24. Mike

24

MIKE

I'd managed a whole two hours of restless sleep before I jolted awake, wincing at the crick in my neck.

My futon bed was too damaged to sleep on, but the extra padding from my old sleeping bag and the thick comforter I'd found in my closet hadn't made my hardwood floor any better to lie on all night.

I'd had a hard time getting comfortable enough to sleep, but Lila dozed peacefully with her head on my chest. I ran my hand through her hair, smiling at her soft sigh as she cuddled into my shoulder.

I'd spent most of yesterday terrified I'd never see her again. When she wasn't at my doorstep when I came home from work, I'd been sure my biggest fears had come true and she'd decided to leave.

And I'd been wrecked.

When I'd found her at my door, I'd feared it was to say goodbye. The minute she'd said she wanted to stay, I'd taken her into my arms and showed her how much I'd still have her all over my apartment and, finally, on my floor.

If this were any other case, I would only be involved on a need-to-know basis. I'd become a cop in the first place for situations just like this. I wanted to fight behind the scenes to keep everyone safe, but now that I was the target—along with all the most important people in my life—I had no answers other than to wait for something else to happen, and I hoped whoever this was fucked up enough for us to catch them next time.

It was an excruciating kind of helplessness that itched under my skin, and I couldn't relax enough to sleep or even sit still.

I was too close to it and too worried about what would happen next and to whom to be of any use, but my worries went beyond trying to protect all of us.

Was I really cut out to be a cop if someone had been following us this closely for this long and I'd never noticed? For months, all I'd seen and all I'd thought about was Lila, and now it seemed like I was paying a high price for the distraction.

When I wasn't dreading what would happen next, I spent the rest of my time wallowing in shame over all the ways I'd failed at my job and at protecting Lila and my family.

Today was my day off, and Keith told me to take it, promising he'd let me know if anything else happened. At the very least, I appreciated being on the inside and knowing all the details rather than what Keith and Jude would tell me if I were simply a regular citizen and stalking victim.

For today, until I heard otherwise, I wanted to stay with Lila just like this, only in her bed with a sturdy mattress and box spring so I could enjoy having my girl back without a neck cramp.

Lila stirred against me as my phone buzzed next to me. I glanced at Keith's name on the screen and cringed. Whoever this was had been angry enough to keep coming at us instead of spacing it out. My heart thudded in my ears as I hoped against logic for at least a sliver of good news.

"Keith, what happened now?"

"We stopped Ted coming into Kelly Lakes this morning. He was on the main road heading into town, speeding at a good amount over the limit. The officer spotted an expired inspection sticker and broken taillight, and it pissed Ted off enough for the officer to be able to bring him in."

"Wait," I whispered, sliding out from Lila's hold as I sat up on the floor. "How did they know to look for him?"

"I put out an unofficial alert yesterday around the station after you left to keep an eye out for a Ted Barrett from Pennsylvania. Not exactly by the book, but when my family is involved, I worry about that shit later. I need you to get your uniform on and come in."

"You want me to question him? Won't that just agitate him more?"

"That's the point. I want you to sit there, quietly, without any emotion, while Jude and I question him. If he's really behind all this, he'll know who you are. From what the arresting officer said and what Lila told us, he's not exactly good at holding in his emotions. If he reacts to you, we know it's a good chance that he's the one."

"Why else would he be here?"

"He may be staying at a hotel out of town. Or he could be just getting here and all that's been happening is just a coincidence. I'm hoping it's him and we can charge him today, but we need to know for sure."

"There's no reason for him to be here other than Lila."

"Agreed, so whatever he's up to or has been up to, I want that squared away as soon as possible. How fast can you get here?"

"Give me twenty minutes."

I hung up and let my chin drop to my chest. This was either a breakthrough or a part two no one was expecting. Either way, I wanted a look at the asshole who'd tortured Lila for months and to figure out what the hell he was doing here.

"What's going on?" Lila asked me in a scratchy voice as she pushed off the floor. "Ouch," she hissed, wincing as she grabbed the back of her neck.

