The Guardian

“Over there,” she said, nodding toward the patch of green-gray water glinting between the trees. “Is that the ocean?”

“No. Just a channel.”

Unexpectedly he stood. The tattered shorts rode low on his hips. He handed her the map, his hand brushing hers. She found that the touch made her draw in her breath.

“Look,” he said. “I’m not much of a host. I’m out of practice. But can I get you something to eat?” he asked. “More coffee?”

“No,” she said hastily. “I’m fine. But Charlie will probably be hungry. I wish I’d thought last night to ask you to stop, to let me buy a few things.”

“It’s okay,” he said. “I put in plenty of supplies.”

Seeming restless, he moved to the edge of the deck and put his bare foot on the lower railing. He stared out over the trees.

“It’s going to get hot,” he said quietly. “Really hot. Can you feel it?”

CHAPTER THREE

THE BREEZE CHANGED DIRECTION, making the mangroves drone and sigh as if whispering ancient riddles.

Hawkshaw leaned his elbows on the top railing, not looking at her. The sun made his bare back and shoulders gleam like copper.

“So,” he said, “let’s talk about this mystery man, this stalker.”

Her stomach tightened. “I should go see if Charlie’s ready to wake up.”

“In a minute,” Hawkshaw said. “This guy—he’s been harassing you for a year and a half, right?”

“Yes.” And he’s brought me to this, she thought fatalistically. To depending on the kindness of strangers.

“You have no idea who he is?”

“None.” The word was a knot of gall in her throat. Suddenly, her future loomed before her with all its unspeakable uncertainty.

She was not even sure about her past. Was the stalker someone she knew? She had come to suspect, at one time or another, almost every man she knew.

Hawkshaw turned, almost lazily. He leaned back, his elbows resting on the railing. “So you went to Corbett.”

“I had to do something,” she said with a surge of spirit. “The police couldn’t help. I had to fight back someway.”

“You knew Corbett from before,” he said.

“Only in passing. His office—his and his partner’s—is in the same building as the bookstore. I checked him out. I heard his qualifications were excellent.”

“They are. Frankly, I’m amazed he hasn’t been able to ID this guy.”

She shook her head in frustration. “Every time he thinks he has a lead, it melts, turns into air. It’s like chasing a ghost.”

She knew that Corbett was good. But the stalker was better. Corbett had followed half a hundred clues and hunches, but they’d led only to half a hundred nowheres.

On Corbett’s advice, Kate had changed her phone number six times. She would have changed where she lived, but she could not find a buyer for the condo. She’d come to fear it would not matter if she did. The stalker would always find her, it seemed. She was stymied. So was Corbett.

Now, she who had prided herself on being so independent was on the run. By the harsh light of morning, it seemed an extraordinary and frantic move.

“You told nobody you were leaving Columbia?” he asked.

“Nobody,” she said. “Except my friend in Denver. I said we’d be coming soon. But I didn’t tell her where we’d be until then. I didn’t know myself.”

“And Corbett told nobody,” he said. “Not even his partner?”

“Not even him,” Kate said. She liked Corbett, but not his partner, Bedlingham. Bedlingham was married but flirtatious; to her it seemed he always exuded an air of sly, forbidden sexuality.

“And Corbett’s checked out the men closest to you?”

“Yes,” she said, although there weren’t that many.

George Chandler, her husband’s stepfather. George lived in the city, but he and Chuck had fallen out years ago. They had not socialized, had hardly spoken to each other.

There was Chuck’s brother, Trevor. Trevor lived in Minneapolis, where he was confined to his house because of multiple allergies and never went out. She communicated with him mostly by e-mail because it was cheaper than phoning. She felt guilty, for she had lied to him about what she was doing. She had told him she was taking the computer in for repair and would be out of touch.

And there was her former boss, the bookstore owner, Winston McPhee. McPhee was a kind, fatherly man who’d promised he’d take her back when it could be done. But the stalker had made McPhee’s life hellish with jealous calls day and night, and he’d disrupted the business until Kate knew she had to leave.

“Your father-in-law,” Hawkshaw said. “Your brother-in-law. Your former employer. Corbett’s checked them out. And they seem clean?”

“Yes,” she said, ashamed because at one time she’d suspected each of them. But she had come to look on every man she met with suspicion these days. It was a tense, terrible way to live.

“Corbett says it could be somebody I don’t know at all,” she said. “Or somebody I’ve known for years.”

Her gaze drifted to the picnic table. The breeze rustled the papers in a file folder that lay open next to a black ball cap.

With an unpleasant shock, she recognized the top page—a copy of one of the stalker’s notes. She knew those hideous notes by heart.

This one said,

I SAW YOU TODAY. YOU WERE WEARING YOUR GREEN PANTSUIT AND BLACK JACKET. IN MY MIND I TOOK OFF YOUR CLOTHES. I WANTED YOU SO MUCH IT WAS LIKE POISON IN MY VEINS. I IMAGINED YOU NAKED AND KNEELING BEFORE ME. THIS IS WHAT YOU DID—

She realized that Hawkshaw had read these filthy notes, and her face blazed with shame. Hastily she rose from the bench.

“I’d better go see about Charlie,” she said. “If he wakes up in a strange room...”

“If he wakes up in a strange room, what?”

“He’ll be upset. Charlie has—a few problems. He has an attention deficiency.”

She nodded, rather bitterly, toward the papers on the table. “Corbett seems to have told you everything else. Didn’t he tell you that?”

“It’s no big deal.”

“Maybe not to you,” she said defensively. “But it makes it harder for him to adjust to change than it is for most children. He doesn’t understand any of this—”