Page 25 of X Marks the Stalker
My heart continues to race, but not entirely from fear anymore. A strange, electric current runs through my veins.
Someone thinks I’m worth watching. Someone considers me a threat.
I’ve been hunting a story, and now someone’s hunting me back.
My lips curve into a smile that surprises even me. This isn’t just a violation—it’s validation. Confirmation I’m onto something big enough to warrant surveillance.
I take the camera from the ziplock bag, tiny and black with an almost imperceptible lens, and place it on mykitchen table, running my fingertip around its edge. The quality of the manufacturing—precise, expensive, professional.
“You’re not from Best Buy, are you?” I murmur, studying it from different angles. “Someone dropped serious cash to watch me eat ramen in my pajamas.”
I pull a chair out and sit, leaning forward on my elbows. The rage still simmers beneath my skin, but curiosity burns hotter.
“So,” I say to the camera, grabbing a packet of peanut butter cups from my sweatshirt pocket, “you picked me. Why?”
I unwrap the chocolate, the familiar smell grounding me as my mind races through possibilities.
I tally up my ongoing projects in my head, the type of stuff I chase forThe Boston Beaconto pay the bills. The pieces that wake me in the middle of the night.
“Let’s see. I’m wrapping up the exposé on that city councilman skimming from the park restoration fund. Small potatoes, really. About fifteen thousand missing, and honestly, the story’s barely worth the digital ink.”
I take another bite of chocolate, talking through it.
“There’s the profile on the South End homeless shelter losing its funding. Important but not exactly breaking news.”
I lick my fingers.
“The three-part series on potholes and infrastructure neglect in lower-income neighborhoods. The detective retiring after forty years. Oh, and that fluff piece about the hundred-year-old factory that was robbed clean.”
I pop the last piece of chocolate into my mouth.
“Shit.” I drop the uneaten chocolate, my stomach clenching.Had someone overheard me talking to Martin? Is that how they found him? Because of me?
My hands shake again as I replay our last phone conversation. Had I mentioned meeting him? Where I’d be? Had someone followed me to the motel?
But then...if Blackwell’s people knew about my investigation, if they’d seen me watching him, I’d be lying next to Martin right now with bullet holes in my chest. They wouldn’t bother with cameras.
I take a deep breath. “Not Blackwell,” I whisper, picking up the chocolate again and taking a bite to steady myself. “If it were Blackwell, I’d be auditioning for a role as a corpse.”
So what else am I working on that would warrant this level of intrusion?
“The Gallery Killer.” I stand up so abruptly that my chair scrapes against the floor. “Is that it? Are you watching me because I’m getting close?”
I circle the table, blood racing through my veins. “Is this how you choose? Turn your victims into unwitting performers before they become your canvas?”
My mind snaps to the Beacon Hill Gentlemen’s Association. To that security guy who caught me sneaking in. Heat crawls up my neck, the dangerous kind that has nothing to do with fear.
A suspicion blooms, sudden and electric. I keep my expression neutral, aware of the camera’s unwavering eye. Better not to show my cards. Not yet.
I busy myself with the chocolate wrapper, keeping my face turned away as flashes of memory hit me. His hands, long-fingered and precise as they guided me off the property. How he’d leaned close, his breath warming my ear as hewarned me not to come back. The subtle scent of him, expensive and clean, with something darker underneath.
My cheeks flame. My pulse thunders. I press my thighs together, trying to silence the hum racing through my body.
What kind of journalist gets aroused by the idea she might be surveilled by the very man she’s investigating? The kind who needs serious therapy, that’s who.
And yet.
There was something in the way he looked at me. Not just suspicion or irritation at the trespasser. Something else. Curiosity, maybe.