"Sorry, sweetheart," I crooned, rubbing the spot on her neck over her hand. "My floor isn't very comfortable."

"Don't be sorry. Was that the station?" She nodded to the phone in my hand.

"That was Keith. They grabbed Ted on his way into town."

Her hooded eyes popped open as she sucked in a gasp.

"They got him? It's over?"

The hope swimming in her hazel eyes matched the one kicking up my pulse, but I was afraid to feel it until I saw him.

"I don't know about over. He was speeding into town on the main road. I don't know if he's been here or just arriving. Keith wants me to sit in while they question him and see if he reacts."

"See if he reacts?"

I grabbed her hand and laced our fingers together, for her benefit and mine.

"If this is him, he's been following us closely enough to know who I am and who my family is. From what you've told us and how it sounds like he reacted to being brought in, if he knows who I am, he won't be able to hide his hate. Either way, he has no other reason to be here but you."

"Seriously?" She rubbed at her eyes. "So this could be him just getting here, and the rest could be a different problem?"

"Unfortunately. I'm hoping this is all him and we can charge him. But while I'm at the station, I want you to go home and lock the door until I come back."

"Okay." Lila grabbed the comforter and wrapped it around her naked body as she stood.

"I have to believe that we're close. Whoever is behind all this is going to be caught, and we can all move on. They're too angry not to slip up."

"That does sound like Ted," she coughed out a laugh. "Be careful. Both at the station and on the way there."

I bent to kiss her lips, soft and sensual but quick enough not to start anything. As much as I wanted to race to the station and get all this over with, I wished I could just get lost in her for the next few hours and pretend none of this had ever happened. That we could just be in love without anyone torturing us because of it.

"I'll be okay. Get dressed, and I'll walk you across the street before I go." I cupped her cheek. "We are almost there. I don't think it's going to be something we'll ever laugh about, but it's going to be rearview soon enough."

"I know. I believe in you, Officer Russo."

I shut my eyes as she kissed my cheek. She'd have to believe in me enough for the both of us.

I rushed to get ready and stood outside Lila's door until I heard all three locks click, and I hurried to my truck.

"Mike?"

I clenched my eyes shut at the sound of Amber's voice. She liked to jog around town in the early mornings and sometimes passed through the neighborhood, but I didn't have time to talk to her or anyone else.

"Hey, Amber. Sorry, I can't really talk. I'm due at the station."

"You're doing overtime on your day off? I was going to ask you if you were up for lunch later. I'm supposed to help Claudia do inventory this morning, so I thought I'd go for a long run first."

"Not today, but listen," I said, glancing at Lila's front door. "Maybe when you finish with Claudia, can you pay Lila a visit? I'd feel better if someone was stopping by."

She pulled her brows together. "Sure, I can do that. Is she in trouble or something?"

"Something. I can't get into it now, but I'd owe you." I tried to smile as I stepped into my truck.

"She's really something special, I guess," she said, squinting at me.

"Yes, she is," I said, gripping the steering wheel as I thought of meeting my girlfriend's once and possibly current stalker, fury pumping through my veins at all she'd gone through and had never deserved. This had to stop now.

"Are you all right?" Amber asked, studying me as she stepped back.

"No, but I will be." I sucked in a breath and let it out slowly before turning my head. "Have a good run. And thank you."

She smiled back at me as I shut the door, fighting the urge to floor the gas pedal as I started the engine and pulled away from the curb.

I made it to the station in record time and rushed inside, ignoring all the heads swooping in my direction as I headed for Keith's office.

"Good morning, Russo," Keith said, a tiny curve to his lips as he came up to me. "You look like shit."

A laugh escaped me as he placed a hand on my shoulder.

"I feel like shit, so that tracks."

His hint of a smile faded as his brows pulled together.

"I need you not to react. You're just a random cop in the investigation, not his obsession's current boyfriend. At least not until we get a read on him. No matter what he says about Lila, you stay quiet and let Jude and me lead."

I nodded. "Understood, Chief."

