Page 33 of Stalker Daddy

“Yes,” she confirms with a grin, and the pride in her eyes is brilliant.“I was the manager at the DMV.Your friend has properties that have been flagged by the IRS, and we have to report any discrepancies to our boss.”

I don’t know where she’s going with this, but that warning chirp in the back of my mind is almost identical to the ones that I would feel when the stalker is nearby.

“One of his properties is a cabin far into the woods, and we have to make sure that he is paying his taxes so we would call him, but he never picks up.”

I hold back a laugh.Vito has this nasty habit of never answering his phone unless it’s me, and Cyrus has made several complaints that his friend is being obnoxiously annoying because then Cyrus would have to physically find Vito to speak to him.

He could have called me to relay the message, but I guess it’s about something beyond my comprehension, so I couldn’t explain it even if I wanted to.

“Um,” I begin hesitantly.“I don’t think I’m supposed to hear this.You know, privacy issues…”

She shakes her head as she fluffs my hair.“I’m not working there anymore so it’s alright.”

No, it’s not alright.Anyone with a shred of common sense would know to never leak out private information, and she could have a massive lawsuit coming her way when Vito finds out that she had accessed his information without his permission.

I’m not sure how it works where she works, but I’m sure there is some regulation at the DMV to prevent workers from accessing information.If there isn’t, then celebrities and their home address would be broken into multiple times.

“He’s not a good man,” she says with a cringe.

I’m beginning to feel uncomfortable around her.I have had people talk to me, and I had felt unnerved before, but this woman makes me feelunsafe.

It can’t be, I think to myself as the pieces begin to fit.

The notion is there, and it would be so easy to put Clarissa into the stalker role since she would fit perfectly with her access to the DMV and my home address.The DMV doesn’t work on weekends or holidays where I have the most contact with the stalker, and she knows where exactly the cabin is.

At this point, I'm so desperate that anyone who fits the description could be the stalker.But I always assumed that my stalker was a man.I never thought about how they could be a woman.

As she continues to curl my hair without picking up on the anxiety reeking off my skin, Clarissa continues to pin my hair into a bun.She winces when she pulls up her arms; the pain on her face is too real to have my suspicion to put it off as an act.

“Are you okay?”I ask while staying very still as she finishes the bun.

She takes a step back and smiles.I immediately jump up from the chair and turn to her, my hips knocking on the vanity table as she cocks her head.

“No, this is what your friend did.”Her accusation is clear as to who is she implicating.

“What?”I sputter with bewilderment and a commotion of my emotions raging in my gut.And it’s telling me to get away from this woman whose eyes begin to vary into an unblinking stare.

“I tried to tell you so many times that the man is not who you think he is!”she shouts, anger raging in her eyes as she grips the curling iron in her hand.

“Excuse me,” I say as I adjust my position to not be trapped.“You need to leave right now.”

“Don’t you see?”she scoffs, eyes widening even more.“He’s the bad one!He shot me!”

She frantically gestures to the arm that’s starting to bleed at her erratic movement.She slaps the wound and continues to do so until her hand is filled with blood.

I slap my hands over my mouth and swallow the gagging sound back down.

“He’s pushing everyone away from you; he wants you to himself!I did all those things to protect you—to warn you!I didn’t want to hurt you!Those flowers were supposed to be a warning, but I didn’t know that there would be a spider inside it!”

I’m going to be sick.This is the woman who had been stalking me.No one else would know about the thorny flowers and the spider that almost bit me.if Vito was the stalker, then Clarissa wouldn’t be able to mention that incident.

I’m assuming that she was also the person in black that I saw across the lake at the cabin.She had stalked me and followed me all the way to the cabin after the car incident.

“You’re… the car—you hit me with the car!My manager and I almost died!”

Clarissa snorts.“She deserved it.She wanted you to work harder and pay you less!That’s not fair to you!I know what you need, only I do and no one else.NotVito!”

She screeches out the name like it had been her worst enemy.I don’t think she had known Vito at all or even met him, but she has this hatred in her eyes that only someone who had done unspeakable things to her.