who’s this?”
“I need a detective! I’m in trouble!”
Another pause. More rustling, a pained groan, the sound of a glass clattering to the ground. When he spoke again, his voice sounded much more alert.
“My bad. Wrong phone . . . Anyway, yeah, you reached a detective. How can I help you?”
“I think someone’s trying to kill me. I don’t know why . . . what I did . . . or wh-who they are. But I’m scared for my life, and the police won’t help. I need help. Please.”
Sasha never asked for help. But she’d never known fear like this.
She felt like this person was behind every corner.
Normal, benign activities like grabbing coffee at the bodega were suddenly charged.
Was he crouched behind the register? Did he follow her onto the Q train?
Was he camped out in a nearby building, watching her through a telescope?
Everything was shadowy. And paranoia had set in.
And as stated in her favorite novel, Catch-22, “Just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean they aren’t after you. ”
Hurriedly, Sasha explained this and everything that went down since the Emmys.
“No, yeah, the police won’t help,” said the voice. “Not at this point.”
“Why?”
“Because nothing you’ve described is illegal. Delivering a letter, standing under a tree, annoying phone calls. No laws were broken,” he said.
“He threw a brick through my window!”
“Why didn’t you say so? Do you have the brick?”
Her entire body slumped. God. “No. No, I don’t.”
“Do you know this man’s identity?”
“Wait, how do you know it’s a man?”
“Ever seen Dateline? It’s always a man.”
“Oh my God, oh my God . . .”
“I know you’re scared. I’ll find him, don’t worry. Come to the office tomorrow . . . errr, today. Nine a.m. In the meantime, do you have somewhere you can go? A friend’s house?”
“My best friend Destiny’s out of town for a wedding. There’s no one else I can call. What do I do?” Hearing a phantom noise in the kitchen, she spun around, wielding her knife with a shaky hand. “I have a knife!” she screamed, to no one.
“What’s your name?”
“Sasha. Sasha Melinda Tameika Ruby Cruz.”
“Wow, okay. Hi, Ms. Cruz. I’m Detective Wesley Dane.”
“Nice to meet you,” she whimpered pitifully.