Page 49 of X Marks the Stalker
I start my car, feeling the rumble of the engine match my internal turmoil. My journalistic ethics scream at me to call the police, to report what I’ve witnessed. The rational part of my brain knows what the detectives would say if I walked into the precinct.
“Let me get this straight, Novak. You want us to investigate a man for buying hardware supplies? Because you think he’s planning a murder based on...what evidence, exactly?”
My fingers drum against the steering wheel as I stare at the empty parking spot where Xander’s Audi had been.What would I tell them? That I followed a man who’s been watching me through cameras that I allowed to remain in my apartment? That we’ve been exchanging explicit texts? That I’m meeting him on a rooftop tomorrow?
They’d either laugh me out of the station or lock me up for a psych evaluation.
I need actual proof. Photos of murder supplies aren’t enough. Anyone could claim they’re for a renovation project. I need concrete evidence linking Xander to a murder plot before anyone would take me seriously.
The truth is, I stopped trusting official channels the moment they declared my father corrupt and my mother collateral damage. Blackwell’s money and influence had manipulated the system that was supposed to protect us. The same system that would ignore my warnings about Xander.
“Damn it,” I whisper, hitting the steering wheel with my fist.
I could confront Xander. Lay my cards on the table at our late-night meeting. But the image of that rope and plastic sheeting flashes in my mind, and a cold wave of self-preservation washes over me. If I reveal that I’ve been following him, watching him, what would stop him from adding me to whatever he has planned for the doctor?
I could walk away. Delete his number. Remove the cameras. Move apartments. Change my name.
“What if...” I say aloud to my empty car, the thought crystallizing into something concrete and terrifying. “What if I use this?”
The idea lights up my brain like a thunderstorm. Xander’s clearly not an amateur. He has skills. Surveillance,breaking and entering, meticulous planning. He’s already provided information about Blackwell that I hadn’t been able to uncover in years of investigation.
My heart pounds against my ribs. This is the thinking that gets journalists fired. Or killed. Or both.
But after ten years of dead ends and destroyed evidence, of witnesses who disappear and leads that evaporate, wasted years when the traditional methods have failed. Blackwell remains untouchable behind his wall of money and influence.
I’ve played by the rules, and the rules have protected the guilty.
My finger hovers over the 911 button on my phone.
One call. That’s all it would take.
In journalism school, they taught us to report, not judge. To observe, not participate.
I slide my phone into my pocket without making the call.
Tomorrow at The Harrington, I’ll stare into the eyes of a killer and ask for his help.
Chapter 12
Xander
Oakley steps onto The Harrington Hotel rooftop like she owns it, silhouetted against Boston’s skyline—a dark goddess surveying her kingdom. I’ve been watching her for weeks now, and still, the sight of her steals my breath. She doesn’t know I arrived twenty minutes early just to see this moment.
The wind catches her hair as she surveys her surroundings, her eyes flicking over the space with the careful precision of prey that knows it’s being hunted.
And yet, as she crosses the rooftop, framed by the glittering Boston skyline like some noir film heroine, my brain short-circuits to its basest programming. She’d look fucking magnificent on her knees.
My breath catches at the thought, sharp and unbidden, my cock straining against my pants as if it has a mind of its own. I grit my teeth, forcing the thought backinto the shadowy part of my brain where I’ve shoved every other filthy fantasy I’ve had about her.
Thirty-two stories above Boston, the city lights spread below us like a board of possibilities or a crime scene map, depending on your perspective. I’ve used this rooftop before. Once to monitor a target in the building across the street, once to end a corrupt judge who thought he was untouchable.
But never for this. Never for something that makes my palms sweat like I’m thirteen again, asking Melissa to dance while sporting an unfortunate combination of braces and a voice that cracked mid-sentence.
“Okay, don’t be weird,” I coach myself. A lifetime habit from growing up in empty mansions, where talking to yourself was the only conversation available. “Just be normal. Whatever that means.”
I step from the shadows like the dramatic asshole I am. Her shoulders tense, then relax as she recognizes me. I’m wearing a mask again, black and streamlined, covering everything from my nose up. My mouth is exposed, which feels like a tactical error when she keeps looking at it like she’s calculating the precise pressure needed to bite my lower lip.
There’s nothing I would like more.
