Bleeding Through: A Rachel Goddard Mystery (Rachel Goddard Mysteries) (12 page)

“Right. I see that, I understand.” Kevin scrubbed his palms on his knees and grimaced as if in pain.

It was a very real sort of pain, Tom knew, when the woman you loved was hurting and you couldn’t do anything to help. He liked Kevin, despite the guy’s less than overwhelming support of his wife. Tom wasn’t sure what to make of Michelle yet. But for everybody’s sake, especially Rachel’s, Tom hoped they could resolve this situation quickly.

When Rachel and Michelle joined them in the living room, Rachel took the chair next to Tom’s. Frank jumped onto her lap and settled down. Sitting beside Kevin on the sofa while he held her hand, Michelle looked like a small bird, frozen by terror under the eyes of a predator. What scared her most, Tom wondered—reliving her experience by putting it into words or the possibility that no one in the room would believe her?

A moment passed in uneasy silence. Tom cleared his throat. “Why don’t you start at the beginning? I know you’ve told Rachel some of it, but I want to hear everything directly from you. When did you first notice something was wrong?”

Michelle pulled in an audible breath as if steeling herself for an ordeal. Instead of meeting Tom’s gaze, she seemed to focus inward on scenes replaying in her memory. “It started about a month ago. The first thing that happened was so subtle I didn’t give it much thought. I noticed one morning—it was a Monday, I remember—that some of the things hanging on my office walls had been moved around. Prints, and framed copies of my degrees and certifications. I thought the cleaning woman had done it on the weekend. Maybe she’d taken things down to dust them and got confused about where everything went.”

“Okay,” Tom said. “What else?”

“The next day, I received an anonymous letter at my office. It said,
You’re not as special as you think you are, you little bitch.
”

Rachel gasped, and Tom realized she hadn’t heard this before. “What was the postmark on the envelope?” he asked Michelle.

“Maryland. It was mailed in Montgomery County.”

“What happened next?”

“Nothing until the next Monday.” Michelle squeezed her free hand into a fist in her lap. “I went in that morning and all the magazines in the waiting room had been removed from the rack and dumped on the floor. And everything on the walls in my office had been taken down and thrown on the floor. The glass in all the frames was shattered.”

“Was there any sign of a break-in?”

Michelle shook her head, her hair brushing her neck and cheeks. “It was as if somebody got in with a key. But nobody except the cleaning service and building management has a key.”

“Did you question them about it?” Tom asked.

“Yes, I did. The same woman always cleans my office, and she swore she wasn’t responsible. She cleans for the last time each week on Friday night and doesn’t come again until Monday night. She insisted that when she left Friday, everything was in its proper place. The very idea was so bizarre anyway. Why would the cleaning woman do something like that? But if it wasn’t her, who else could have gotten in?”

“Locks can be picked without leaving any sign of it. Most office door locks aren’t much of a challenge. I would recommend you have something stronger installed even if you weren’t having any problems.”

The mantel clock began ringing the hour and Tom saw Michelle flinch at the sharp sound. Again she drew a deep, shuddering breath, and she gripped Kevin’s hand so tightly her knuckles went white. Whether she was imagining the threat or not, she was terrified and barely holding herself together. “You reported all this to the police, didn’t you?” he asked.

“An officer came out, but he acted as if I were making it all up. He wouldn’t even check for fingerprints because there was no evidence of breaking and entering. He said to call again if anything was stolen, but he was very condescending.”

Tom felt an irrational impulse to apologize for the unknown cop’s behavior. But he knew he wouldn’t have been able to do anything under those circumstances either. “You’ve been getting phone calls too?”

“She had one today,” Rachel said, “after they got here.”

“Really? Can I see the list of incoming calls on your phone?” Tom asked Michelle.

“The number’s always blocked, so the list probably won’t tell you anything, but you can look at it if you want to.” Michelle pulled an iPhone out of her slacks pocket, pressed a couple of buttons, and passed it to him over the coffee table.

