Page 97 of Indigo Sky

“Who would do this?” Mom asked beside me, her voice tight and panicked.

“I don’t fucking know,” I replied, wishing I had more of an answer. Wishing I could put a name to the person who had been watching and following and invading my nightmares, whistling a merry tune all the way. “If I did,” I said aloud, “I’d fucking kill them myself.”

Kill, kill, kill…

***

Mom called the cops, and because there didn’t seem to be an imminent threat, it took them a solid forty-five minutes to send a squad car over.

Both of my parents called out of work, and I made a feeble joke about all of us playing hooky. Nobody laughed.

The cops took pictures of the damage, dusted for fingerprints—only to find nothing—and met us inside to ask some questions, not much different from the ones they’d asked Kate not long ago.

“Do you have any enemies, sir?”

“Do you have any idea who would’ve done this?”

I answered them without really answering them at all because the truth was, I didn’t have any to give. I mentioned Tyson from what felt like a lifetime ago, and then I remembered what Nate had said last night and mentioned that Kate had once had a stalker who’d done time.

“He lives in Florida,” Kate said, dismissing the idea immediately.

“You’re sure about that, ma’am?” one officer asked, peering up from his notepad.

She nodded, shame tinting her cheeks bright pink. “I, um … I check his social media pretty regularly. He lives with his mom at her senior community, playing shuffleboard and bingo. He works at the local Walmart.”

The cop nodded in a noncommittal way. “Can I just get his name, please? Just in case?”

My ears perked up as she said, “Yeah, it’s, um, it’s Jason Peters.”

Jason Peters.

My blood boiled as if I’d heard it a million times before, and my hatred toward a man I didn’t know grew to the height of Vesuvius. I wanted to know everything about him. What he looked like, what he was doing at this second, what he had done to her, in detail, so that I’d have every justification in the world to end his life. And I knew it was insane—of course I did—but I didn’t care. Not when there was someone out there, maybe notfar from here, who was trying their damnedest to disturb the happiness we’d found, and that person could very well be named Jason Peters.

“Sir?”

It took me a moment to realize the officer had been speaking to me. I shook my head to chase away the red-hot rage muffling my eardrums and focused my vision on him.

“Sorry, what did you say?”

The officer’s face took on an expression of impatience as he stifled a sigh. “Do you know if anything was stolen from the vehicle?”

“No,” I said, getting the impression that this exchange wasn’t going anywhere, much like the incident with Kate’s car weeks earlier. “Not that I know of.”

He offered a single nod as he closed the notepad and put it back in his pocket. “Well, we’ll just get this report filed and be on our way.”

Mom emitted a flabbergasted sigh. “Wha-what? That’s … that’sit? What are we supposed to do about this?”

I had to give the cop credit—he at least looked apologetic as he shrugged helplessly. “There’s really not much you can do right now. I do recommend getting some security cameras though, in case this person—or people—comes back. And be careful. It could very well be nothing, or—"

“It could be something,” I finished, crossing my arms and shaking my head.

“My son and his girlfriend werethreatened,” Dad said, raising his voice. “And we’re supposed to, what? Just wait around for this to escalate?”

“I’m really sorry, folks,” the cop said. “But without anything to go on, there’s really nothing we can do. Stay safe though, and if anything else happens, give us a call.”

It felt like déjà vu, listening to them speak and watching them walk away without having done much but take a few pictures and ask a few questions. Kate looked up at me, a helpless plea in her eyes. I wrapped my arm around her and gave her shoulder a squeeze before letting go and walking after the two officers.

“Guys,” I called after them as they headed down the porch steps.

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