Loe raamatut: «Battle Tested»

Chapter One

Rosalyn Mellinger had reached her breaking point.

She was exhausted, frightened and about to run out of money.

Sitting in a diner in Pensacola, Florida, one she’d chosen because she could see both the front customer door and the rear employee entrance from her corner booth, she huddled around the third cup of coffee she’d had with her meager meal, stretching out her stay here as long as possible.

Although sitting with her back to the wall didn’t help when she had no idea what the person who stalked her looked like. She tensed every time the tiny bell chimed signaling someone new had come through the door, like it had just now.

The couple in their mid-eighties, entering and shuffling slowly to a table, were definitely not the Watcher.

But she knew he was around. She knew because she would get a note later tonight—or an email or a text or a phone call—that would say something about her meal here. About what she’d eaten or the name of her waitress or how she’d used sweetener in her coffee rather than sugar.

Some sort of frightening detail that let her know the Watcher had been nearby. Just like he had been for the last five months. She scanned faces of other patrons to see who might be studying her but couldn’t find anyone who looked like they were paying her any attention.

It always seemed to be that way. But still the Watcher would know details as if he had been sitting here at the booth with Rosalyn. And would mention the details in a message to her, usually a note slid under her door in the middle of the night.

Rosalyn clutched her coffee cup, trying to get her breathing under control.

Or maybe the Watcher wouldn’t say anything about the diner at all. Maybe he wouldn’t contact her for days. That happened sometimes too. Rosalyn never knew what to expect and it kept her on the precipice of hysteria.

All she knew for certain was the constant acid of fear burning in her gut.

Her waitress, Jessie, who couldn’t have been more than eighteen or nineteen years old, wiped the table next to Rosalyn’s, then came to stand by her booth. The kid looked decidedly uncomfortable.

“I’m sorry, ma’am, but my manager said I would have to ask you to leave if you’re not going to order anything else. The dinner crowd is coming in.”

The burn in Rosalyn’s belly grew at the thought of leaving the diner, although she didn’t know why. She was no safer from the Watcher in here than she was somewhere else.

He’d found her again last night. Rosalyn had been in Pensacola for four days, staying at a different run-down hotel each night. Three nights had passed with no message, no notes, and she’d let just the slightest bit of hope enter her heart that she had lost the Watcher permanently.

Heaven knew she had driven around enough times to get rid of anyone who followed. Hours’ worth of circles and sudden turns around town to lose any tails. Then she had parked at a hotel before sneaking across strip malls and a small park to another hotel about a mile away just in case there was some sort of tracker on her car. It seemed to have worked for three nights.

Rosalyn thought maybe she had figured it out. That the Watcher had been tracking her car and that’s how he always found her. She would gladly leave the car rotting in the wrong hotel parking lot if it meant she could get away from the man who stalked her.

But then last night a note had been slipped under the hotel door as she slept.

When she saw the envelope lying so deceptively innocently on the floor of her hotel by the door as she woke up this morning, she promptly vomited into the trash can by the bed.

She finally found the strength to get up and open the unsealed envelope and read the note. Handwritten, like them all.

Sorry I haven’t been around for a few days. I know you must have missed me. I missed you.

She almost vomited again, but there was nothing left in her stomach.

She took the note and put it in the cardboard box where she kept all the other notes. Then she meticulously put the box back inside her large duffel bag. From her smaller tote bag, the one she always kept with her, she took out her notebook. With shaky hands she logged the date and time she found the note, and its contents.

She’d taken her bags and gone back to her car—a tracker there obviously wasn’t the problem—and driven toward the beach and ended up at this diner. She needed to get on the move again. But she didn’t know how—her savings from when she’d had a decent-paying job as an accountant were gone. And she didn’t know where she would go even if she had had money.

The Watcher found her no matter where she went.

Sometimes she was convinced he was in her head since he seemed to know everything she did and thought. But that would mean she was crazy.

An idea that was becoming more and more acceptable.

Rosalyn rubbed her eyes. Exhaustion weighed every muscle in her body.

“Ma’am?”

None of this was her waitress’s fault. She turned to the girl, who seemed so much younger even though she was probably only five or six years less than Rosalyn’s twenty-four. “Of course. I’m sorry, Jessie. Just let me pay my bill and get my stuff together.”

Jessie shuffled her feet. “No need to pay anything. I already took care of that for you. Pay it forward and all that.”