"This is one of the hardest things about this job," Keith said as we headed toward the interrogation room. "Others can react, but we can't. And when it's about someone you love, the effort not to eats away at you. When you start to waver a little, just know this—" he turned to me as he reached for the doorknob, "— if he's the one who came after my little niece, I will be battling the urge to kill him too. I'll leave with an ulcer just like you, but both of us will do our jobs and not show it."

"Got it," I said as I followed him down the hall to the interrogation rooms.

In a weak moment, I'd looked up the viral video that had gotten Lila fired. It didn't have a clear image of Ted, only the side of his face as he yelled at reception and the back of his head as he was carried out by security.

I hadn't gotten a good enough look at him to spot him in a crowd or a lineup, but as I stared down at the defiance in his face, glaring at the wall with his arms crossed and his legs stretched and spread wide, he matched every description I'd had in my head for a petulant asshole who didn't like to be told no.

"Ted, this is Officer Russo and Chief McGrath. As I mentioned before, we have a few questions to ask."

Keith and I took seats next to Jude as I searched his face. He was average in every way. Medium, slightly stocky build, brown hair and eyes, pale complexion.

He groaned, tapping his fingers as if we were wasting his time.

"Do I need a lawyer?"

"I don't know, do you?" Jude asked, his tone even, almost bored. "I can call the public defender's office and get one here in a couple of hours."

"No, I don't need a lawyer, and I don't feel like wasting even more of my time. Just spit out why I'm here this long for a broken taillight and an expired inspection."

"Noted. You're from Philly, right?" Keith asked. "That's a long way from here. What brings you into town?"

"I'm visiting someone. Does that have to be cleared by the local police department?" He huffed, rolling his eyes like the man-child he obviously was.

"Who are you visiting? It's a small town, so everyone knows everyone," Keith said as he flashed Ted an easy grin.

"I don't see how that matters," he spat back.

"Well," Keith began, "it kind of does if you're here to see an ex-girlfriend who moved to town to get away from you." Keith leaned closer to the table. "You're here to see Lila, right? And I'll bet she's not expecting you."

His defiance melted from his face.

"I'm only here to talk to her. Apologize for how I acted since she won't answer calls or emails."

"And you think just showing up is better?" Jude asked.

"Okay," he said, his breathing becoming quicker and heavier as he raked a hand through his short brown hair. "I'm guessing she…told you all that happened. I was in a bad place. She has every right to be angry. My job put me on leave until I went to counseling, and after a few months, I finally realized how wrong I was."

He glanced over at me, a deep furrow in his brow as he met my gaze, as if he were pleading with me and all of us. But I found no malice, rage, or difference in how he regarded me, compared to how he looked at Jude and Keith.

Did I believe he was here to apologize to Lila as part of his therapy, or did he have plans to worm his way back into her life? I wasn't sure.

But the more I heard him explain himself, the more I hated the sour pit in my stomach.

It wasn't him. I knew it with a crushing certainty.

"Lila gave us records of all her contact with you," Jude said, still cool and emotionless as he spoke to Ted. "Despite her refusal to speak to you, you ignored it and stalked her until she left Philly, even threatening her friends. I think apologizing face-to-face won't give you the closure you seem to be claiming to seek and will only give her more ammunition to press charges."

His eyes widened after Jude said "charges."

"She doesn't have to do that. I would have told her family to tell her I'm sorry, but they told me they don't really speak to her, and when they do, they can't mention me. I get it."

Keith snuck me a look, and I replied with a tiny nod.

However delusional he still was, he seemed sincere. Maybe therapy had helped. The mention of her family not really speaking to her made me angrier than anything Ted had said so far.

"How did you know she was here?" I asked before I could help myself.

"I couldn't find her address, but her brother said she was probably up here since her cousin's family lived in town and it was far enough in the middle of nowhere to hide. I figured it was small enough to look around and find her."

I clasped my hands together and leaned forward, taking a chance I hoped Keith wouldn't kick my ass for.

"I will let her know you're sorry. And that she doesn't have to worry about you bothering her ever again."

"You all know her, I guess," he said, darting his eyes back and forth.

"We all do, yes, but I'm her boyfriend. I will extend your apologies when I see her at home later."

I caught Keith's head whip to mine in my periphery.

