The Closer He Gets

Please, God, I’m not ready...

The number on the screen was unfamiliar.

She snatched up the phone. “Hello? I mean, this is Tess Granath.”

“Did you get our messages?”

Her brain was just fuzzy enough she was still thinking Dad and strokes. “No. I must not have heard my phone ringing. I’m sorry, I—”

“Listen up, bitch,” the man interrupted her. “Here’s tonight’s message. A knife can slice all kinds of things besides rubber.”

Suddenly she felt hot and cold at the same time. Oh, God. Not Dad. Between one blink and the next, she was standing in the deserted alley staring at the long slash in her tires. Feeling how utterly alone she was.

And then she was back in her head, listening to the silence. She knew this quality of silence. She’d been cut off.

Really bad choice of words.

A shudder traveled from her nape to her toes. She hurriedly turned off her phone, just in case, then huddled with the covers drawn up to her throat, once again listening.

What if she wasn’t alone?

Would the police come if she called?

Probably, but then she’d have to walk through the house to let them in. And what would they do but look around, tell her to lock up and then leave?

She could call Zach. He would come, and probably stay, too.

Coming to depend on him...would be foolish. He’d be moving on before she knew it.

Plus...what if he was seen leaving her house in the morning? It was a threatening phone call. That was all. She hadn’t heard a window break or the creak of a floorboard in the hall. She knew all the doors and windows were locked.

Nonetheless, she slipped out of bed as quietly as she could. She tiptoed to the bedroom door, closed it as fast as she could and pushed the little button that locked it, for all the good that did. Then she grabbed the antique chair she sat on to put on her socks and braced it under the doorknob, checking to make sure there was no give.

Okay, early warning system was in place.

The caller’s number would be stored in her phone, although she remembered belatedly that it had had an unfamiliar area code. In every mystery novel or thriller she’d ever read, that meant a throwaway phone.

Nonetheless, she would report the threat to the police first thing in the morning and tell Zach about it, too.

Although...why was she the only one being threatened? Or had Zach not told her everything?

Today, she’d heard from a detective from Stimson who explained that he was part of a special unit taking over the investigation into Antonio’s death. He’d scheduled an appointment to talk to her.

Tonight’s threat must be related. Hayes and his friends had probably decided scaring her now might make her remember differently.

To hell with them. Anger had supplanted her fear.

She turned on her lamp as a comfort, an adult’s night-light, then pulled the covers around herself again. Restful slumber was not in her near future.

* * *

“IF THE CLEAR CREEK police won’t do anything, I will.” Half dressed and still bare-footed, Zach paced from one end of his apartment to the other. He had so little furniture, nothing got in his way.

This was the third morning in a row Tess had let him know about another middle-of-the-night phone call. He’d insisted she report every single threat to the Clear Creek PD, too.

Hayes and his buddies wanted her to stay nervous. Okay, mission accomplished.

But it had become plain that nervous wasn’t enough. She needed to be scared into retracting her original statement when she met next week with the Stimson detective.

This was a campaign of terror and he suspected it was proving more effective than she wanted to admit. She’d been evasive, but Zach doubted she was getting any sleep. How could she, never knowing what time the phone would ring or whether tonight they’d act on the threats?

“What can you do?” she asked dully. “There have been three different numbers. All of them from those stupid cheap phones anyone can buy. Can you magically trace them?”

Frustration choked him. No, he couldn’t. Protecting her had somehow become his first priority, but he felt pretty damn useless right now.

“Has the officer you’re dealing with informed anyone at the sheriff’s department?” he asked.