Chasing MHC, Part 2

This is a series. Read Part 1 first!

**Trigger warning: Part 3 of this piece contains a short section of violent content.**

Several harried weeks had passed since I’d begun writing my bestseller.

Friends were becoming a distraction, and I found myself oddly annoyed by their invites to have dinner or play poker. Were they trying to impede my path to greatness? Didn’t they realize what a big deal this book would make me? 

I’ll admit, I did isolate myself somewhat at first — I mean, hey, sacrifices. But then I started to miss their companionship. And my avid book-writing sessions started to feel more tedious without their smiling, background support. 

And besides that, Brody still posed a problem. I’d seen him drive by at least five times. Changed locks or not, it was starting to creep me out, so I figured I could talk it over at the next poker night.

So at the next invite, I said, “I’m in!”

And as it turned out, one of my friends seemed even more concerned than I was.

***

“I think you may need to call someone for protection,” Nancy suggested.

I rolled my eyes. “Like who, the local cops? You know he’s in law enforcement. I can already guess how that would play out.”

“I can attest to that,” agreed Irene. I noticed her hand brush her sleeve. Had she just hidden a card in there again? But before I could say anything, she went on, “In this town, unless you’ve got a dead body in your basement, they’ve got no interest in doing the paperwork.”

I stared at my cards, feeling the weight settle in on top of me. If even my friends couldn’t take a stalker seriously, how could I expect the police to? Irene was right. Without any concrete evidence, I had nothing. They wouldn’t make an arrest based solely upon what a person might do.

“No,” said Nancy, breaking into my thoughts. “I mean call someone else. Someone who could at least give you an idea of whether he’s really capable of crossing the line.” She added another chip to the pot. “I have a friend who’s spiritual — in fact, she’s a medium.”

“A medium in what?” I asked. “Clothing size?”

“Funny.” Nancy tossed another chip on the pot without glancing at her cards. “Okay, Elaine, let’s try and talk it out. Why do you think Brody is keeping tabs? Is he following you, monitoring your phone calls? You think he’s got a tracker on your car? Like, what is it?” 

I had to smile. Nancy was always the most logical of the three of us. She and MHC would have gotten along so well, except that Nancy claimed to hate mysteries.

“Ok, well, for instance—” I paused, running a hand over my face as I tried to remember the latest thing that had drawn my eye. “Some things in my apartment seem out of place.”

“Like what?” Nancy asked.

“Ok, like what: Like a few items of my clothing that aren’t where I left them. And some food that’s missing from my pantry.” I tossed my next chip on the pile — my cards were lousy, but who was really paying attention? Another memory surfaced. “Oh, and sometimes, I’m pretty sure my throw pillows have been rearranged, as if someone’s getting comfortable on my couch.”

Irene gave an unimpressed snort. “Ooh, pass the Ouija board — it’s getting spooky!” she said.

I glared her way, then saw her pile of chips, which seemed to have grown despite no pot having been taken. I rolled my eyes and left that unchallenged. There were bigger issues going on.

“Well, yes,” I snapped. ”It is strange to me, since I live alone. I don’t have any kids running around, pawing through my clothes or helping themselves to my Oreos.”

Irene’s face reddened a little. “But you don’t live alone,” she countered. “You have Felix.”

“Right,” I said, tossing another chip on the pot while I glared at her again, “My exceptionally smart cat is totally capable of opening latched drawers and cabinets.”

“Anything more concrete?” asked Nancy.

I sighed and looked back at her. “Well, this is weird. I found a bracelet on top of my bureau yesterday morning, just behind my jewelry box. It has amethyst stones shaped like little hearts, and it’s not mine.”

Irene laughed more lightly this time. “Well, now we have someone breaking into your home, getting cozy on your couch, and leaving you gifts,” she said. “So instead of stealing from you, they’re giving presents to you. That’s a first for me.”

I clenched my cards and bit my lip to keep myself from snapping again. This was Irene’s way of trying to take the scare out of the situation, but it didn’t make me feel any less anxious. MHC’s quote came to my mind: The two more useless words in the English language — don’t worry. It almost made me smile. Almost.

“If it was behind your jewelry box,” Nancy was saying, “then you really don’t know how long it might have been there. Is it possible that someone misplaced it while visiting you, and Felix began batting it around?”

“It’s possible,” I had to admit.

“And you said you changed the locks after you and Brody broke up? How about we go through a list of any possible ‘suspects’, no matter how far-fetched, and see where it gets us?”

I shrugged and put down my cards. “It’s worth a shot.” 

Irene sighed. Nancy grinned and pulled out her phone to take notes.

I began to list all the people that I’d had any dealings with over the last six months.

Brody, of course, came first: The ex-boyfriend who was really getting in the way of my new routine, my life, and of course, my future bestselling book.

“It’s been months since I broke it off. Since then, he keeps driving by my apartment, he’s left notes on my car’s windshield, and once he even left a dozen red roses inside my apartment.”

Nancy stared at me. “What? With a note?”

“Well, no,” I said. “I don’t have proof it was him, but who else? Anyway, that’s when I changed the locks on my door. I mean, really, how long does it take to say goodbye to someone?” I shook my head. “Even that guy I met at the grocery store thought it was weird.”