Ted's eyes went wide as he nodded slowly. Whoever was behind those vicious notes of the past couple of days would have lunged at me by now, and judging by Ted's surprised reaction, this was new information to him.

I'd believed my first instinct, but now I had all the confirmation I needed.

"You're free to go," Keith said. "But I'd take that same road out of Kelly Lakes tonight and head back to Philly. It's nice that you wanted to make amends, but the best way to do that is to stay as far away from her as possible. Get me?"

Ted swallowed and pushed up to stand.

"I'm free to go?"

"You are," Jude said. "You can get your car and be on your way."

Ted muttered a thank-you as he headed for the door, pausing as he glanced at me over his shoulder.

"Please tell her I'm sorry. I know I crossed the line. A few times." He lifted his shoulder in a shrug before the officer outside led him toward the front desk.

"I know," I said, holding up a hand as Keith scowled at me. "But I needed to push. And now we know."

"It's not him." Keith's head fell back as he cupped his forehead. "I don't know if I fully believe that he was here to apologize, but finding out she had a cop boyfriend may have squashed any other plans he might have had."

"Agreed," Jude said, tossing the folder onto the table. "Couldn't be easy, could it?"

"Chief!" Mrs. Canale, our station secretary, rushed in the open door. "Mrs. Scarpullo is here to see you. She said she has proof that Mrs. Wagner's dog has been terrorizing her yard."

"I don't have the energy for this today," Keith grumbled. "Although I'd love for this to be the biggest problem we had again."

I nodded, wishing along with him that the worst part of my day was another bullshit call to one of their houses.

"She said she has video from her cameras that she needs you to see right now."

"Wait," I said as my heart leaped into my throat. "She has cameras all over that house. Her house is almost right across the street from the Francos. Knowing her, she has extra cameras on the side facing Mrs. Wagner?—"

"Which should give us a clear view of the side entrance to Lila's apartment. God bless that woman's spite," Keith said on a loud exhale. "We will take that video to view right now."

Keith jogged to the front desk, and I was right behind him as an agitated Mrs. Scarpullo popped off one of the waiting area chairs.

"Chief, I need someone to look at this right away," she said, handing him the SD card.

"Absolutely, Mrs. Scarpullo. I'm taking this to the back right now and will let you know what we find."

"Excuse me," she said, grabbing his arm when he turned to leave. "I would like to view it with you."

"I'm sorry. It's against procedure. We need to view it first and discuss it with you later. Mrs. Canale will help you sign it into evidence with your permission to view it."

He put his hand on her shoulder when she opened her mouth to argue.

"Don't worry. I can promise you that I am going to view it personally right now and be in touch very soon."

He motioned for me to follow him back to his office as we left Mrs. Scarpullo calling out in protest behind us.

"I'm going to need to send Mrs. Canale flowers or give her a raise for what she's going through right now. If this shows us what we need, I'll give her both," Keith said as he held the door open for Jude and shut it behind him.

Keith put the card into his computer and searched by date, starting with the night Lila's car was keyed.

"That has to be the best home camera video footage I've ever seen," Jude mused as he shook his head. "It's crystal clear. I can see the leaves in the flower bed above Lila's door."

"Again, thank God for that woman's spite and the thousands of dollars it made her spend," Keith said, fast-forwarding the footage until an image moved on-screen.

Someone in a hoodie crept up to Lila's car, glanced behind them, and scraped something against her door in slow strokes. They'd glance at the door for a minute and go back to it, scraping faster and deeper until they stepped back and assessed the damage they'd done.

The whole scene gave me chills. I'd always believed the letters were scratched in with too much intention to be random, but to see the hate behind it made me want to run back to Lila's apartment and not leave her until the guy in the hoodie was caught.

"They're short, but it doesn't seem like a kid," Keith said as he zoomed in. The shirt dwarfed them, the sleeves hanging low enough to hide their hands as they continued to make long marks on the door.

"A little hot to wear a hoodie," Jude said.

"That doesn't surprise me," Keith said. "Most of these kids wear hoodies when they pull this shit to cover their faces, no matter what season it is. All the kids we picked up that night wore hoodies."

