Page 19 of Havoc

Chapter 7

Riley

Iwoke up bright and early the next day and made myself some coffee. I knew I’d need it if I was going to deal with today’s client. She had OCD and was a germophobe. We’d gotten her in to see a doctor for meds, and I’d been working with her therapist. She was just starting to get back out into the community, and I was planning out what strategies I could use if she froze up, when my phone went off. I grabbed it, half hoping she was canceling.

It was a message from the asshat Detective Slater. It read,

Come out, come out, wherever you are. You can’t hide from me forever.

This man gave me the ick like nobody’s business. Ugh. I set my phone face-down so I didn’t have to look at his messages.

My roommate ambled into the kitchen with bedhead, still wearing her pajamas. My friend, Dae, had just moved in a few days ago. Her apartment building had been closed down because they’d discovered a buildup of toxic gas in the basement that had to be fixed.

My phone went off three more times before the coffee finished dripping.

She yawned, stretching her arms above her head. Then she grabbed one elbow and yanked the other sideways. I heard her joint pop. “So, who are we ignoring today?”

“It’s that detective from the club, Slater. He’s been texting me nonsense.”

Her voice suddenly turned serious, and her hand came out, palm up. “Let me see.”

When I hesitated, she wiggled her fingers, prompting me to hand it over. I reluctantly gave her my phone, even though I didn’t like dragging her into my problems. Taking a second to pour our coffee, I grabbed a seat at the kitchen table beside her and slid her cup across the table.

She scrolled back and forth before handing my phone back. “This is messed up.”

“Yeah, it definitely is.”

She took a drink of her coffee, wincing at the bitterness, then looked up at me. “Alright, start at the beginning. I don’t think you ever gave me the lowdown on his crazy ass.”

“The first time I met him, he seemed okay. I don’t know exactly how to describe him—except artificially polite, like he’d read a book on social interaction and was following the script.”

“Sounds like a weirdo. Continue with your story.”

As my friend took several tiny sips of her coffee, memories rose in my mind of our first encounter.

“Remember back when I was sharing office space with three other people at that complex in town?”

She nodded. “Yeah, it was called the Stilton. I remembered the name because it reminded me that there was a cheese by that name.”

She wasn’t wrong about that. I continued. “I stayed late one night to put together a presentation for a new client. He caught me after dark when I was locking up and scared the hell out of me. I turned around, and he was standing behind me—way too close. I jumped, and he reached out and grabbed my arm to steady me. I pulled back, and before I could ask what he wanted, he asked if I was Riley Dalton. I told him I was and asked what he wanted with me.”

Dae yawned behind her hand, still not fully alert. “It sounds like a jump scare, the way you describe it. Do you think he was intentionally trying to creep you out, or he’s just a creep who does this sort of thing a lot?”

“I don’t know. I remember wondering how he got my name because it wasn’t on our office door, and he was outside the building, so he couldn’t have seen the marquee anyway. It struck me as weird at the time. My anxiety clicked down a notch when he showed me his badge and told me he was a detective. He said he’d seen me around while walking his beat and just wanted to introduce himself.”

Dae’s expression turned suspicious. “Detectives don’t walk a beat.”

“To be honest, I didn’t even think of that at the time. I think I was so weirded out by being approached on the street after dark that I stammered around for answers to his questions a little too long, and the next thing I knew, he’d taken off. When I got home and thought about it, I figured he was probably a street cop with delusions of grandeur and thought I’d be impressed.”

“That would have been my take too. Then he just popped up at the club on his off-duty hours?”

“I wish. But even before that I kept seeing him. After the first meeting he showed up at my favorite coffee shop a couple of weeks later, calling me by my first name and acting like we were old friends. He asked to sit with me. By this time, my Spidey senses were going off, but I didn’t want to be rude to a cop, so I let him join me.”

“Shit,” Dae said. “That’s really invasive. Did he hit on you at that point?”

I nodded. “Yeah. He was asking me about what I did for a living, what kind of clients I had, and it just felt more like an interrogation than a friendly cup of coffee.”

“Please tell me you turned him down and that was it.”

---