Chapter Eight
Riglan
I’m not scared of anything.
What kind of remark was that? What was I trying to prove?
Why am I being such an asshole?
Mostly it was how I always was. Brusque, abrupt, not a fan of small talk.
Not even with people who’d known me for years.
But also, not mean. I was much more likely to walk away from a scenario, block them online than brag about myself.
And I’d never unblocked anyone before, much less given them a second thought at that point.
But something about him had my ferret in an uproar, to the point I’d let him have that foolish broad-daylight, midtown shift.
He wanted me to help the guy, Pretender.
Before now, he’d never even acknowledged anything online, but since it was such a big part of my life, it had probably been only a matter of time.
So, for my peace of mind and my beast’s, I’d decided to refer him to a “colleague” who could help him out. For that, I needed no more information than how he would like to be contacted. So why did I go on? Why did I need all the details?
My other screens were lit up with data I needed to be looking at if I wanted to complete my job and get paid. But what did I do?
Did I ask for his preferred contact and wish him the best in his future endeavors?
As if my ferret would allow it. The little guy skittered all over inside me, a feeling as uncomfortable as that sounded. Like having an itch impossible to scratch.
No. I did not end our conversation.
I went on. Better now?
That I know you aren’t afraid? No, that doesn’t help as much as I might hope. I don’t want to be “oozing” with fear anymore.
Then let’s get started with the information I need. When did this all start?
He named a few rough times, but I stopped him. It should all be there. In your phone, your laptop, any other devices they’ve used to reach you.
I don’t have…that is…
He didn’t have to finish for me to know what he’d done. You deleted some of it?
I did. At first, I thought it was spam, and then I was afraid it was some kind of link trying to get to my bank accounts.
ID fraud? Logical thoughts, but from the little bit he’d shown me so far, none of that was relevant to his stalker.
The good news was, nothing was ever truly gone.
People deleted and blocked and cleaned, but any law enforcement officer could confirm, a person with the right skills could retrieve it all.
Particularly easy if the devices were at hand, but since nearly nothing a person did anymore was confined to their computer or phone, since they were almost all linked to cloud drives of one kind or another… Easy. Peasy.
Those are the things most people run into. But the more you tell me, the surer I am that it’s not one of those. How many contacts a day?
Some days none, others five, seven, nine.
I had to laugh, glad he couldn’t hear me. His stalker liked odd numbers? But was that relevant to the stalker or just Pretender’s choice of numbers when he meant several? Hard to know until I got in deeper.
Are you still using the same laptop, phone, tablet, whatever you’ve had since it all began?
Yes. A pause then, I can get rid of them right now. I should have done it before.
No! That would be absolutely the worst thing he could do. Sure, I’d get to the cloud, but if I could just lay hands on his things, it would save steps and a little time. Hold on to them. They have valuable information for the person I am going to ask to work with you.
Because I was just getting a little more information, a head start before passing him along.
Sure, my colleague was fully capable of doing this, but for some unfathomable reason, I wanted to know more.
Curiosity. That was it. Never hurt to know what was going on out there.
It could prove helpful in another situation.
Okay.
Without having the information in front of you, can you describe the escalation?
The…
When they stepped up their threats.
Honestly, I’m not sure. It always seemed bad, but now it’s worse.
So, stepping up by increments, then. Have they ever made any kind of demand? For money or influence?
What influence would I have? And I use all my money to pay my bills, so good luck with that.
If he had nothing tangible they wanted, what did that leave? Anything about the way they acted that seemed familiar? Because if they weren’t looking for financial gain, they want something else.
I can’t see them. They are showing me pictures of me and my life but none of theirs. Do you think I should ask?
No. Don’t do that. We don’t want them to know if we are right and it is someone you know in person.
Why was I saying “we”?