Irene jumped in. “What guy at the grocery store?” 

I blinked. “Ethan,” I said. “I thought I mentioned him. It was a few months ago, and he turned up in every aisle I was in. He was also behind me at the check out, and we laughed about it, chatted a little, and ended up walking out to the parking lot together. He offered to walk me to my car, but as it turned out, he was parked right next to me.”

“Was he following you?” Nancy asked. “I mean, he wasn’t hitting on you or anything?”

I laughed and waved the question away. “Nothing like that, we just got to the market at the same time. And no, he wasn’t flirting. In fact, he mentioned his wife, and has a little one at home — I saw a baby seat strapped right there in the back of his car.”

“Yeah, I remember now,” Irene said. “And you’ve run into him several times since, right? Didn’t you say you used him to change the locks?”

“Yes,” I said, “He’s a locksmith, and did me a favor. I gotta say, I felt much better afterwards.”

“Okay,” Nancy said. “So that’s one ex and one locksmith. Any other contenders?”

“Well, Norma, but she’s got her own issues,” I said. “And she’s been out on medical leave for a bit. I don’t think the implants took well.” I paused and thought a bit more. “And there’s Matt, also at my office. I kind of think they hired him just to be nice. He was following me everywhere — the break room, the elevator, the cafeteria. He’s really hard to shake.”

Irene crossed her arms and smirked. “That’s because you’re too nice. I’ve told you, you gotta be more like me: I don’t like someone, I let them know. Don’t let these things continue for so long.” 

“Well, that clashes too much with MHC’s optimism,” I retorted.

Irene rolled her eyes. She was not one to mess with. A good hero for a future bestseller, maybe.

“So what else about Matt?” Nancy asked, looking my way.

I sighed. “He’s asked me out several times. I lied and said I had a boyfriend, but he just got that backwater, thousand-mile stare that creeps me out. I try to leave early most days now so he can’t wait for me by my car, which he did for like a week. And he knows my address, which really unnerved me.”

I paused, chewing my lip for a moment, and Nancy glanced up again from her note-taking. “But at this point,” I finally said, “I don’t think he’s a serious contender anymore.”

“Why is that?” Nancy asked.

“Well, he’s dead. I mean, I think he’s dead.”

Irene jerked up in her seat. “What?”

They both stared at me, and I held up my hands to ward them off. “A couple weeks ago, he was lurking in the parking lot on one of my late days,” I explained. “I barely had time to process that before he bombarded me with the news that he’d just come back from seeing his doctor. He said he had advanced pancreatic cancer, and like, maybe just weeks to live.”

“So, what happened?” asked Irene, wide eyed.

I shrugged. “I haven’t seen him since. And I haven’t heard anything either. I even asked the HR assistant. She knows everyone’s business, but she’d heard nothing. He hasn’t shown up for work in over a week and no one in the mailroom knows his whereabouts. And no obituary that I could find.”

Nancy looked at her phone with a frown. “So, I guess we can cross him off the list?”

Irene gave a short, sharp laugh. “Yes, good reason to give him a pass, what with him being dead and all.”

“Well, dying anyway. Supposedly,” I said, but I looked down at my hands. He’d said he was dying, but what if it was some twisted ploy for attention? I could quote “love a person without loving everything about that person” until my face turned blue, but it was one MHC mantra I could never quite feel — not for Matt, at least.

Still I did feel bad that I hadn’t taken him more seriously at the time. I’d just given some lame platitude I couldn’t even remember now, and hopped in my car. But then, I thought I’d still see him around at work, where I’d have time to at least act a little more sympathetic.

“I don’t know,” Nancy muttered, tapping a thumb against her phone screen. “Is he capable of such a hoax, pretending to be dying and all? He sounds a little unhinged, sure, but this feels too sophisticated.” 

Irene picked up her cards with an air of relief. “ So we’re leaning toward Brody here, yes? Unless there’s anyone else you can think of?”

I shook my head. “The postman could be a snoop — sometimes it looks like my mail has been opened and resealed, but that’s a felony, and he’s just a quiet old grandpa. And my landlord’s never entered without my permission.”

Nancy nodded, put away her phone, and picked up her cards. “All things point to Brody,” she said. “I think you should have a camera installed on your front porch. You need something concrete to prove he’s stalking you, after all. A mystery bouquet is a start, but it isn’t good enough.”

***

Unsurprisingly, Irene went on to win the big pot. Nancy and I were there for the company, dinner, and light gossip, but Irene was there to win, rules be damned. And after I got home and settled down to my next writing session, I discovered that a couple of my latest new characters were acting a bit more like those two. 

I shrugged, grinned, and kept writing. I mean, who wouldn’t love to be included in a bestseller? After all, it didn’t just have to be the villains in life that got pulled into a story. Visions of that awards ceremony sprang to mind again, and I pictured MHC’s look of pride as she gazed at me and considered all I’d accomplished, thanks to her. 

A car drove by, but I didn’t bother to check whose it might be. A small knocking sounded from the attic, but a glance upward told me it was just the tree hitting the roof. I laughed a little to myself. Nancy was right. A camera would solve everything. 

My fingers flew over the keyboard, assured that no one and nothing could stop my bestseller now.

To be continued in Part 3…

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