someone was following me.” The hair on her neck had stood on end. Her flesh had crept and crawled. Her every instinct had shouted with certainty that someone was watching her, but she hadn’t seen anyone. Still, she knew. She knew.
“And then...?”
“I got the first note.”
“The first note?” Surprise rippled through his voice, charged the air between them. “How many notes have there been?”
“This is the second one.” Her stomach knotted.
“What was in the first package?”
“It wasn’t a package. Just the note. I was leaving for work one morning and found it under the windshield wiper on my car.”
“So this person already knew where you lived and had been in your garage?”
“Yes and no. He knew where I lived, but the car was parked outside that night, not in the garage.” She risked a glance up at Paul. “Baby killer—that’s all the first note said.” The words hurt her throat. Made her eyes sting.
“What?” Paul looked thunderstruck.
No way could she say it twice. She’d been honest but glossed over details of what had happened in Tennessee. Now she had no choice but to be specific. “Leo Dawson used that same term.” The urge to cry bit her hard. She refused it, just as she’d refused to shed the first tear since hearing about Danny. “Before I was deployed, Dawson and I got into an argument in my driveway. I was in uniform, out getting my newspaper. Dawson lived a few houses down the street. He’d heard I was being deployed and he blindsided me and beat me half to death. He said I had no right to abandon my son to go to Afghanistan. Then he called me...that. I don’t for sure know why. The man’s crazy. Nobody knew why.”
“How old was Dawson?”
“Fifty-five or so.”
“Vietnam era,” Paul said. “Many called soldiers ‘baby killer’—it was a common antiwar slur.”
“That’s what his psychiatrist said. Dawson had mental challenges, and events just made them worse. Around the neighborhood, people said he often slipped in and out of that era. His doctor said there were also people who exploited him. Apparently after the war he had been different but functional. They thought he was safe to cut loose, so they did. From all accounts, he did well until 9/11 happened. I guess the trauma of it and the war that followed set him off again. That was what his doctor suspected, anyway. To him, anyone with a weapon of any kind was a baby killer. That’s how his twisted mind associated things.”
“What did you suspect?” Paul asked.
“Nothing more than that until the mailbox bomb. But the day he assaulted me in the driveway, he told the police a mother should never leave her child, especially not to fight in a war. That a mother didn’t belong in the military, and one who was and would leave didn’t deserve a child.” She blinked hard, swallowed a knot from her throat. “He was clearly unbalanced. The police arrested him, and the D.A. settled. Dawson went back to the mental hospital and the D.A. didn’t pursue a conviction for the assault.” She shrugged. “I’m not blaming anyone. It seemed right at the time to me, too. He was sick. None of us could have known Dawson would get out and do what he did to Danny and Jeff.” Danny had died and Jeff had been injured. He swore he’d rather have died, too, and having felt that way herself, Della felt certain he’d been sincere.
“So Dawson is loose and you suspect he’s stalking you?”
“I suspect it, but I don’t know it. I haven’t located him. I checked with some of our former associates.” Paul would intuit that she meant people still active in the intelligence community. She and Paul had revealed working in the realm during their assignments, but they hadn’t discussed specifics. Often she’d wondered if he’d been assigned to the Nest, too, and, if so, in what capacity. But of course she hadn’t asked. One of the first things you learned was to not ask questions if you didn’t want to be asked questions you didn’t want to answer. “They’ve confirmed Dawson’s release and that he returned home, but then he disappeared. No sightings for the last ten days.”
“So he could be here.”
“Or anywhere else in the world.” In ten days, he could have traveled to Fiji or Siberia. But in her gut she knew he hadn’t. He was here. He had to be here. Who else would send her a bloody knife and threatening notes?
“I know you’ve checked. Nothing on travel, credit cards, any of the usual?”
She shook her head. “Nothing.”
“What about comparing his handwriting to the first note?”
“Zero cooperation on that. Can’t invade his privacy without formal charges.”
“Which you haven’t sought because you lack sufficient proof.”
“Exactly.” The local police would tar and feather her. They had clashed a few times on her cases, often enough for her to know not to expect any cooperation much less any favors. That was her fault. Too often, she pushed the line. She never crossed it, but she straddled it whenever the situation warranted. The police didn’t much appreciate that. If she stood on their side of the fence, she wouldn’t appreciate it, either.
“We can have a comparison done on the two notes—you still have the first one, right?”
“Oh, yeah.”
“Did he sign it the same way as this one—D.B.D.?”
“No, he didn’t.” Della hedged. Paul wouldn’t like this. “But I think it’s the same person.”
“Why?” He lifted a finger. “No, wait. Let me save us some time and ask the right question. How did he sign the first note?”
She forced herself to meet Paul’s gaze. “Dead by Dawn.”
* * *
Paul pulled out his phone and started to key in a number.
“Stop,” Della insisted, covering his phone with her hand. “Who are you calling?”
“We need help, Della.” Paul frowned but didn’t touch the keys. “If we can’t prove this incident is case-connected and you can’t draw a connection from Dawson to you, then we’re dealing with an unknown. We need access and resources—and more eyes to keep you safe.”
“I know you’re not calling the Office of Special Investigations.”
In situations where ex-intelligence officers were under threat, that was the protocol, but they’d checked that box, if only unofficially, by his calling Beech. The last thing Della needed was the OSI digging into this. They would proceed as if she’d done something military-related that she shouldn’t have done, until it was proven otherwise. They both knew the drill. They’d worked it, and they understood the necessity for it, but it could put Della in a bad position with the military and hamper her in finding the stalker.
Paul stared at her through the shadowy light cast from the front porch. “We should call them, the local police and the FBI.”
Yes, former military members embedded
