Page 59 of Shadowing Her Stalker

“We came to talk to you, is all. From what I hear, you can be a very difficult young lady to pin down.”

“Cara, honey, you go on,” her mother called from inside the house. “I don’t want you to miss—Oh!”

The surprise and distress Cara heard in her mother’s sharp cry set her in motion. Running up the steps, she brushed past Paul Stanton and his smarmy smile and charged into the kitchen. “Mama!”

Three steps into the room she drew up short. Zarah Parvich was standing in her parents’ kitchen, her feet planted wide and her expression disconcertingly businesslike as she pressed the muzzle of a gun to Cara’s father’s temple. “Hello, Cara. Looks like you missed your flight again,” she said without rancor.

Cara raised both hands in a gesture of surrender. “Zarah? Why are you pointing a gun at my father?”

“Hey, now, no one said anything about pointin’ guns at people,” Paul Stanton said, his forced laugh ringing hollow in the tense room.

The other woman hitched her shoulder in a shrug. “I needed to get your attention.”

“Okay. You’ve got it,” Cara said. “Can you lower the gun now?”

She fixated on the semiautomatic pistol in the woman’s hand. It was strange to see a gun out in the open after living in Southern California for so long. She wasn’t far into her freshman year when she learned to keep her mouth shut about horses, heifers and handguns. Almost everyone she knew was virulently anti-gun. Everyone except Zarah, apparently. Thankfully, the other woman complied.

She choked down the sob of relief squeezing her throat. “You okay, Daddy?”

“I’m fine, sugar,” her father responded, his voice even and steady. “Got work to do, though. Not thathewould know a darn thing about an honest day’s labor,” he added, jerking his chin in Paul Stanton’s direction.

“Hey, now—” Stanton began, grabbing hold of his tooled leather belt and hiking his pants as he stepped forward.

“How dare you, Paul Stanton?” Betsy Beckett said in a low, tremulous voice. “What kind of trouble have you brought into my home?”

“Elizabeth, I swear—” Stanton began, but Cara raised a hand to stop him.

“We can get into the hows and whys later.” Turning to Zarah, she scowled at the gun then the sharp-featured young woman who held it. “What do you want?”

“I want what everyone wants,” Zarah said as if the answer should have been obvious. “I want what people have been telling you for weeks. I want you out.”

“What’s it to you?” Cara shot back.

With a huff of impatience, Zarah rolled her eyes. “Oh, I plan to have a vested interest.”

Cara looked everywhere but at the back door. The last thing she wanted to do was tip Zarah off to Wyatt’s imminent arrival. She took in the familiar kitchen, the ancient wood napkin holder bracketed by salt and pepper shakers, the iron skillet wiped clean and waiting on the stovetop, the café curtains Grandma June had helped her make for a Mother’s Day gift.

The refrigerator’s compressor hummed, undercutting the tension in the room. Drawing a steadying breath, Cara forced herself to meet Zarah’s gaze. “What interest?”

“She said she’s engaged to Tom Wasinski,” Paul Stanton chimed in. When her mother shot him a filthy look, the man took an involuntary step back. “I’m sorry, Elizabeth, but Wasinski could be a deep-pockets donor and if I run for Senate, I want him on my side. His company is about to go public.”

The Beckett family turned to glare at him as one. If her expression was one-tenth as incredulous as her father’s, Paul Stanton had to feel lower than an earthworm.

“I always knew you were about as stiff as a fence post, Stanton, but I never realized you were as dense as one,” Jim Beckett grumbled. “Our Cara is an equal partner in their company. Her pockets are every bit as deep as either of those two fellas.”

“Now, Jim,” Betsy began, long accustomed to stepping between the two men.

“Not for long,” Zarah said. She pointed the muzzle of the gun to a plain manila folder on the small dining table. “Cara’s about to get out of the business.”

Cara wanted to bask in the warmth of her father’s pride, but the glint of sunlight off gunmetal made it difficult to enjoy the moment. “You are not engaged to Tom,” she said flatly.

“Well, not technically engaged,” Zarah conceded. “But once you sign these papers, I’ll be able to hook up with him, you know, as an equal, and he won’t have to worry about whether he’s ‘technically’ connected to my employment,” she said, using a single set of air quotes to dismiss the excuse Tom must have used to rebuff her.

But Cara knew the two weren’t and never had been involved. In one of the few confidences they’d shared recently, Tom had confessed he was deeply, but quietly, involved with a woman he’d met on a tech-free weekend yoga retreat he’d attended months ago. One Cara herself had recommended and Zarah had booked. Could it be the mystery woman in Tom’s life actually was Zarah? She racked her memory for a name, but couldn’t recall him disclosing one.

Cara wondered if she’d missed something big in her old friend’s life, or if the young woman she’d trusted with hers was delusional.

“How long have you and Tom been involved?” she asked, her approach cautious.

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