Keith pressed a button that changed angles and repeated it as the screen cleared. My heart stopped when the hood drooped enough to show the person's profile, right when I recognized the writing on the sweatshirt sleeve.

"Stop," I said, grabbing Keith's arm. "Can you zoom in on the letters?" I pointed to the screen, praying with all I had that I was wrong.

"KLH Robotics," Keith whispered. "They haven't had robotics at the high school since you graduated, I think. Well, that narrows it down, at least."

I brought my fist to my mouth as I fought to stay upright.

"We had those sweatshirts made when we went to the state competition my senior year. They were only printed once."

"Okay," Jude said, still watching the screen. "We need to get a list of who was on the team."

"No," I managed to breathe out. "That's Amber."

"Amber?" Keith craned his neck to me. "Little Amber Green. Your friend. You're sure?"

"She came to the competition with us. I was a sore loser and said I was throwing out my sweatshirt, but she asked to keep it, even though it was always three sizes too big on her."

Fuck-fuck-fuck.

"I thought you never dated," Keith said, his eyes still searching the screen.

"We didn't. We've only ever been friends. We used to double-date, for fuck's sake. Where is this coming from?"

"That is something we're going to have to find out." Keith searched by the date we'd found the letter under Lila's door. "It's possible it's two separate things."

"Do you really believe that?" I asked, my eyes still glued to the screen.

"For your sake, I'm hoping so." He stopped the footage after eight p.m., skipping ahead until something moved at the corner of the screen. My chest tightened when I saw the same hoodie, the figure kneeling to peek in Lila's window at midnight. Her bedroom faced the outside window, and although the blinds were mostly closed, someone could see right inside up that close.

They padded to the door, bent down, and popped up at just the right angle to make out Amber's face.

"Jesus Christ." I fell back against the wall. How had I not seen this? I knew she was upset with me for being so busy with Lila, but I'd never once thought she was capable of any of this.

That all tracked. Lila's car was scratched just as we started to spend a lot of time together, and the letter came right after Amber must have seen us at the beach.

She'd known what going after my sister would do to me, and Lila had told her about what had happened with Ted to explain why she'd panicked at the bar the night I'd come to see her home.

Without knowing it, Lila had given Amber the ammunition to use old wounds to torture her.

"You know, I didn't think anything of it. But Claudia told me Amber quit last night," Jude said.

"She quit?"

"Yeah, she told her that she wanted to find a job by school with better hours, which Claudia said she understood. But she quit with no notice, so Claudia's been scrambling for coverage."

"I saw Amber this morning. She said she was doing inventory with Claudia early and then she'd be off."

I'd been running into Amber at odd places lately. How long had she been watching us—or watching me?

I had no clue if it had started with Lila or had gone on for years.

Maybe I really was a shitty cop because I never would have seen this coming.

"Maybe she wanted an alibi," Keith said. "This is enough for an arrest. Whatever her motivation is, she's dangerous and brazen enough to scare your sister, and those videos show a shit-ton of obsession and hate."

I nodded, the chills still zapping up and down my spine from what I'd seen and what I'd realized.

"She's staying at her parents' house from what I know," Jude said, "Although, if she quit the bar and told you she was going in for inventory, I don't know where she'd be now."

The shock cleared enough for my heart to stop a second time.

What had I done?

"I told her to stop by Lila's later while I was at work because I didn't want her all alone."

"Then let's get the hell over there," Keith said, popping out of his chair.

I ran after Jude and Keith, all of us piling into Keith's cruiser as we took off with the sirens blaring.

I wanted to believe that Amber wouldn't hurt Lila, but I had no idea who she was anymore.

She'd had no issues with other women I'd dated, but maybe that was because I'd always sworn to her and everyone else I wouldn't get serious with any of them.

Once Amber had figured out that Lila was different, she'd hated her enough to taunt her and then use what Lila had confided to her against all of us.

Amber needed help, but I couldn't care about that yet.

Not only had I broken my promise to Lila that she'd be safe with me, but I'd also led everything I'd been trying to protect her from right to her.