Page 51 of Mine to Keep

I agreed with Noel, and I was going to have a talk with Matt about that. I respected him not wanting them in his home but by the fire escape, entrance of the building, the lobby…yes. Not legal, but fuck that shit. I wasn’t messing around anymore. This lunatic was escalating.

“I’ll get them installed.”

Noel chuckled. “You think he’ll let you?”

I grinned at him “Oh, I have my ways.”

Noel rolled his eyes and returned to his monitors. “I don’t want details.”

“I wasn’t going to give you any.”

We went back to work, poring through files, résumés, anything we could find. At this time the only person I could rule out was Matt’s dentist. He was almost seventy, and there was no way he could be the person on the videos or overpower Matt like they did.

A soft knock on the doorframe broke my concentration, and I looked up to see Matt smiling.

“Hey.”

He walked to me and glanced at my screen. I was currently doing a deep dive into his coworker Joan.

“Joan?”

I shrugged. “You never know. Stalkers aren’t always cut and dried.”

He shook his head. “More Netflix documentaries?”

“Nope, I talked to Aziza.”

Matt pulled up a chair, waving at Noel when he said hi. “And she told you that?”

“Yup. There are seven different kinds of stalkers. Did you know that?”

His eyes widened. “I didn’t. Wanna educate me?”

I turned a little so I was facing him better. “Okay, they are: rejected stalker, predatory stalker, incompetent suitor, resentful stalker, intimacy seeker, political stalker, and hit man.”

“Okay, I feel it’s safe to say they aren’t a political stalker or a hit man.” Matt laughed.

I nodded. “On that we agree.”

“So tell me about the other five.”

“A rejected stalker is self-explanatory. They were turned down by an advance they made, or after a recent breakup they’re trying to salvage what they once had.”

“And is that the one you think it is?” Matt reached out and took my hand.

“I don’t know, honestly. Predatory stalking is generally a sexual obsession. Typically, the one they are obsessed with is a stranger to them. That doesn’t feel like it fits because your super fan knows a lot about you.”

Matt chuckled. “Super fan, okay. Go on, what’s next?”

“The incompetent suitor—these tend to be people with poor social skills, lonely, and not good at relationships. They can be strangers or someone you cross paths with on the daily, but they aren’t in your circle. They will try to get you to date them, and oftentimes can’t see that what they are doing is hurting you.”

Matt hummed. “I suppose there’s something to that one. I’m still feeling maybe rejected stalker.”

“Then you have the resentful stalker. Because your person seems to want you to be with them, saying things like ‘You broke my heart.’ I don’t think this one fits, but it could.”

“How do you figure?” Matt sandwiched my hand in both of his.

“They feel as if they were mistreated. They usually have a mental diagnosis, are paranoid, self-righteous, and self-pitying. They favor stalking as a way of punishing you.”

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