Page 4 of Shadow Dreaming

“That’s a good point, but yeah, she is a witch.”

“You know this for a fact?” I asked.

“Yeah, I did a little research when she started sending me email,” he said.

Penn let out a squeak. “She’s sending you email now? What else has she done?”

“Why didn’t you tell us this?” I asked.

Dante cleared his throat. “I didn’t want to worry either of you. I save her emails in case I need to go to the cops. She went from one every now and then to a steady stream of them. She’s been love bombing me for the past couple weeks. It’s ramped up. And I’ve received several anonymous gifts. I’m leery of opening them now, because it went from chocolates to frilly underwear, to…a picture of you with your eyes scratched out.”

“What the fuck, dude? And you were going to tell me this when? It sounds like she’s involving me in her obsession now.” It worried me that Dante had kept all this quiet, but now that I was woven into the picture, his silence made me angry.

“I’m sorry—that happened this weekend. I was going to tell you tomorrow, I swear.”

I glanced over at Penn, who was staring at me with a worried look.

“We’ll talk this over tomorrow. Meanwhile, look through your apartment and make certain that nothing’s missing,” I said.

“Also, you should probably look for hidden cameras and microphones,” Penn said.

“Now I’m feeling squeamish about going to bed,” he said.

“Then go to a hotel. You can ask Carson to help you look for hidden recording devices tomorrow. He’ll know what you need, and I’m pretty sure we have some equipment around the office that will help with that.” I let out a deep breath. “Go to a hotel. That way you’ll feel safer and we won’t have to worry.”

“Headed out now,” he said. “I’ll see you in the morning.”

“Until then,” I said, signing off. I turned to Penn. “What do you think?”

“I think Rowan assumes you and Dante are lovers. That picture was a warning. We need to do something about her before her warnings turn into actions,” Penn said. “She’s crossed a line, and when stalkers cross lines, there’s usually no going back.”

As we heated up the pizza and then sat down to eat, I couldn’t get thoughts of the tall, gangly woman out of my mind. Rowan was pretty in a modelesque-lanky way, and she gave off the illusion of being a peacenik retro hippie, but she was obviously unhinged.

I tried to shake off the worries, but it wasn’t easy, and all through the rest of the evening, I kept thinking about Dante, and worrying until he texted me that he was in a hotel, safe for the night.

CHAPTER TWO

The next morning, I hugged Penn and scritched the kitties behind the ears, then headed to work. I lived on NW 167th Street in a three-bedroom rambler. The house was one story, with a half-staircase leading up to a spare room. I generally ignored the yard. I wasn’t a gardener. But once Penn moved in, she asked me if she could put in flowers and an herb garden, and I told her to knock herself out.

“Go wild, I know the outside’s your playground.”

Even though she had originally moved in with me out of necessity, we were getting along so well that I didn’t want to think about her moving out. She came with a parrot named Mr. Crumbles, who had developed quite the vocabulary. He was beautiful, a Catalina macaw which was a hybridization between a blue and gold macaw, and a scarlet macaw. Mr. Crumbles had belonged to an older lady. Penn had adopted him when his original owner died.

Mr. Crumbles wasn’t capable of living on his own. Someone, long before Penn came along had clipped one of his wings enough so that the bird couldn’t fly. Penn made sure he had a huge cage to live in, and she would carry him outside so he could get fresh air and she was trying to help him strengthen his muscles with physical therapy.

At breakfast, she said, “I wish I could make him a catio…or…what would you call it? A macowio? I hate that he can’t fly. But you can’t regenerate the full bone structure of the wing and since he was maimed, he’s earthbound.”

I thought about it for a moment. “We could make both—a catio for the cats and a space for Mr. Crumbles.”

“Do you think we could?” She perked up.

Mr. Crumbles! Mr. Crumbles! Mr. Crumbles! Whenever he heard his name, he’d start dancing and flapping his wings.

I snorted. “You ham!”

Ham and eggs, ham and eggs!

“Well, he’s happy,” Penn said.

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