Page 215 of Texting Dr. Stalker

Perhaps they’ve seen him?

Jogging up Zander’s front veranda, I rang the doorbell.

I tapped my foot and kept scanning the street.

Come on. Hurry up.

No one came.

“Argh!” Charging down the steps, I paused on his driveway. I could door knock all my neighbours, but Peng knew Zander. If he was going to visit anyone, it would be him, right?

Feeling a little guilty for trespassing, I ran down the side of his house, heading toward his back garden. I wouldn’t be interrupting too badly. He couldn’t be asleep if he had company. So why hadn’t he answered the door?

Weaving my way around the intricate box hedging some landscape designer had done for him, I looked up just in time for Colin to force a large glass of water into Zander’s hands.

Zander sat slouched in a rattan chair in the conservatory. The all-glass walls gave me a perfect view of the potted ferns and redheaded doctor who looked as if he’d been run over.

Sympathy clenched my aching heart.

He worked too much.

He cared about others too much.

Did something happen in surgery?

Had he lost a patient?

He must have because he looked as if he’d lost something desperately important. His eyes pinched, and jaw clenched, and when he tossed his head back, he spilled most of the water on his leg then almost dropped the glass. “That was her. I know it was.”

Colin slid into the matching chair and reached over the small table to keep him upright. Extracting the glass from his friend’s fingers, he placed it safely on the table and shook his head. “I wish there was a miracle pill to cure drunken idiots like you.”

I froze in the garden, hidden behind a trimmed bush.

I didn’t want to intrude if Zander was having a bad night. I’d heard doctors hid their mental health to be the best they could be for their patients. But if Zander was this bad, it meant work had goneverybad and I had no right to—

“I should’ve opened the door,” Zander groaned. “I need to start making her want me like this so I don’t lose her.”

The open door of the conservatory delivered their voices directly to me.

I shouldn’t eavesdrop, yet…I couldn’t seem to stop.

“Yeah, no one is gonna like you like this, believe me. You definitely shouldn’t let her see you in this condition,” Colin muttered. “You’re a mess. The moment she saw you, she’d figure everything out.”

“Nope.” Zander tried to shake his head but slouched deeper in the chair. “She wouldn’t. Like you said, Superman worked. She has no idea. None.” He zipped his lips with a drunken grimace. “That’s why when he dies, she will never know.”

“And you’re back to talking gibberish.” Colin stretched, kicking out his legs with a groan. “How about you tell me what’s eating you, and then I’m going to stuff half that pizza in your face, and you’re going to bed.”

Zander threw him a scowl. “I brought her car back.”

Colin groaned. “Dude, we just talked about this. Stop talking in cryptic code. It’s frustrating as hell.”

“I’m not.” Zander struggled to sit taller. “I’m trying to tell you what happened if you stop interrupting.”

Colin smirked. “Sure, by all means. Go right ahead.”

Zander nodded sagely. “I have a spare set of keys for her car. Her granddad gave them to Gran decades ago, saying she could use his car whenever she needed to. Which was a mistake ’cause I’d banned her from driving the day I caught her pressing the accelerator instead of the brake pedal. She almost flattened the garage and herself.”

“Interesting. Does this little story have a point?”

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