Chapter 14 #3
“Maybe you should rephrase that statement so it doesn’t start with what if.”
He paused, a reluctant smile toying at his lips.
“I remember some smart-aleck cop saying that same thing to me.”
At his appalled look, I laughed. “See? Works just fine.”
“Still doesn’t work,” he insisted. “But this is different. You took a chance on a guy on the street. I’ve been trained. I knew better.”
“But you were ambushed,” I broke in, unable to help myself. “How could anybody have done anything different? If you hadn’t come when you did, Coleson would have died. If you had gone in with him, you probably both would have died. You did nothing wrong.”
For a brief moment, his eyes closed at my words, almost as if he were drinking them in before he shook his head, biting his bottom lip.
“I don’t get the luxury of knowing anything for certain.
The second we showed up, there were immediate red flags.
I should have shut the operation down right there.
But I didn’t. We’d gotten comfortable thinking nothing bad would ever happen to us.
But we’d been too predictable. And nothing in this job should be predictable.
Every time you find yourself getting too comfortable, that’s when trouble usually happens. ”
I nodded, understanding him perfectly. “I used to go to the same coffee shop at the same time every morning. I’d grab a coffee and write in my favorite booth in the corner for a while. Every morning.” I looked over at him with a wry smile. “It was no wonder that Leroy knew just where to find me.”
Tate seemed relieved to be talking about something else. “I’ve been thinking about that. You hadn’t seen or heard from Leroy for a long time after Will’s wedding, right?”
I nodded. “It was a year and a half before he surprised me at the coffee shop. I almost didn’t recognize him.”
“But he knew all sorts of stuff about you?”
“Yeah.”
Tate’s face clouded over. “It’s almost like he was biding his time for something. Or maybe he’d been stalking you all along, just waiting for something.”
I nodded. “That’s what Will thinks. It makes me sick to think of him watching me and me not having any idea he was there.”
That was what he still felt like. Leroy was like a hovering shadow always in the background. I couldn’t see him, but he was always there. Ruining everything.
“It’s a different type of stalking than usual,” Tate said. “Usually, stalkers are ex-boyfriends or ex-spouses trying to scare or intimidate their exes. Your guy is straight-up delusional.”
“It’s called erotomania,” I said, sighing before setting my half-eaten carton of ice cream on the porch floor. “I’ve done lots of research. It’s a more rare and more delusional kind of stalking, usually reserved for celebrities.”
“A rare kind of stalking? Lucky you.”
“Yeah.”
“How do they get to that point?”
“I don’t know. With a movie star, they’ve usually watched one of their movies a thousand times and convinced themselves that the celebrity is in love with them.
Sometimes they even think that they’re married to the person.
They’ll break into their houses and send them things.
I’m not a celebrity, so I don’t know why or how he attached himself to me.
Maybe I smiled at him once on the street.
According to my research, with guys like that, sometimes a small interaction one time could set them off.
According to one of his letters, I had touched his arm on our date, which was obviously a secret code that I loved him. ”
I could feel myself going down the rabbit hole of Leroy, obsessing over things he claimed I said and did and meant, when I had no recollection of any of it. Once I got further into the spiral, it could take me days to pull myself out, so I took a deep breath and turned back to Tate.
“You mentioned red flags. I also had that feeling when he asked me out on the street for that first date. But I was trying to be nice. I didn’t want to come across as mean or rude. So I went. But I had this sick feeling in my gut the entire time I was with him.”
“Trying to be nice. That explains your self-defense skills.”
A small laugh bubbled up out of me. “I’m getting better.”
“You’re still too nice.”
“I clocked you on your jaw the other day.”
He rubbed his chin. “I barely felt it.”
We were quiet, looking out at the driveway.
“So, red flags or no red flags, sometimes we just make choices, and those choices have consequences that nobody ever intended. The best we can do is just…get a bodyguard and hire him to take care of the bad guy.” I smiled cheekily at him. “So now I’m your problem.”
He smiled, stretching his legs before he stood. He put the lid back on his ice cream carton and held out a hand toward me.
“I agree with all of it except for one thing.”
“What’s that?” I asked as he pulled me up from the chair.
“You’re not a problem for me, Rawlins.”
And with that, we walked inside. Correction. He walked inside.
I floated.
Later that night, I came back to my room after brushing my teeth to find a small nightlight plugged into the outlet next to my bed.