The Guardian. Bethany Campbell

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СКАЧАТЬ picked up a separate stack of papers clipped together. He read the top one, which was labeled, in Corbett’s firm handwriting, “First Note.”

      I THINK OF NOTHING BUT YOU. I WANT YOU WITH ALL MY BEING. IF I CAN’T HAVE YOU, I DON’T KNOW WHAT I WILL DO. GIVE ME A SIGN THAT I CAN COME TO YOU. WEAR THIS ROSE ON YOUR COAT TODAY.

      Hmm, Hawkshaw thought, cocking an eyebrow. Mildly interesting. Not overtly threatening, just psycho enough to make a person nervous.

      He went back to Corbett’s account. The Kanaday woman said she at first thought the incident was only a “sick joke.” She’d thrown away the rose and thought no more of it. Until the second rose appeared.

      Again the nameless admirer asked her to wear the flower. Again she threw it away. Then the phone calls started. A man’s voice, low, unrecognizable, breathless, hungry.

      Wherever she went, he seemed to know. He told her what she had done, whom she had seen, to whom she had talked, what she wore. Somehow he seemed to watch her all the time.

      The stalker’s threats were always veiled, never explicit. Small things appeared—like the roses, the notes. Others disappeared—like the dog’s leash or a pair of muddy tennis shoes left outside beside the door mat.

      And the calls, wrote Corbett, never stopped. It didn’t matter how often the Kanaday woman changed her number; the stalker always found out the new one. Then, angry that she’d tried to elude him, he would plague her even more unmercifully. At last, when she no longer answered the phone at home, he began to harass her at the bookstore, and he did so until she had to quit her job.

      Hawkshaw frowned at the closing paragraphs.

      Kanaday had just started a new job at the Columbia Mall bookstore. Near closing time, she received a call from the stalker.

      He claimed at that moment he could see her son. He described the boy’s clothing and play activity. He said, “I know why you don’t come to me. It’s because of the boy. You feel guilty because you have to pretend to want him more than you want me. I’ll take care of that, and then I’ll come for you. And then you’ll be mine forever.”

      Hawkshaw swore under his breath. He closed the folder and tossed it on the floor. He stood, restless again. He walked to the window. The view was still obscured by rain.

       Stalkers, he thought with loathing. He stroked the scar along his forearm, then turned and glowered at the file.

      “Find the bastard, Corbett,” he said between his teeth. “I’m not up to these games anymore.”

      He drained the beer and glanced at the clock, calculating the hours of freedom he had left. It was a silly clock, shaped like a cat, whose tail was the wagging pendulum. The phone rang. The back of Hawkshaw’s neck prickled in apprehension.

      His phone seldom rang these days. Somehow he knew this call meant more bad luck.

      

      

      THE MIDNIGHT SKY WAS BLACK and starless. The plane taxied down the wet tarmac, came to a stop before the small air terminal.

      Key West, said illuminated letters that rose from the terminal’s roof. Their pastel color was haloed by mist.

       Key West, thought Kate. Florida. We’re really here. Corbett had told her their destination only when he had taken her inside the terminal back home.

      Now she and Charlie were exiles, strangers in a strange land. Everything felt unreal—how could it seem otherwise? They had come to the Florida Keys to live with a man she had never met, had never even spoken to.

      A wave of anxiety surged through her, but she ignored it. Keeping her head high, she carried her sleeping son down the stairs of the plane.

      Charlie was exhausted. They had been traveling since dawn, and their flight had been delayed in Miami for five hours because of the torrential rains.

      Here in Key West the drizzle was light. The moon was masked by clouds. Beyond the airport’s chain-link fence, Kate saw palm trees mistily gilded by the parking lot lights. The air was sultry and pungent.

      Charlie stirred against her shoulder. “What’s that smell?” he asked crankily.

      “It’s the ocean,” she told him, although the scent was as new to her as it was to him.

      He yawned and relaxed, snuggling his face into her neck. She held him more tightly and made her way inside the terminal’s glass doors. The boy was growing heavy, and their carry-on bag was sliding awkwardly from her shoulder. She paused, trying to hoist it more firmly into place. She glanced about.

      Even at this hour the terminal was lively. She heard Jamaican accents mingling with those of Brooklyn; she saw a Muslim woman in a black veil and a Sikh man in an azure turban.

      College students crowded elbow to elbow with retirees, and a young Asian couple, looking tired, carried sleeping twin infants. There seemed to be almost every sort of person—but nowhere did Kate see anyone who might be looking for her and Charlie.

      Her clothing was purposefully nondescript: faded jeans and a heather-gray T-shirt. Sunglasses hid her brown eyes, and a scarf covered her red-gold hair.

      She had done everything in her power not to be attractive or have an ounce of sex appeal. She did not want to be noticed or remembered.

      She shifted Charlie in her arms and took off the scarf. She took off the sunglasses, too, which seemed silly so late at night, and stuffed both into her carry-on.

      She shook her head to clear it and gazed at the crowd around her. No one seemed to take the slightest notice of her or her child.

      She eyed the crowd again, unsure for whom she searched. Charlie sighed again and buried his face against her neck, as if wearily begging her to make everything normal again.

       Normal. The word mocked her. Normal.

      Her arms tightened around her son with fierce protectiveness. A now-familiar anger swept through her, and she welcomed it; it was her friend and it kept her going.

      But Lord, she was tired. She squeezed her eyes shut, willing the fatigue away, marshaling her strength. She took a deep breath, then another. Suddenly, a voice spoke her name. It was a male voice, gravelly, yet oddly soft.

      “Katherine Kanaday?”

      Her eyes flew open. As if by magic, a tall man had materialized in front of her. His lean face filled her vision, and she blinked, disconcerted.

      Her gaze met his, which was an intense blue-green, and unreadable. Her chin jerked up, and she eyed him with the suspicion that had become second nature to her.

      She had pictured a bland-faced older man much like Corbett. But this man must be only in his early forties, and he looked anything but bland.

      Corbett’s words came flashing back to her. You can depend on him.

      But Kate’s breath stuck in her chest because this stranger didn’t seem like someone to depend on. He looked more like a man who created danger than safety.

      He СКАЧАТЬ