Page 30 of Hero's Prize

Everybody gave slightly awkward laughs, but it broke the tension in the room at least a little bit.

“Another letter?” Colton asked.

“Your stalker has struck again.” Rick wafted a piece of paper in front of him. Colton could smell the perfume even from across the table.

The annoyingly sweet scent clung to the air but at least wiped out the last of the panic from Colton’s body. His head cleared, hischest loosened enough for regular breathing, his hands stopped shaking.

For whatever reason, the thought of a stalker was easier to process than everyday life.

“Give me the details,” Colton demanded. “Where was it found? Anything unique about this one?”

He could see the relief on Sheila’s and Tony’s faces that he was finally acting normally as they took seats around the table. Colton had no idea why focusing on a stalker could snap him out of an oncoming panic attack, but he would take it.

Rick perched himself on the table and handed the letter to Colton.

“This was found on your doorstep. Your cleaning lady found it and called the office.”

Colton reached up and rubbed the back of his neck. “Lucy knows to do that. It must have come after I left this morning.”

But the fact was it could’ve come at any point after about two a.m. last night. That was when Colton had given up trying to sleep—again—and had left his townhouse. He’d gone for a run and then a workout, hoping that would exhaust his body enough to sleep.

It hadn’t. Just like it hadn’t for the past two months.

So, he’d ended up in the only place that had worked for him to get any sort of decent sleep: his ancient pickup truck.

It seemed to be yet another perk of whatever fuckup his brain was having—only being able to sleep in what had to be the most uncomfortable and least-secure place possible. Go figure.

“There doesn’t seem to be anything new with this latest letter,” Rick said.

Colton could tell just by glancing at it that Rick was right. Tony stretched out his hand for the letter, and Colton slid it over to him. A few seconds later, the other man had images of the other letters pulled up on his tablet and then displayed on the conference room screens.

“Definitely the same MO as the other letters,” Sheila said. “The theme is consistent.”

“You need someone,” Colton said.

“I want to be her.” Tony pointed to another bit of similar phrasing in multiple letters.

“We’ll be together.” Rick rolled his eyes. “It’s meant to be. Jesus, if this person is going to go to enough trouble to stalk you, they could at least attempt to be original in some way. What a waste of time and resources. I’d like to find this bitch myself and give her a taste of her own medicine.”

Tony held out a hand toward Rick. “Let’s keep things professional.”

Rick rolled his eyes again.

Tony turned to Colton. “But it might be time to bring in law enforcement. We’re now up to six letters in eight weeks, if you count that note from when you were in the hospital.”

Rick threw up his hands. “And say what, exactly? That someone has all these lovey-dovey feelings for Colton but no creativity or capacity to say anything even remotely interesting? There’s no threat.”

Sheila shrugged. “There’s no threat until there is a threat. Anybody else see that old movieMisery? I hate to think of some woman kidnapping Colton and taking out his knees.”

Colton sat back as the discussion about going to the cops continued, interspersed with generally inappropriate comments on occasion from Rick.

But the other man was probably right—at this point, the letters were more of an annoyance than anything else. Besides the fact that this woman was convinced the two of them were soul mates and continually said that she and Colton would be together forever, there wasn’t much of a case for stalking.

Even some of the pictures of Colton that had arrived with the letters didn’t suggest foul play. It wasn’t illegal to take pictures of someone when he was out in public.

Creepy, but not illegal.

Colton stared up at the five letters on the screen, a feeling of detachment falling over him. He didn’t care about these letters.Didn’t care about anything. The apathy was the opposite of the panic attacks, but it seemed like those two extremes were his only two ways of existing.

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