Rosalyn wanted to argue. Jessie had been working hard the three hours Rosalyn had been in the booth. The girl was probably saving up for college and needed the money.

But the truth was, Rosalyn was down to her last twenty dollars. Not having to pay six dollars for her meal would help a lot.

Being able to live a normal life and return to a regular job would help a lot more, but Jessie’s gesture was still touching.

“Thank you,” Rosalyn whispered to the girl. “I truly appreciate it.”

“I can probably hold my manager off for another thirty minutes if that will help you. I’m sorry I can’t do more.”

“No. I’ll be fine. Thanks.”

The girl nodded and walked away.

Rosalyn wondered if she would read about her conversation with Jessie later tonight in the note the Watcher left her. Or even worse, if Jessie would end up dead. That had happened three months ago with the detective in Shreveport, Louisiana, when she’d passed through. Rosalyn had taken a chance and told him what was happening and found, to her surprise, that he believed her. Detective Johnson was the one who suggested she keep all the notes and take photos of any texts and try to record any phone messages. He was the one who got her the notebook and told her to write down everything that happened.

The relief to find someone who believed her, who didn’t think she was just out for attention like her family had, was overwhelming. Finally the feeling of not being utterly alone.

Unfortunately, Detective Johnson—a healthy fifty-year-old man—suddenly died of a heart attack two days after meeting with Rosalyn. He was found in his bed. Natural causes, the newspaper said. Rosalyn was heartbroken that she’d so unfortunately lost the one person who had listened and believed her.

Until she received an anonymous email the next day with a link to a drug called succinylcholine. A drug that in a large enough dose caused heart attacks but was virtually untraceable in a victim’s system.

Detective Johnson’s death had been no accident.

Neither had the mechanic’s—a man named Shawn who had been super nice and repaired Rosalyn’s car at a deeply discounted rate a month ago in Memphis. She mentioned to him that she was on the run. Didn’t want to say more than that, but he asked. Shawn’s sister had an ex who had turned violent and terrorized her. Shawn recognized some of the same symptoms in Rosalyn. He pressed and Rosalyn gave him some details. Not all of them, but enough. He invited her to his mother’s house for dinner, explaining the importance of not going through something like this alone.

Rosalyn, almost desperate for a friend, agreed. When she came back to the shop that night, she found the place surrounded by cops.

Shawn had been a victim of a “random act of violence” as he was closing up his garage. He was dead.

She still had the newspaper clipping that had been slipped under her door the next morning.

Rosalyn rubbed her stomach against the burn. She hadn’t spoken to a single person about the Watcher since that day. She’d just kept on the run, trying to stay ahead of him.

He’d found her again. Pensacola was the sixth town she’d moved to in five months. He always found her. She wasn’t sure how.

Exhaustion flooded her as she grabbed her tote bag and walked toward the door. Jessie gave her a small wave from behind the servers’ station and Rosalyn smiled as best she could. She was almost to the entrance when she stopped and turned around, walking back to Jessie.

The girl looked concerned. For Rosalyn or because of her, Rosalyn couldn’t tell. Rosalyn took six dollars out of her bag.

“Here.” She handed the money to Jessie. “Paying for my meal was very kind and I’m sure it will get you karma points. But I know you’re working hard, so I’ll pay for my own meal.”

“Are you sure?”

No, she wasn’t sure. All she knew was that she couldn’t take a chance that something would happen to this pretty young woman because she’d spotted Rosalyn six dollars’ worth of salad and chicken.

“Yes.” She pressed the money into Jessie’s hand. “Thanks again, though.”

Rosalyn turned and walked out the door feeling more lonely than she had in...ever.

She couldn’t do this anymore.

What good was it to run if the Watcher was just going to find her again? What good did it do to talk to people if any ties she made were just going to get them hurt?

And at what point would the Watcher stop toying with her and just finish her off? Rosalyn had no doubt her death was his endgame. She just didn’t know when or how.

Maybe she should just save him the trouble and do it herself. At least then she would have some measure of control.

She looked down the block toward the beach. She would go sit there. Think things through. Try to figure out a plan.

Even if that plan meant taking her own life. That had to be better than allowing innocent people to die because of her. Or living in constant fear with no end in sight.

She began walking toward the beach. She would sit on the sand, watch the sunset. Because damn it, if this was going to be her last day on earth—either by her own hand or the Watcher’s—she wanted to feel the sun on her face one last time.

Beyond that, she had no idea what to do.