Page 18 of The Drowned Woman
“Exactly. Besides, you’ve seen how Jack is. My knight in shining armor. He’d never stop trying to protect me—even if it meant me giving up my work, this place.”
“He loves you.”
“I know.” The words emerged with a smile of contentment.
“If your stalker is serious or there’s a risk of him escalating… I know it’s not fair, it’s not right, but the safest thing might be for you to leave, go off grid, someplace he can’t track you. If he can’t engage you, he’ll get tired, move on.” Because if Ian couldn’t find the stalker, what were the odds that the police with their limited time and resources could? It was a harsh reality, but the unfortunate truth. And the psychology behind stalkers was similar to that of domestic partner abusers—an obsession that would never be broken as long as the object of that obsession, their victim, was accessible.
“I know.” This time Risa bit the words out. “I’ve read the books, done the research. Hell, I once wrote a feature on victims who end up murdered by their stalkers. These women did nothing but walk down the wrong street at the wrong time, smile or say hello to the wrong man. They didn’t deserve to have their lives stolen from them.” Her voice rose, echoing through the cavernous room. Risa clamped her lips shut, turning her glare onto the rain battering the windows.
“You don’t deserve it either,” Leah told her. “No one does. That doesn’t change—”
“I have resources those women didn’t have. I can investigate—”
“Right. And what have you found? Is this guy really a killer like he says?”
“I’m not sure.” Risa shifted in her chair, wincing with pain as she rearranged the pillows supporting her. “Years ago, I wrote a piece forRolling Stone. My first major feature story. A tribute to forgotten musical artists who seemed destined for greatness until their lives were cut short by freak accidents. One of them, Jimmy Santiago, was killed after his car got stuck on train tracks outside of Corinth, South Carolina.”
“Never heard of him. He was a musician?”
“Blues guitarist. Only twenty-four, but brilliant—some said he was Robert Johnson reborn via another deal with the devil.”
Leah remembered the legend, that the famous musician had sold his soul to the devil in exchange for his remarkable talent.
Risa continued, her grip on her mug tightening. “Jimmy died at 12:07 on the night of April 21st, 1967. That first email came on April Fool’s Day, last year. Another reason why I thought it was a bad joke. But then the next message came just after midnight on April 21st. It was a text with a video of a train hitting a man in a car. A man named James Santiago. His car stalled at the same railroad crossing where Jimmy was killed all those years ago.”
“Was there a message with the video?”
“It said:The beginning of a beautiful friendship.It disappeared as soon as I watched it.”
“And was it real?”
“Corinth doesn’t have its own paper, but the next day the Greenville news mentioned it. A tragic accident. The reporter didn’t even realize that it had happened before, almost exactly the same way, on the same day, over fifty years ago.” She blew her breath out. “I couldn’t prove anything, but I did call the Oconee County Sheriff’s department. They said the guy was drunk—three times over the legal limit—it was clearly an accident.”
“It could have been.” Leah had to admit, Risa’s story was compelling, but it could also just be that: a story. After all, Risa was a storyteller. Maybe that explained her inability to make the police take her case seriously—a desperate desire to solve it herself, return to the job she loved and lost. “Couldn’t someone have had an online search running? Looking for strange accidents or criteria that tied to you and your work? Then when he found something you would see as proof, he used it to reel you in.”
“That’s what Ian thought. At first. But where did the video come from in the first place? Ian couldn’t find it anywhere online after the message vanished.”
“Maybe it wasn’t even this specific accident?” Leah suggested. “Easy to fake, especially with footage shot at night.”
Risa shrugged. “Since then he hasn’t sent anything like that video again. Only emails, teasing hints. Nothing that could be used as evidence against him. It’s as if he wants me to devote myself to unearthing his crimes, wants me to admire his work. But I haven’t come up with anything solid.”
“And it all started when you moved here?”
“Yes. I moved to Cambria City several months after I got sick, before the first email. There’s nothing I can prove, but ever since I got here, I’ve felt as if I’m being watched.”
“So it’s not only your illness keeping you housebound?” Leah couldn’t help but wonder if some of Risa’s symptoms were psychosomatic—a way to deny her fear of going out in public where her stalker might see her. Then she had another thought. “Do you think Trudy’s death might have something to do with your stalker?”
Risa pulled away, as far as the chair would allow her, but gave a guilty nod. “Maybe.” She shuddered. “I just don’t know. Maybe I am crazy. Maybe this is all in my head, these feelings. Hell, maybe I was all wrong about everything. I had myself convinced I was on the trail of a serial killer no one else knew about. The story of a lifetime. But I should have never forgotten the first rule of journalism.”
“What’s that?”
“Trust no one, assume nothing.”
“It’s also the first rule of emergency medicine. Because everyone—”
“Lies,” Risa finished for her. “Exactly.”
The gaunt, anxious woman before Leah was nothing like how she’d imagined Risa Saliba would be after reading her articles or seeing her on TV. As if her confidence and vibrant energy had been whittled away, leaving an empty husk. A rush of sympathy engulfed Leah—she’d felt the same after Ian was killed. She still felt like that most days. As if she’d been emptied out, a puppet going through the motions of living for Emily’s sake, but not her own.