The silver metal casing felt warm from her body heat. Tom scrolled the past incoming calls on the device and saw several Caller Unknown listings.

“I’ve tried to find out from my service provider where the calls are coming from, but all they could tell me is that they’re coming from different places.”

“You’re sure it’s the same person calling you every time?”

“Yes. I’m positive.”

“The phones might be throwaways that couldn’t be traced to the owners.” But why, Tom wondered, would a stalker go to the trouble and expense of buying a batch of untraceable phones just to harass Michelle? He laid the phone on the coffee table. “When did the calls start?”

Michelle hesitated, moistening her lips with the tip of her tongue.

“Tell us everything,” Rachel urged in the gentle tone she might use with a fearful child.

“They started three weeks ago.” Michelle’s voice quavered with building emotion. “At first it was just breathing on the other end, then it was whispering. Then—” She broke off, gulping a breath.

Kevin put an arm around Michelle and pulled her against him.

To Tom, Kevin looked tired and baffled, showing none of the anger he would expect a husband to feel when his wife had been reduced to a nervous wreck by harassment. If Kevin thought Michelle was imagining things, why wasn’t he trying to get help for her at home? Why bring her out here?

Rachel shifted the cat off her lap and moved to the couch. She placed a soothing hand on Michelle’s arm.

Tom had hoped this whole situation would turn out to be nothing, but his gut told him Michelle was telling the truth. And if her story was true, she had good reason to be scared. Stalking could escalate to assault—and worse. He waited until she seemed a little calmer, then asked, “Can you think of anybody who’d want to upset you? Somebody you’ve had an argument with, a disagreement—”

“No!” Michelle cried. She squeezed her eyes shut for a second, visibly willing herself to calm down. “I haven’t done anything to cause this. Don’t you think I’ve lain awake at night going over every conversation, every encounter, every person I’ve come into contact with?” She looked at Rachel. “Do you think I brought this on myself?”

“Of course not,” Rachel said. “Tom wasn’t implying that.”

“I’m just looking at the possibilities,” Tom said. “Could it be related to your work somehow? If it started in your office—”

Michelle shook her head. “I work with very young autistic children. I do initial evaluation and diagnosis. I don’t see adults or even teenagers. My patients aren’t capable of doing something like this.”

“Any problems with a patient’s parent or guardian?”

“No. Never.”

“Has the caller left any threatening messages? Do you have a recording of his voice?”

“No. I’ve always answered, so they’ve never gone to voice mail.”

“Don’t answer next time. Let’s see if we get a recording of his voice. I’ll have to think about this, but for now, you’re safe here with us. I know it’s not easy, but try to relax.”

“I don’t feel safe anywhere.” Michelle rose. “Excuse me. I’m sorry, but I—Excuse me.” She hurried from the room, with Kevin following.

Rachel stood as if to go after Michelle, then sat down on the sofa again and bent forward with her head in her hands.

***

“What do you think?” Rachel asked Tom after Michelle and Kevin were out of earshot. Tom had seemed dispassionate, professional, when questioning Michelle. Part of Rachel wanted him to
care
, to be as concerned about her sister as she was, but she knew that was asking too much. It was enough that he believed Michelle. “Your unbiased opinion.”

Tom left his chair and came to sit beside her on the couch. “Something’s going on, but I’m not sure how bad it really is or what can be done about it.”

Rachel sighed and shoved her hair back from her face with both hands. “My sister’s not crazy—”

“I didn’t—”

“I know, I know. I was about to say, she’s not crazy, but I’m not surprised the police didn’t want to get involved. She can’t prove any of this really happened. Something has to be done about it, though. This scares me to death, so I can imagine how it makes her feel.”

“Like I said, I’ll have to think about it. Harassment isn’t always easy to prove, and I’m afraid it’s not easy to stop either.”

Rachel wrapped her arms around him and laid her head on his chest. He hugged her closer. She wanted to stay there in his warm, strong embrace, listening to the reassuring beat of his heart. “Thank you for taking her seriously. I’m sorry to dump this on you now, when you’re so busy.”

