Page 42 of Shadowing Her Stalker

He inclined his head. “I agree. So now you know.” He stepped back, groping for the doorknob. “It’s unlikely we’re going to get more information at this hour.”

“I guess not,” she conceded.

Then she heard a muffled cough from down the hall. Her parents. Biting her lip, she looked up at Wyatt, her expression pleading. “Listen, can we keep this quiet for now? I don’t want to worry my parents any more than I already have.”

He nodded solemnly. “What happens in California stays in California.” Wyatt held out his hand. “I’d like to hang on to the phone. Emma and I are still checking incoming messages and voicemails regularly.”

She placed the device in his hand without protest. She was discovering how pleasant it could be to have a buffer between her and bad news. “Take it.”

He ran a hand through his hair. “Try to get some rest. There’s nothing we can do from here. We can come at this fresh in the morning.”

She sank back onto her heels and smirked. “Are you going to sleep?”

“I’m going to try.” He gave her a lopsided smile. “I know things start earlier around here than they do in Little Rock.”

She glanced at the ancient clock radio on the bedside table. “My dad will be up and out in a few hours.”

“Try to sleep. There’s nothing we can do right now. Your house can be fixed, and we know you’re safe here.” He started to back out of the room. “We’ll go after them again tomorrow.”

“Right,” she said, though she couldn’t imagine how he planned to go after anyone. She felt like Don Quixote, fighting off imaginary foes. “We’ll go after them again tomorrow.”

“Good night, Cara.” He pointed to the poster on her wall, then hit the light switch as he backed into the hall. “Try to get some sleep. Dream about boy bands,” he added in a loud whisper.

Cara snorted and wondered why her mother had left the poster tacked to the wall for all these years. “Good night.”

The door clicked shut behind him, and Cara climbed back into bed. Pulling the sheet and quilt up over her legs, she leaned back against the pillows, the hood of her sweatshirt pushing up against her ears. She yanked it up over her head and sank into it.

Trolling, threats, doxing, attempted assault, thwarted kidnapping and now arson. Uncrossing her arms, she stretched them wide before drawing them into her sides. The ceiling stared back at her. Closing her eyes, she reached deep into her bag of tricks.

It took three rounds of deep sleep meditation before she landed on a course of action. Decision made, her mind quieted and she finally drifted off.

WYATTWASUPa while longer. Grumbling about the slow internet connection, he attempted to comb through the hundreds of direct messages, forum entries, social media posts and emails sent to Cara within the past month. Sure enough, he found some reference using the phrase “burn it all down” in every mode of communication. Bone tired, he created a folder titled “Fire” and added screenshots of each one to it.

When he was finished, he powered down his laptop and set it aside in favor of pen and paper. But rather than making case notes, he reached into the bag of tricks he’d picked up from the LYYF app in an attempt to clear his mind. Pen in hand, he numbered a blank page in the battered composition notebook he carried with him with numerals one through ten. Then he did his best to distill everything nagging him into a list of no more than ten bullet points to be addressed the following day.

Thoughts, hunches and random observations. He listed them all in no particular order. Everything from his suspicions about Cara’s business partners to the need to talk to Jim about getting better locks installed on his doors. He noted the guest room was decorated in a trendy farmhouse scheme, but Betsy Beckett had left a poster of a boy band taped to the wall of Cara’s old bedroom. He started an entry about her blue eyes, but caught himself in time to change it to a more businesslike inquiry regarding whether she wore prescription eyeglasses. Then, annoyed with himself, he recopied the list of IP addresses he’d isolated and wanted to run the next day as punishment for getting too personal.

In the end it was a mishmash of to-do items, reminders and worries a desk jockey like himself was in over his head on a protection detail. He was forgetting something. What was it?

Tapping the end of his pen against the paper, he gnawed his lip until he tasted blood. When was the last time he’d been to the shooting range? He’d been raised in duck-hunting country and firing weapons since he was big enough to hold a pellet gun, but being responsible for the safety of a living, breathing woman was a far cry from shutting down phishing schemes and heading off malware attacks.

He set the notebook aside and rolled out of bed and padded down the hall to check the door locks. If nothing else, he could cross number three off his list straight off the bat. Satisfied they were as secure as the flimsy lock sets would allow, he returned to the guest room. The notebook teetered on the nightstand. The inside of the waistband holster he preferred took up much of the free space. He’d found an outlet for his phone charger behind the headboard. It sat charging and silent since the call from Agent Parker. He could only assume everyone was in bed. As he should be.

But his mind would not slow.

On impulse, he grabbed his phone and scrolled through his contacts until he found the number for a guy who’d graduated from the academy not long before him. For most of his career with the Arkansas State Police, Ryan Hastings had provided personal security for politicians, visiting dignitaries, sports figures and, most recently, a very high-profile heiress before retiring to start his own agency.

Having done all he could do for now, he toed off his shoes as he tapped out a quick message for Ryan to contact him at his earliest convenience, then stretched out on the bed without bothering to undress or pull back the duvet.

Wyatt stared at the ceiling for a full fifteen minutes before his flighty thoughts landed on the thing he’d forgotten. Grabbing his pen and paper, he scrawled, “Follow the money,” on his list of things to do, before tossing the pad and pen on the unused pillow.

He was asleep in seconds.

Chapter Eleven

He awakened to a light knock on the door. Wyatt cracked an eyelid and was surprised to find bright autumn sunlight streaming through the window. Judging by the angle, he guessed it was early by city standards, and likely midday in ranch time.

“Come in,” he croaked.

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