Page 32 of Shadowing Her Stalker

She nodded. “Yeah. I’ll go help Mama and take mine after we eat.”

He gave a quick nod then ducked back into the bedroom. Shoving her hands into the pockets of her sweatshirt, she shuffled through the house, her shoulders hunched against the autumn chill.

Cara found her mother fishing strips of crisp bacon from Grandma June’s skillet and smiled as she listened to her hum an old Beatles song. Not for the first time, Cara thanked the heavens she’d inherited her father’s ear for music. Her mother couldn’t carry a tune in a paper bag.

“Mornin’, Mama,” she said, falling back into the easy vernacular of her youth. “Can I help?”

“Morning, Sweets,” her mother said, turning from the stove with a wide, guileless smile. “I’ve got bacon, eggs and toast.” Her smile faded and she cast a worried glance in the direction of the bedrooms. “I hope that’ll be okay with Wyatt.”

“I’m sure it will be,” Cara assured her. She moved to the cupboard where the coffee cups were kept and pulled down the biggest one she could find. “He smelled the bacon.”

Her mother wiped her hand on the crumpled dishcloth beside the stove and nodded. “I won’t start the eggs until your daddy comes in, but what am I gonna feed you?”

Cara bit her bottom lip and refrained from shaking her head. Every meal, the same despairing question. “I was hoping for some oatmeal,” she said as she poured the rich, black coffee into her mug. “And maybe a handful of pecans if you have some stashed somewhere?”

Her mother gave an indelicate little snort. “You can have more than a handful. Those trees your granddad planted dropped enough to feed an army of squirrels this winter.”

“Then I definitely won’t starve.” Cara cradled the mug in both hands and took a cautious sip of the steaming brew.

Thirty minutes later, the sun was up, Wyatt had emerged fully dressed, her father had returned from the first of his morning chores and Cara was doctoring a steaming bowl of cereal. She could feel her father’s gaze on her as she swirled a liberal sprinkling of brown sugar and cinnamon into the oats before dropping chopped nuts into the mixture.

“Would you like some of my oatmeal, Daddy?” she asked without looking up. Her father hated hot cereal. Always had, always would, he’d proclaimed on more than one occasion.

He picked a strip of bacon cooked shy of burnt off his plate and held it out to her. “Wanna bite, baby girl?” he taunted, his voice morning gruff.

Cara smiled. “No, thank you,” she replied sweetly, looking up in time to see a puzzled expression cross Wyatt’s face. “It’s a thing we do,” she explained.

Their customary exchange complete, her father pierced the orange-yellow yolk of his perfectly fried egg with the corner of a piece of toast, then pinned Wyatt with a stare. “So tell me, what is it you do exactly?”

She wanted to object to the blunt question, but Wyatt’s quiet chuckle assured her there was no offense taken. On the contrary, he seemed bemused.

“Do you want the big picture version or the dreary details?”

Her father took his time chewing his toast before answering. “I want to know how whatever it is you’re doing applies to keeping my daughter safe. I want to know how you’re going to catch whoever’s doing this to her.”

Wyatt paused, giving the question serious consideration. Idly, he broke off the end of a strip of bacon, popped it into his mouth and chewed, his gaze never leaving her father’s face. “Do you remember me telling you the tracing technology had far exceeded what you see on the television police procedurals?”

“Yessir,” her father replied, sopping up some more of the runny yolk with his toast. “Why I’m askin’. It seems like you should be getting more answers than you have.”

“We do have answers. We simply don’t know how they fit together yet. We know what’s happening. We know how they’re surveilling her. We know what’s being said online and by whom in many cases. We even know where some of the communications have originated.”

Her mother spoke up. “If you know who and where they are, why aren’t you going after them?”

“Because most people don’t use landlines anymore. We can ping whichever towers a cellular call is coming from, or trace the IP address of a message, but the technology is mobile now.” He shrugged. “And even if whoever is posting these things is sitting in the parking lot of a police station, the most we can do is question them. What they say is protected under their First Amendment rights.”

Wyatt said the last with an edge of rancor, but her parents responded with true outrage.

“People can’t go around publicly threatening people,” Betsy argued. “Isn’t it some form of terrorism?”

Her father dropped his fork with a clatter. “What if there’s evidence those threats are credible? Someone abducted her at gunpoint.”

“We have no evidence connecting Gerald Griffin to any of the threats against Cara. From everything we’ve uncovered, he was hired help.”

“Hired help,” her mother repeated. “What a world we’re living in.”

Cara reached over and gave her hand a gentle squeeze. “The world is wonderful. There are some bad people in it, but there always have been.” She gave them a sad smile. “The only difference is, now they have more ways to spread ugliness.”

“Exactly,” Wyatt said with a decisive nod. “Most online chatter is nothing more than someone using a keyboard to make themselves feel heard. They can say whatever they like about somebody, and no one can stop them. Makes the powerless feel powerful.”

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