Page 7 of The Hampton Beach Café 3
She pulled out her phone and started recording––she really needed to get CCTV. Lucinda was in the process of pulling out her phone to call the police when Clarkson seemed to appear out of nowhere next to this woman.
He held her wrist tight with one hand. The other was clamped firmly around the briefcase.
"Be careful!" Frances shouted. "She's in a hitting state of mind. We're calling the police."
"Don't!" Clarkson replied, loudly through the door. "She's not hurting anyone and she hasn't broken any laws––yet."
Alex raised an eyebrow, quietly adding, "not true. She has broken at least two."
"Shh! I'm trying to hear what he's saying," Lucinda scolded.
Clarkson was leaning forward and talking quietly with the woman, her face was twisting in anger, but Clarkson was very calm. When he noticed the three of them staring, he smiled awkwardly. Pulling her by the arm, Clarkson ushered the woman away from the door. After a few more moments of his quiet lecture, she wrenched her arm free, pointed her finger in his face, and stormed off down the street.
Frances unlatched the door, pulling him inside.
"What was that all about?" she asked. "Who was that horrible woman?"
She had never seen Clarkson look so incredibly uncomfortable.
"Well, she is kind of a stalker...my stalker, sort of."
FOUR
"Your what?" Alex asked, clearly confused.
Clarkson's face was bright red, but Frances couldn't tell whether it was from the excruciating conversation he'd just had with that woman or the incredulous tone in Alex's voice.
"She's one of my followers on social media," he explained. "Can I get a coffee, please?"
He sounded exhausted and Frances wondered why on earth he was there so early.
"Sure, but you're going to need to keep talking."
"I know," he said as they moved through to the kitchen. "She's a bit obsessive. I shouldn't have encouraged her, but she was a fan from the start and I needed the engagement back then. But about a year or two ago, we met at a fan meet and greet. She'd bought all my afternoon sessions and it freaked me out, so I stopped replying to her comments, and blocked her generally, but she comes out of the woodwork every now and then."
They were sitting down now, and Lucinda poured him a coffee as he spoke––glaring at him all the while. She wasn't convinced. Frances could tell.
"How did she know who I am?" Frances asked. "Why is she here at all?"
Clarkson barely got halfway through a shrug when Alex emerged back into the kitchen.
"Bet I know," he said, slapping a magazine down on the table.
From the glossy pages, a little raggedy though they were from their abrupt delivery through an unwilling mail slot, smiled Frances's face.
"What is that?" she asked, standing from her stool and pointing at the offending picture.
Lucinda grabbed the magazine and read aloud, "Red Hot Property King and the Sweet Treat Maker––a steamy rooftop date to seal the deal. Clarkson!"
Frances felt sick, her stomach clenching and unclenching as she tried to remember to breathe.
"What is this?" she asked again.
Clarkson swallowed hard. "It's a gossip magazine."
"Well, obviously!" Lucinda scolded.
Frances took a deep breath and let it out slowly.
