Obsessed

“Hey, Emily, are you okay?” Mark asks.

I take a deep breath, but it doesn’t calm me down.

“Why don’t we wait for you after class and walk you back to your car?” Heather says. She smiles over at me. I really do have kind friends.

“I’m fine,” I say. “How pathetic am I, freaking out over a prank, right?”

“It was a mean joke,” Mark says.

I nod. A joke. It was just a joke. I’m overreacting.

So why can’t I shake this feeling of gathering dread in the pit of my stomach?

My cell phone pings and I fish it out of my backpack and pull it out. We’re almost to the sidewalk in front of Wheatley Hall now. Away from stupid, dreadful deserted parks with ghost trees that I really shouldn’t get so jumpy about.

I look at my cell phone and my heart plummets. I think you have the wrong number, someone has texted me back.

Someone has Peter’s old phone number. The earth feels like it’s been yanked out from under my feet. Stupid tears well up in my eyes. Stop it, I tell myself. It’s not the end of the world. It’s just the end of my favorite security blanket.

I shove the phone back in my backpack and swipe my knuckles across my eyes. I won’t let myself be this pathetic over one miserable day.

By the time I see Wheatley Hall in front of me, I’ve almost managed to recover. The memory of the stranger shouting at me plays back through my head, and I look over my shoulder one more time, just to be sure.

A shadow moves between a set of trees. It could be someone running on the path. It could be a trick of the light thrown out from the glare across the cove right behind them. Whatever it may or may not be, it gives me the creeps and I speedwalk into the building without looking back again.

Chapter Two

Peter

I will not ask Roger if he’s checked the weapons report on the murder case. I will not ask because I trust Roger. I will not ask because that would be micromanaging and I hated being micromanaged when I was a beat cop.

The problem is, I really, really want to ask.

I was good at my job back when I was working the beat, and I was even better at my job when I made detective a few short years later. I was so good at my job, in fact, that they transferred me to C-6 and promoted me to Chief of Police. The youngest in decades, and the one they believed had it in him to shape up a station with a dwindling record. I should be overjoyed. My career is the stuff dreams are made of.

Instead, I’m sitting in my office banging my head on the desk as I sort through yet another stack of paperwork, when what I really want to be doing is the real work. Out on the streets.

I’m determined to be the best chief this district has ever seen, but this job isn’t as straightforward as what I’m used to. I like having a case to solve. When I have a case, all the steps I need to take feel so clear. But in this office, nothing feels clear anymore.

It’s like the walls are closing me off from what’s really happening in the world, and all I have are admin tasks. And sure, the numbers have been steadily improving since I took over. At least I have that going for me. But there’s hardly any thrill in statisti

cs, now is there? It’s an empty achievement for me.

My new assistant, Denise, walks in with more paperwork. I resist the urge to glare. It isn’t her fault I’m required to sign an endless stream of papers.

“Cute family photo,” she says as she drops the papers on my desk. She’s looking at the framed photo I have of my former family. “Aw, is that you? You look so young! When was this taken?”

I sigh. “Ten years ago.” I know I shouldn’t have hung the photo. It only raises questions that I’m not interested in answering, but sometimes when I’m having a rough day at work, I like to look at it and remember a time when things were better. And I’ve been having a lot of rough days lately.

My father isn’t a good man. I’ve known that ever since I was old enough to comprehend the difference between right and wrong. So, no, he’s not the best role model, but he’s made me the man I am today simply because I’ve spent my life trying to be the exact opposite of him.

He was a deadbeat, so I’ve been hellbent on building my career.

He was a petty criminal, so I became a cop.

But the worst thing he ever did to me, the very worst, was giving me a family only to smash it all to pieces.

He married Tara McAffe a handful of weeks after meeting her. He swore up and down that they had the romance of the ages.