Stalker in the Shadows. Camy Tang
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Название: Stalker in the Shadows
Автор: Camy Tang
Издательство: HarperCollins
Жанр: Современная зарубежная литература
isbn: 9781408978092
isbn:
No. She couldn’t get involved with him.
She gave him a false smile. “We’re good, right?”
“What?”
“The k-kiss—” she had a hard time saying the word “—wasn’t a big deal. Just the heat of the moment.”
He seemed startled at first, then a look like relief relaxed his brow line. “Yeah. We’re good.”
The relief should have comforted her, but perversely, it created a buzz of irritation in her head. “Good.” She turned away from him and headed out of the room.
As she picked up her purse from the gym locker, her cell phone rang. She answered it as she exited the women’s locker room to meet Shaun near the gym entrance. “Hello?”
“Hi, Monica, it’s Phillip Bromley. I hope I’m not calling at a bad time.”
“Not at all. I’m at the gym at the Rubart Hotel.”
“One of Patrick O’Neill’s hotels, right? Before he sold it to the Rubart hotel conglomerate?”
“Yes, have you been here?”
“Last year. It’s fantastic. Anyway, I’m calling to ask if we can reschedule our meeting.”
“Sure.” They decided on lunch the next day at Lorianne’s Café again.
As they were talking, she reached the gym entrance, and when Shaun saw she was on the phone, he moved a short distance away so she could finish her conversation. When she hung up, he asked, “You have a lunch appointment tomorrow?”
“At Lorianne’s Café. You’ll come with me?”
“Yes. Who are you meeting?”
She hesitated before admitting, “Phillip Bromley.”
His brow flattened. “I warned you to stay away from him.”
“Why? What do you have against him?”
“It’s complicated.”
“So you want me to offend a potential investor for the clinic, and the only reason you’re giving is, ‘because I say so?’ That’s not going to cut it.”
He glanced around. The main area of the hotel gym housed the treadmills and elliptical exercise machines, and they were almost all filled with people exercising since it was close to noon. He pulled her a little to the side.
He stared at the floor for a moment, his expression fierce. Then he said, “I think Phillip Bromley is the stalker.”
FOUR
Monica couldn’t believe it. She’d talked to Phillip numerous times. Although she had a feeling he had another agenda, she’d never gotten any hint that he was dangerous, or that he was lying about his interest in the clinic. She had always prided herself on how well she could read people. Had she been grossly wrong about him? “You need to explain.”
He looked away, staring at some people exercising a few yards away. “I grew up with Phillip. We were classmates in a private school in San Francisco from first through twelfth grade. You get to know someone pretty well when you spend seven hours a day with him.”
“Did Phillip know Clare, too?”
“Not in school. She went to a private girls’ school in San Francisco, and his family lives in Sonoma, but they didn’t become friends until after Clare got her MBA.”
“So if they were friends up here in Sonoma, what happened when she moved to L.A.?”
“He followed her to L.A. only a few weeks later.”
“That doesn’t make him her stalker.”
“I’ve never trusted him. He always seems to be hiding something.”
Yes, she’d gotten that feeling, too, but that didn’t make him a stalker hiding his secret, did it?
Shaun continued, “Clare didn’t consider him a close friend, but they hung out in the same crowd of friends down in L.A., went to parties with the same group of people, that kind of thing.”
“Why would he pose as an anonymous stalker if he was friends with your sister? He had access to her almost any time.”
“She also had a boyfriend and a roommate. And the initial letters threatened to hurt her if she didn’t stop work on the family planning clinic, but he didn’t do anything physically against her—no attacks, just malicious letters. Clare’s roommate said that sometimes Clare thought the guy was only full of hot air.”
“So he only wanted to manipulate her, he didn’t intend to hurt her?”
“Eventually he did intend to hurt her. The stalker’s later letters were more threatening, when she continued to ignore him.”
“But what made you think it was Phillip?”
“Clare’s roommate said that my sister investigated a nasty gift the stalker sent her, a bottle of snake venom. She traced it to a shop on Haight-Ashbury where the stalker had bought it illegally for five thousand dollars. The person who sold it said the man buying the venom matched Phillip’s height, weight, coloring, and he wore a black leather duster coat like one that Phillip owns.”
“Did she ask him about it?”
“Her roommate said she confronted Phillip, who denied it. Clare believed him, but her roommate didn’t. Neither do I.”
“Did you see a photo? Video surveillance?”
Shaun’s eyes slid away from her.
“So you don’t have proof that it was Phillip who bought the snake venom.”
“The salesperson positively identified—”
“Phillip isn’t unusual-looking. Light brown hair, light brown eyes, medium height. And it’s Haight-Ashbury—a black duster isn’t even going to turn heads among the people who shop on that street. There are people there in wild costumes every day.”
“I’m telling you, Phillip is the stalker. Every time I’ve talked to him, he acts like he’s hiding something.”
“Everyone is hiding something, but it doesn’t mean they’re hiding a double life as a stalker. I don’t think what Phillip СКАЧАТЬ