Dear Enemy

North looks off, barely holding in a grunt. Talk of Sam puts him in a shit mood as well. Jesus, is there anyone who isn’t adversely affected by my ex-partner in misery?

I should be disappointed Sam is still missing. I don’t want to think about why I’m not. “Don’t take it too hard. She’s had a lifetime to perfect her act.”

He makes a disgruntled sound and finishes up his drink in one quick gulp. “So have I.”

“Leave it be for now.”

The request punches into the room with the force of a bomb, and both men gape at me. Hell. I’m shocked as well. It wasn’t what I’d planned to say. But now that I have, I lift my chin and stare back. “We have more important things to focus on now.”

I swear North mutters, “Like Delilah?” But he gives me a blank look when my head whips around, and I glare. But I can’t form the denial. Shaking off my disquiet, I set my glass, still half-full, aside. “I’d rather hear about the other matter.”

I need to know my household is safe.

Martin sits forward, resting his wrists on his thighs. “Michelle Fredericks. A real estate agent from Pasadena. I’m thinking that’s how she found your address.”

The collar of my shirt hugs too tight around my neck. I swear the damn thing shrunk in the wash. “And you’re sure she’s the one who was with Brown?”

Lisa Brown, my stalker. I can’t say the woman’s name without feeling slightly ill. I don’t care if she’s troubled. I just want her far away from me. She was arrested for reckless endangerment and stalking but is out on bail. They slapped her with a restraining order, but it’s only a piece of paper, not a guarantee. And Brown wasn’t alone the night my car went off the road.

I can tell myself as much as I like that my shitty behavior tonight was all about pride. In some ways it’s easier than admitting the fear that lingers, the nightmares. Long ago, I told myself I’d never be afraid of anything again. Too bad emotions don’t listen to orders.

Martin hands me his phone. There’s a picture queued. It’s a headshot, cheaply done and cheesy, the kind you see on real estate signs. A fairly attractive woman in her mid- to late thirties with dark-brown hair smiles back at me.

“Is it her?” North asks.

I stare at the picture, my fingers shaking before I can control them. “I don’t know.” I remember the scent of strong, cheap flowery perfume. One of the women had been brunette. “It was a blur.” Blood and rain tend to do that.

“She’s friends with Brown,” Martin puts in. “They both belong to a Facebook fan group. Saint’s Willing Sinners.”

North makes a gurgling noise at the back of his throat, and I know he’s holding in a laugh. I flip him off with a glare, but there’s no heat behind the action. I’d laugh, too, if it wasn’t for the memory of being hunted, being treated like a thing while trapped in that crumpled wreckage.

Martin pins me with a look. “And she was here the other night.”

Ice runs through my chest. I shove the fear back. “What?” It isn’t a question. More like the beginning of a threat.

North shoves away from the door. “The cameras didn’t pick up a thing.”

“Easy,” Martin says, bland as dry toast. “She didn’t come close enough to the house. Just sat in her car two gates down the road. My guys were watching her.”

It’s that knowledge that lets me sleep at night. And it’s that knowledge that also makes my skin feel too tight. All my hard-earned freedom has once again been whittled down to tightly controlled monitoring. The restrictiveness of it yanks at my neck like a choke collar, and for an airless second, I’m back under my father’s watch.

No. This time I’m the one in control.

“We need to report this,” North says. “Have them arrest her.”

Martin shakes his head. “She hasn’t done enough to warrant any charges. None that we can prove at the moment, anyway.”

“But if she was there . . .”

“He’s right.” Sighing, I reach for my drink. “We don’t have any proof.”

“At the very least, we can report her as a person of interest,” North pushes.

“Already did that.” Martin pockets his phone. “They’re going to question her. In the meantime, we keep vigilant. I haven’t seen Brown around, but that doesn’t mean she lost interest.”

“Fucking great,” I mutter under my breath.

North lets Martin out, and I head back to my room. It’s early. If this had been a month ago, I’d be at an exclusive bar, surrounded by people I barely know, letting their chatter lull me into a mindless calm. I’d feed off the energy of everyone and everything, all the while remaining apart from it. Not a perfect life, but adequate. Enough to stop me from thinking about things best left in the past.