Page 79 of Putting Out
She saw his escape and encouraged him to take it. “Get the fuck out of my room!”
In a flash he was sprinting back out the doors. Reacting rather than thinking she scrambled off the bed and followed him through the doors. When her brain took over she realized the last thing she wanted to do was follow him.
“Kenny! Kenny!” This time the air flowed freely and the walls shook with the pitch of her scream.
She heard the pounding of feet coming down the hallway and reached for the light switch along the wall. For a second, the harsh overhead light had her blinking in reaction then the door to the bedroom swung open.
“What the hell…” Kenny charged through the room.
Reilly was plastered against the wall near the door, her hand over her chest to keep it from crashing through her ribs.
It took Kenny a couple seconds to adjust to the light before he realized what was happening. “Where did he go?”
Reilly pointed to the open French doors but as soon as she did she heard the sound of a motor firing to life.
“A motor boat?”
Kenny turned around with a grim expression. “Yeah. He had a ladder on the veranda and a boat down by the dock.”
“What is all the commotion?” Odie rubbed his eyes as he blinked against the light. “It’s near two in the morning.”
“I heard a noise and I woke up. He was in the room. He was…” Reilly stared at the beige wall across from her bed now marred by spray paint. A black dot, a red dot with a circle around it, and another black dot.
“It’s your ball mark,” Kenny identified.
“He wanted to let me know he was close.”
Numbness took over now that the adrenaline was fading.
“How the hell did he get past the alarm?” Odie coughed into his hand.
“I didn’t set it.”
Kenny turned on him. “What do you mean?”
“Pierce is still out. He asked me to leave it off and he would set it when he got back in. He’s always afraid he’s not going to shut it off in time and wake the whole damn house.”
“Nice,” Kenny snapped. “He’s out partying and Reilly is almost…”
“I wasn’t almost anything,” Reilly interjected. “He never made a move toward me. He just painted the mark. When he heard me I think he was almost as frightened of me as I was of him. Then he took off. If I hadn’t woken up, I would have seen the mark on the wall the next morning.”
“Did you get a good look at him?” Odie asked.
“No. He wasn’t tall. He was dressed in black. I was too scared to see straight, but he was wearing something over his face. Some kind of goggles.”
“Night-vision goggles?” Kenny wondered. “If that’s the case this is no ordinary stalker.”
“I don’t know what they were. Other than creepy.”
“We should call the police,” Odie suggested. “Let them do their thing.” Kenny nodded, but Reilly hesitated. “Do we have to?”
“Hell, yes we have to,” Kenny barked. “This has gone beyond letters and a fish. He broke in. Whether it was to paint something on your wall or worse. He broke in!”
“I know that!” she shouted back. “But Kenny if you call the police it will be all over the news. There were will be press and reporters. They’ll camp out around the community and the story won’t be about me playing, it will be about this. I’ll be the victim of this crazed stalker and the story will be so dramatic no one will give a damn about golf. I’m here to play golf.”
“Then we pack up and leave.”
She shook her head. “He found us here. He’s obviously got…resources. I don’t know. Let’s just sleep on it and we’ll discuss it in the morning. Luke sent one of the letters to his friend at the FBI. Maybe he’ll have something to say about it.”
