It was time.
Standing up as Emily and the officer walked out of the interview room, Dane watched her closely to gauge her reaction and see how she really was. Hearing only tidbits of what she went through while running from this maniac had his rage simmering below the surface, and he knew that Coop was feeling the same way. He felt a connection with Emily, and while he didn’t know where it was going, he did know he wanted to explore it. Dane was also pretty sure that Coop was feeling the same way he was.
Walking up to Emily, he noticed her face was closed off. Cold. “Take me home now, please,” she said robotically without sparing either of them a glance and walked out the front door.
With a nod to the officer, they followed her out to see her standing beside his truck waiting for them. “How about we take you for lunch, baby girl?” Coop asked her tentatively.
Still not looking up, she shook her head no before saying, “No, I just want to go home. I’m tired and need some time.” At that, she turned around and waited for him to unlock the door.
The drive back to Emily’s house was quiet. She had lost some of her sass and that worried Dane. He might not know her well, but he did know that if she were being a smart-ass then she was ok. This new quiet and closed off version of her had him very worried. However, she was insistent that she was fine and just needed some time alone.
Pulling up to her house, they both followed her out of the truck and up to her door, intending to go inside with her and try to talk to her. Her words stopped them in their tracks. “Please, just leave. I don’t have the energy to be social or put u
p with two over-bearing cavemen right now.” Unlocking her door and walking inside, she didn’t wait for them to respond before shutting it in their faces and locking it.
“Shit!” Dane exploded.
“Calm down. She’s overwhelmed and needs a break. You heard some of that stuff she told the officer. Baby girl’s been through hell.” Coop pronounced to him. He wasn’t fooled; he heard the worry in his voice.
Walking back to the truck, Dane hopped in and started it but watched her house for a few minutes. Thinking about some of the things this stalker had done to her made him sick. He wanted to wrap her up and protect her, but he knew they wouldn’t be able to until she opened up a little more to them. For now they had to leave, with a promise from the officer that someone would be doing regular drive-bys.
“Call Creed and Lincoln and see what they can dig up on her past and who she was around. Who was around her?” He instructed Coop. Creed and Lincoln Black were two people he knew that could find out what they needed to know. They worked in a special task force for Uncle Sam and Interpol doing who knows what, but they could find things that the most trained hacker couldn’t.
Coop couldn’t believe some of the things that freak had done to her. Slicing her thigh and licking her blood? It was sick, and she must have been terrified. He felt a connection to her. She was in a really bad spot right now, but he felt like they could have something if they could only get rid of this stalker.
Dialing the secure number for Creed, he waited for him to pick up. “What?” He grouched upon answering.
“Damn, dude, could you be any bitchier?” He joked.
“Fuck, Coop, it’s like 3 a.m. here and I just got to sleep. Whadda ya want?”
“Look, there’s this girl we’re working a case for and I need info like yesterday. She’s got an unstable stalker and we’ve got no leads.” He explained.
“There’s more to it. What’s she to you guys?” He guessed.
Sighing at the inevitability of how perceptive Creed was, he reluctantly answered. “We only met her today so we don’t know yet, but there’s something there. In order to explore it, we need to remove this fuck from her life.”
“Alright. I need her name, where she was born, a birthday, and where she acquired this stalker,” he said.
Giving Creed the information he wanted, Coop hung up feeling slightly better that they had someone else helping out. The likelihood of getting it out in the open with Creed and Lincoln’s help was exponentially higher.
“Creed’s looking into it when he’s done in whatever hell-hole country he’s in.” He explained to Dane.
“What do we do about Emily? She’s shutting down. I thought talking about it, reporting it would help. But damn, did she look bad coming out of there.”
“I dunno. Give her time, I guess. We’ll just have to keep checking on her.”
Hearing the guys pull away was like a nail in her coffin. She was tired. She was alone. And she was damn sure ready. Sliding down the door and throwing her head back against it, Emily contemplated her life. Being stalked was exhausting, both mentally and physically. She was so tired and her brain just wanted to shut down. Hide her from the pain that was her life.
Hearing her phone chime, she got up off the floor and dug through her purse to find it. Pulling up the messages, she was immediately sickened. On the screen was a nude photo of her getting out of the shower this morning, only it had been photo-shopped to look like she had cuts all over her body with blood dripping from each one. The worst was where there was blood dripping from her breasts and between her legs.
With bile rising to her throat, she dropped the phone and ran to the bathroom, making it just in time to spill the contents of her stomach for the second time that day. Dry heaving for a good few minutes afterwards, she flopped backwards hitting the bathtub. Drained of all energy, Emily let herself drift off into the land of nothingness.
Being woken up to banging on her door and her phone ringing off in the distance, Emily ignored it all and got up to go to her bed. Stiff from sleeping against the tub, she slowly made her way to her room. Just as she was about to strip down, she remembered the photo and stopped. Looking around the room, she wondered if he’d somehow gotten cameras in there again.
Grabbing her blanket and pillow, she made her way to her closet, not wanting to know if there were any cameras, but also not wanting him to be able to see her while she was sleeping. When the banging started on her door again, she dropped her stuff in the closet and made her way to it. Looking out the peephole, she saw a woman standing there with a package in her hands.
“Can I help you?” She called through the door, leery of opening the door for anyone.