suddenly the kids in her neighborhood had found it amusing to leave notes on her door, pretending to be the resurrected killer of her beloved fiancé by mimicking his favorite way of terrorizing his intended victims.
Sometimes you just had to wonder what was wrong with people.
The first time, the message had terrified her beyond belief, coming on the grim anniversary as it had. Then, more notes came, and they were always the same—someone would leave a cheap knife embedded in her wooden door, along with a childishly scrawled note saying he was “coming for” her.
So she’d bought a security system and a steel front door, and the notes kept coming, until there had been so many, all they sparked in her was contempt. If someone was really out to get her, she figured they’d have done something by now, rather than simply continuing to write about it. And on one occasion, she’d seen a suspiciously gangly, teenager-looking shadow lurking about her front door when another note had appeared, which had led her and the police to believe that she was merely the target of a few young pranksters in the area with tragically inept parents.
“I’m sorry, Addy,” Liz said, breaking a silence that had stretched out for too long. It seemed as if all of her conversations did that, in the four years since James had died. “This has to be so hard on you, especially now.”
Especially now. October again. The month when she’d lost James.
Addy picked at a hangnail as she watched the cold waves of the Pacific Ocean crash spectacularly against the jagged black rocks that lined the shore outside her window. Four years. She’d gotten to the point where she could handle being left behind most days, where the intense, indescribable grief she’d felt at losing him was just a dull memory, hanging in the background of her everyday activities—always there, but something she could live with. Like Liz lived with it, although she and James had just been work partners and friends.
And then sometimes, out of the blue, it sucker-punched Addy in the stomach, leaving her gasping for air and wondering whether she’d even be able to function into the next hour, much less the next decade. And all the ones that would come after.
Too long. Too long to be without him.
She closed her eyes and breathed deeply, trying to pull herself together enough to finish the conversation, so she could hang up, call in sick and scream into her pillow until she fell into an exhausted sleep, the way she’d done too many times to count. Unfair.
Unfair-unfair-unfair-unfair-unfair….
“Addy.”
“Yeah?”
“Have you seen the news this morning?”
She shook her head, swallowing hard a couple of times before she answered so she wouldn’t sound half-strangled. “No. I don’t watch the news until after dinner. It’s not a positive way to start your day.”
“Look—” Liz exhaled sharply into the phone “—I can’t leave just now, but I’m sending someone over—”
“No.” Clenching her teeth together so hard, she thought they might crack, Addy shook her head and willed herself to function. Don’t think. Don’t feel. Put James back in the little box inside her head where she kept him, so she could interact with others like a semi-normal human being. Howling at them in grief never made for good conversation. “No.”
“Addy, I mean it, stay there.”
Grabbing a paper bag from under the sink, the phone tucked between her shoulder and chin, Addy stuffed the knife into it and headed for the door. Just before she reached it, she picked up the note from the floor and put it in the paper bag, then shoved the whole mess into her tote. “No. I’m sick of letting these idiotic pranks disrupt my life.”
Liz let out a muffled groan, and Addy could visualize the exasperated, because-I’m-the-mom look on her face. “I can’t tell you what’s going on right now, but you really ought to stay put.”
“I’m going to my car,” Addy singsonged, feeling stronger now as she locked her front door. Defying Liz’s prudent sense of caution always had that effect.
She made her way to the boxy little Scion XB that sat in her driveway. Fortunately, no one had yet jabbed a knife into it. “I’m getting in and turning the key. Screw you, socially stunted neighborhood children.”
“Adriana, could you stop for a minute and tell me where the note is?”
Addy turned the key and put the car in gear, backing slowly out of her driveway. “Sitting next to me, along with the knife. You can send one of your lackeys to the studio to get it.” Addy owned a yoga studio on Cannery Row, the trendy, store-lined street in Monterey made famous by John Steinbeck, and she had no intention of being late to her first class of the day because her neighbors were jerks. Not this time.
“Okay, look,” Liz said, “I need you to pull over and read the note to me.”
“Dear Miss Torres, We’re coming for you. This time we mean it, just like the other seven times. Love, your friendly neighborhood troll children,” Addy droned.
“You know,” Liz said, her too-polite tone barely concealing her growing impatience, “you really should talk to my new partner—he’s the department go-to guy for stalking cases. He could tell you some stories about why this isn’t funny.”
“Okay, fine.” Addy sighed and fished around in her tote for the paper bag while keeping her eyes on the road. Hearing the telltale crinkle, she opened it up and picked the note out of it, unfolding it against the steering wheel. As she hit an open stretch of road, she glanced down at the contents.
Her hand involuntarily jerked the wheel; the car jolted to the right.
As the note fluttered to the car floor, Addy managed to steer the Scion to the curb, where, hands shaking, she put it in Park. She pitched forward, until her forehead rested against the steering wheel. A sickly, clammy feeling prickled across her skin, and she gripped the wheel as if it were the last thing anchoring her to the sane world. Not that. She couldn’t have seen that.
“Addy?”
“Just a minute.” Taking a deep, shuddering breath, she slowly raised her head and picked the note up off the floor. Instead of the childish penciled scrawls or cut-out magazine letters affixed to a page of loose-leaf that she’d received in the past, what she held was a computer printout of a photo. The image was slightly pixilated, so maybe she had been mistaken….
But then it snapped into focus. A low, soft, keening sound filled the car, and it took a moment to realize she was making it.
“Addy?” Liz snapped, the urgency in her voice carrying through the phone.
“Oh, God.” Scrabbling for the driver’s-side armrest, Addy punched the button to activate her automatic door locks. She twisted around to look back down her street, her pulse kicking into overdrive.
Deserted.
But who was hiding out there? Who had left this?
Who would do this to her?
Suddenly furious, she let the note fall as she smacked her hand against the window. A stinging, fiery pain shot across her palm. She curled her arm against her chest and sank