“Don’t worry about that. I want to help.”

“I love her so much,” Rachel said. “She drives me crazy sometimes, but I love her and I hate seeing her like this. She’s all I have, Tom.”

“No.” He pulled back and lifted her chin with a finger. “You’ve got me. You’re always going to have me.”

“I—” Before Rachel could pull any more words out of the jumble in her head, he cut her off with a kiss.

The buzzing ring of a cell phone startled them. Not her phone, not Tom’s. She looked around and spotted Michelle’s phone on the coffee table where Tom had placed it.

“Let’s see who it is.” Tom picked up the phone and checked the display. “Caller unknown. This could be him. We’ll let it go to voice mail. I want to hear this creep.”

Rachel held her breath as voice mail cut in.
Don’t hang up, don’t hang up. Say something.

“I think he left a message,” Tom said when the call ended. “Let’s hope it’s more than heavy breathing.”

He punched the buttons to retrieve the message and put it on speaker.

The sinuous voice was quiet and low. “I know where you are, Michelle. You can’t get away from me by running off to your sister. I’m watching you.”

Chapter Eleven

Kevin looked skeptical. He swung his overnight bag into the trunk of his car, slammed the lid, and turned to Tom with a frown. “You actually heard it yourself?”

“Rachel and I both did.” Rachel had insisted on not telling Michelle about the call the night before, and Tom hadn’t found an opportunity to fill her husband in until morning, when he was preparing to drive back home.
Kevin’s reaction baffled Tom. What was going on with this guy? “What did you think, that Michelle made it up?”

“No. I just—” Kevin’s boyish face colored with—what? embarrassment? confusion? “I don’t know what to believe. Look, I feel guilty about dropping this in your lap. I hate to leave her here and go back home.”

“But you have some kind of commitment at work?” Tom said. He was trying not to judge Kevin, but that didn’t seem like much of an excuse for abandoning his wife when she was going through a frightening ordeal.

“Yeah, I do,” Kevin said, “but it’s not just that. If Michelle wanted me to, I’d find a way to get out of it and stay. But she doesn’t want me to stay. She’s made that clear. And she really doesn’t seem to feel safe at home. But if she’s being stalked and the guy knows where she is, then how safe is she here?”

Kevin looked so miserable that Tom relented and took pity on him. Something, he suspected, was going on in Michelle and Kevin’s marriage that had nothing to do with the stalker, although the threat was probably exposing the underlying problem. “I’ll do everything I can to keep her safe,” Tom said. “And I’ll see what I can do about identifying this guy who’s bugging her.”

Kevin headed back home, and Michelle tagged along with Rachel because neither Tom nor Rachel thought she should stay at the farm by herself all day.

Tom didn’t normally escort Rachel to work, but today he wanted to make sure she and Michelle arrived at the animal hospital safely. Chances were the man on the phone was hundreds of miles away, but Tom wouldn’t bet on it when Rachel’s safety—and her sister’s—might be at stake.

Driving behind Rachel’s SUV on the road into Mountainview, he caught occasional glimpses of Rachel gesturing, pointing out the farmhouse where Tom’s aunt and uncle lived, a hillside where dogwoods bloomed, a black vulture perched on a fence with its massive wings spread along the rail to catch the sun. Light flooded the landscape, softening the stark branches of trees that hadn’t leafed out yet. Rachel loved the mountains, and Tom guessed she was trying to make her sister see this place the way she did. The high-backed seat blocked his view of Michelle, and he couldn’t tell whether she was responding to Rachel or ignoring her. He doubted that she’d been favorably impressed by the vulture.

Michelle was an odd one, about as different from Rachel as an orchid from a sunflower. She didn’t seem like a good match with her husband either, although Tom couldn’t put his finger on the reason he felt that way. Kevin seemed to love her. But he was having trouble believing her story about being harassed. Why would he doubt his own wife? Why wasn’t he doing anything to help her?