Page 42 of The Bodyguard
“I don’t think so,” she said softly. “I think it was him.”
“Ex-boyfriend?” Because that would have made sense. Someone who’d had Brin and didn’t want to let her go.
She shook her head but said nothing else.
“Brin,” I growled, suddenly desperate for the answer.
“I don’t want to tell you,” she insisted. “You’ll think…”
“I’m not going to think anything,” I snapped at her. “I’m going to believe what you tell me. Now tell me who the fuck took this picture of you.”
She jerked again and I realize it probably wasn’t fair. She’d been afraid since she got the picture. Afraid when someone was suddenly banging on her door. Now I was trying to bully her. But I needed answers if I was going to help her.
“Is that how you interrogate all your victims, sheriff?”
I stood then, so I would tower over her. Brin was tall, but at six-two I forced her to look up at me.
“I do what it takes to get answers.”
She crossed her arms around her middle and sat back down on the couch. “I want you to know you have been a total jerk tonight. And I made you cookies.”
“So noted,” I said, sitting down next to her, facing her. “Now talk.”
“Remember the stalker? The one you thought my publicist hired to create buzz for me. Yeah, well, my publicist, which I don’t have, by the way, didn’t hire the stalker. He’s real. Now you can say how it’s all made up for TV and that I’m just pulling a stunt and go along your merry way. I know what I’m going to do.”
“I saw you sobbing on the floor, Brin. I heard you scream. I don’t think you’re pulling a stunt.”
“You didn’t think the stalker was real.”
“No,” I admitted. “I saw a banner on entertainment news. I thought it was made-up horseshit. You’re telling me now it isn’t, so I’m listening. How did it start?”
“He’s been around since the show started. Emails. To the show’s website originally. It was pretty standard stuff. I love you, Sabrina. I want to make you mine. I didn’t think much of it. It wasn’t too out of line from the normal fan mail. But then it started coming to my personal email and it freaked me out. I would close the account and open another, only to have that account hacked. Nothing then that really scared me, but in these last few months something has changed. He hacked my social media, which I had to shut down. Then the emails became more lurid. More intense about what he was going do to me. Then it was phone calls. Then…the cat. This feral cat that lived behind my house in the hills. It was killed. Put on my doorstep for me to find. It wasn’t like a pet or anything. I did leave it dry food… Anyway, that was it. I wanted to be done with the show, anyway. This just made that decision simpler.”
“Except he sent this picture to your phone.”
She nodded. “Which means he was in town. Plus he called me the other day on my new number. I have to change my number again. Ronnie and Bea are going to know something bad is up, and Ronnie doesn’t need this with everything she has going on.”
She stood again and started to pace.
“That’s why you’re carrying?”
“Do you blame me?”
“You know how to shoot?” I asked her.
She rolled her eyes at me. “My father was Hank King. I think it might be the only thing he taught us. That and we weren’t sons.”
I nodded. “Fine, you know how to shoot, but would you shoot?”
She seemed less certain about that. “I don’t know. But like I said, it doesn’t matter. When I saw the picture… He’s here and I need a plan.”
“You keep sayinghe,” I said, jumping on her certainty. “Are you sure of that? Do you think you’ve seen him?”
She nodded. “I think so. I was in Dallas. On a jogging trail. There was a guy in a hoodie and it looked like he was watching me. When I took off I could have sworn he started to chase me. I ran to other people to get help but when I turned around he was gone. I could have been paranoid. I don’t know anymore. Maybe Iammaking this all up.”
I didn’t see paranoia, I saw escalation. Emails, calls, threats, and finally confrontation. The picture was a warning. Letting her know he was close.
“What did he say on the call?”
