Page 179 of Texting Dr. Stalker

Christina and Jolie had messaged me in the family chat, along with a couple of colleagues at work. Colin’s text loomed unanswered from an hour ago when he presumably tried to contact me.

“If you’re keen, you’re welcome. All you have to bring is yourself and some beer. I could swing by and pick you up on my way?”

I kept scrolling.

“Sure, sounds—” I choked as my eyes locked on a name.

A name that shouldn’t be so recent in my inbox.

Lori.

What the fuck?

Colin’s voice echoed as he spoke, but I couldn’t understand him. I couldn’t focus on a single thing apart from tapping on the message.

Lori:Turns out you’re not just a stalker but a liar too. How do you know I’m up right now if you aren’t watching me? Tell me, X, do you still spy on me all while forbidding me to see you again? Because that’s not fair. I might’ve been okay with you watching me on a mutual basis, but if you think I’m going to put up with this being one-sided, think again.

“Oh, fuck, what did I do?”

“What?” Colin asked. “What did you do?”

“I fucked up, that’s what.”

“How?”

“I messaged her as X last night in my half-comatose state. I thought I’d messaged her as Zander. I completely blanked I have two goddamn phones.”

“You are definitely not cut out for this spy shit, Superman.”

My heart plummeted as I read Sailor’s second message, sent at three thirty a.m.

Lori:I’ll give you twelve hours to tell me where you put your cameras so I can rip them out. If you don’t…I’m going to the police. And this time, I’ll give them my phone, and they can deal with you.

“Fuck, I have to go.”

“What do you meango? I’m coming to get you, remember?”

“No, I mean. I can’t come to the lake. I have to…. Shit, something super fucking important just came up.”

“Super fucking important, huh? Does this important task begin with an S and end with an R?”

Launching out of bed, I dashed to my window and looked into Sailor’s back garden.

I froze.

There she was, lugging a ladder twice the size of her from the back gate to the corner of her house where weeds grew out of the veranda gutters.

She didn’t mean to clean them herself, did she?

Didn’t she know how many accidents I saw in the ER, thanks to idiots and ladders?

Fuck.

Hanging up on Colin, I tapped Sailor’s number and called her.

I paced while the ring tone echoed in my ear and watched her marching toward her house with a life-destroying ladder.

She never answered.

---