Brian Freeman - Stalked

"I'm not fifteen anymore," she concluded.

Tony spread his hands.

"I know what you're saying," Serena said. "It's just not easy."

"I didn't say it was."

"Back in the bad days, I used to escape. There was a place in my head I called the nothingness room. I'd go there and not feel a thing. That was how I dealt with it."

"But?"

"But after a while, I couldn't get out. I was stuck there. I felt like I was spending my whole life in that empty room. It wasn't until I met Jonny that I was able to climb out, and now what scares me more than anything is the idea of going back there."

Tony leaned forward and put his elbows on his knees. "You can run from who you are, Serena, but sooner or later, you're going to come face-to-face with the past again. That's when you'll be able to decide if it's really behind you."

Stride drove along the North Shore highway that hugged the lake between Duluth and Two Harbors. It was a gorgeous day, with a blue sky arching overhead like a cathedral dome. He'd forgotten what the sun looked like and couldn't remember when he last had to put on his sunglasses as he drove. The light cast a wide, sparkling swath over the water. It was quiet, with little traffic on the road. Except for the freezing temperature, it looked like summer outside, but at this time of year, it got even colder when the sun came out.

He found Kathy Lassiter's home about ten miles north of the city. It was several decades old, but large and solidly built, with windows on both levels looking out on the lake. The home was neatly painted in a dusty blue that shimmered in the sunlight. She had a multiacre lot, thick with trees except for a large square of white snow surrounding the house. He parked in the dirt driveway behind her Audi. Before he could go to the front door, he saw it open and a woman came outside, dressed in a maroon-and-silver fleece tracksuit with her brown hair tied in a ponytail. She wore fluorescent running shoes.

"Ms. Lassiter?" he called.

She jogged down the driveway to meet him. "Can I help you?"

Stride introduced himself, and she gave him a look of mild surprise and asked to see his identification. As she studied his shield, she asked, "What's this about? A legal matter?"

He remembered that Lassiter was a partner in a Minneapolis law firm. "No, but it is urgent. Could we go inside?"

She shook her head. "It's time for my run. I have to stretch first though. How about we go across the street and you say what you want to say?"

They crossed the highway to a small park overlooking the lake. There was a picnic bench half-buried in snow and a stone beach below them where the azure water lapped at the shore. Their feet crunched in snow. The branches of the tall evergreens around them were motionless in the still air.

Lassiter swung her left leg nimbly to the top of the bench and bent her body until her face was almost level with her foot. She gripped her muscled calf and turned her face sideways to look at him with sharp, intelligent brown eyes. She was in her forties and wasn't wearing makeup. Her cheeks were flushed red, and she had a flared nose.

"So what's up, Lieutenant?" She had a lawyer's voice, clipped and impatient.

He didn't waste time. "I know about the sex club tonight."

She kept stretching and shrugged her limber shoulders. "Yeah, so?"

"Am I correct that you're going to be what they call an 'alpha girl'?"

"That's none of your business, is it?" She put her leg down and twisted her torso to her left. "I'm not breaking any laws. When did you become the morality police?"

"I'm not, but two alpha girls have been assaulted following their-performance-at this sex club."

Lassiter stopped and folded her arms. Her breathing was even. "Are you sure?"

"Yes."

She started stretching again, but her eyes were thoughtful. "Are you suggesting that I back out?"

"I wouldn't blame you if you did."

"But you have something else in mind," she concluded.

"Yes, I do. If we cancel the party, we tip our hand to whoever is doing this. He may find other targets."

"In other words, you're hoping he'll come after me."

"We'll protect you. We'll keep you under twenty-four-hour surveillance."

"That won't be easy. I go back and forth between Duluth and the Cities twice a week. My main office is in Minneapolis."

"You're a corporate lawyer, right?" Stride asked.

"Yes, I specialize in governance issues for emerging companies."

"Long hours, but good pay."

"The pay's all right, but if you want to get really rich, don't do it by the hour," she told him.

Stride glanced across the street at her lavish home. "Four hundred thousand a year doesn't go as far as it used to?" he asked.

"Since you asked, no, it doesn't. You should see what top management of a start-up can walk away with from an IPO. But I know a lawyer isn't likely to get much sympathy from a cop on a pension."

"Don't worry, I wouldn't trade jobs with you. Anyway, the commute to the Cities isn't a problem. We'll work with the police down there, and we'll have the highway patrol with you-unmarked-every mile of the way."

"Has this guy killed anyone?" Lassiter asked.

Stride frowned. "We think he may be involved in two murders to protect his identity. He hasn't killed any of the alpha girls so far, but I won't kid you, this is risky and dangerous. I understand entirely if you want nothing to do with it."

"Do you think I'm safe if I forget about the party?"

"I don't know. We're not sure who this man is, or where he gets his information. He may already know who you are."

"So I'm damned if I do, damned if I don't."

"I'm sorry."

Lassiter stepped up and sat on top of the bench. "I'm disappointed, Lieutenant. I was looking forward to this evening. The club has always been a harmless bit of sin for me. When you spend most of your life filing 10-Ks and worrying about Sarbanes-Oxley, you don't have time for a social life, let alone a sexual life. I'm divorced. My son is in college. There aren't many outlets for a horny corporate lawyer in her forties."

"Does that mean you're going to back out?"

She shook her head. "No, I'll do it. It just won't be what I was hoping for. Please tell me you won't have video or wiretaps or anything like that inside. I won't have to worry about showing up on the Internet because some cop sells my porn debut on the side, right?"

"No."

"Good. I also want to go over details of the surveillance. Everything has to meet with my approval. Agreed?"

"Of course. I'll send over a detective named Abel Teitscher to talk with you. Please keep this all confidential, too."

Lassiter hesitated.

"Is that a problem?" Stride asked.

"Not at all. It's just that I know the people inside the club. They're harmless."

"The man behind this may not be a part of the club at all," Stride said. "But we don't know who's talking to whom. Secrets have a way of getting out."

"Yes, they do," Lassiter said.

She climbed off the bench, headed to the shoulder of the highway, and began jogging north.

Stride studied the nighttime street from inside the smoked windows of a Cadillac, borrowed from a lawyer who lived a few houses down on the Point. He used it sometimes when he wanted an upscale car that blended into the neighborhood during a stakeout. Teitscher sat ramrod straight in the seat next to him, and his buzzed gray hair tickled the roof of the car. He didn't blink. Every few minutes, he used his index finger like a comb and smoothed his mustache. That was the only sign that he was nervous.

Stride was nervous, too. It was one thing to plan surveillance on a map, with pushpins to flag the cars and colored markers inking the escape routes. It was another to be here, surrounded by shadows where someone could hide. You could throw a cordon around any piece of land, and someone could always sneak through. On the ground, you couldn't see everything and be everywhere.