Lena Diaz - Secret Stalker

She smoothed her fingers against the faded, chipped laminate-topped table. Her mother had refused to let Bex replace it with one of the gorgeous antiques from her store. Mom had insisted she loved the cheap, worn table. But Bex knew that what her mom really loved were the memories she’d shared with Bex’s father at this worn-out table, before a tight curve on a dark road had taken him away from both of them.

“Bex?”

She forced her hands to stop rubbing circles on the fake wood. “I guess I just...needed to see...home, one last time. I wanted to go through her things, remember her, decide what to keep, what to give away.”

“Was there any other reason that you came back?” he asked, his deep voice soft, barely above a whisper.

He was giving her an opening. It shocked her to realize that, to see the longing in his eyes, bared before her. And, God help her, she wanted so much to tell him that, yes, she came back to see him, too. But that wasn’t true. No matter how much she wished it could be. Once she left this time, she knew she’d never see Max again.

She slowly shook her head. “No. No other reason.”

He blinked, and like throwing a switch, his eyes shuttered, his expression went blank. “Well,” he finally said. “Guess that answers that.” He gave her a bitter smile. “I loved you, Bex. All those years ago, I loved you in every way a man can love a woman—with my mind, my body, my heart, my soul. And I thought you loved me, too. I would have done anything for you back then. Anything. Together we could have faced whatever really happened the night Bobby Caldwell died. We would have gotten married, raised a couple of kids by now.” He shook his head, a muscle flexing in his cheek. “But all that’s water under the bridge now, isn’t it? You’ve sure as hell moved on. Guess it’s high time I moved on, too.” He pulled his phone out of his pocket. “If going to the station’s too difficult, so be it. We’ll do the interview here. You don’t mind if I record it, do you?”

She sat as still as a statue, staring at him in shock, reeling from everything he’d just said. And one thing in particular—that it was time he moved on. What did that mean? That in all these years he’d never dated anyone? That he’d been, what, waiting for her?

She’d dated, a handful of times. But her first dates were always last dates. Because no one had ever measured up to Max. She’d never once considered that he might have been existing in that same limbo that she had all this time. And now she wished that she could tell him the truth.

That she hadn’t moved on. And never would. That a day hadn’t gone by that she didn’t think of him.

He arched a brow. “Bex? I’ve turned on the recording app. Do you consent to having your statement recorded?”

She blinked, then nodded.

“You have to say it out loud.”

“Oh, um.” She cleared her throat. “Yes, I consent to having my statement recorded.”

“Excellent.” He shoved the phone to the middle of the table between them. “First we have to get the logistics out of the way. State and spell your first and last name for the recording. Then list your address and place of employment.”

She frowned. “Is that really required?”

He nodded.

She sighed and told him what he’d asked, admitting that she lived in Knoxville, giving him the address of her condo. And she told him about her antique store. Then she went on to answer his questions about everything she’d done the day of the grocery store shooting.

The interview started out stilted, on her side at least. But answering his questions was almost a healing therapy for her emotional wounds. It helped her go numb, almost dead inside, and get through this.

Going over the same questions over and over was grueling, tiring and reminiscent of when the chief had grilled her years ago. Thornton had trained Max well. She felt just as guilty this time as she had ten years ago, even though this time she had nothing to feel guilty about.

He finally stopped the recording and put his phone away. “I guess that’s it. For now.”

Relieved, she grabbed both of their long-empty coffee cups and carried them to the sink. After rinsing them, she turned around. Max was still sitting at the table, studying her as if he had a million more questions and was looking to her for the answers. Afraid that he might start the interview all over again, she headed toward the archway into the family room.

“Thanks again for protecting me this morning.” She waved toward the front door. “You can see yourself out. I’ve got packing to do.”

She headed into her bedroom, the one she’d had her whole life until she’d left at eighteen. Taking the master bedroom hadn’t even tempted her. It would have felt...weird, sleeping in the room her mother had slept in just a few short weeks ago.

Her suitcase was in the closet, so she grabbed it and dropped it on top of the bed, then flipped it open. She’d packed light, with just a week’s worth of clothes, and had laundered everything yesterday. It wouldn’t take long before she could head out. She opened the top dresser drawer and grabbed a stack of underwear and bras.

“You’re not sticking around?”

Startled, she jumped, then pressed a hand against her chest. Max lounged in the doorway to her bedroom, looking impossibly appealing.

“Sorry,” he said, even though he didn’t look sorry. “Didn’t mean to startle you.”

She shoved her armload of underwear into the suitcase and headed to the dresser for more clothes. “I’m going home.”

“When?”

An armload of shorts and T-shirts went into the suitcase. “Today. Now. Just as soon as I’m packed.”

“Don’t you want to stick around and find out why those gunmen went after you?”

She hesitated, her arms full of jeans. “What are you talking about? They robbed the store. You make it sound like it all had something to do with me.”

“I’m thinking maybe it did. They didn’t rob the store. They were searching up and down aisles looking for you. At least, that’s what it seemed like to me.”

She slowly lowered the jeans into the suitcase. “Why would they be looking for me?”

He shrugged, not offering anything else. Probably because it was part of his investigation.

“All the more reason to leave, then.” She headed for the closet to get her shoes.

Max wandered around the room, picking up a few odds and ends from her childhood—little horse figurines on her dresser, a cross necklace her mom had given her on her sixteenth birthday. And then he looked up, at the wall over her dresser, and froze.

Bex could feel her face growing warm. “Mom left my room exactly the way it was the day I left.”

He was in most of the pictures, with her, because they’d always been together, from middle school on. It seemed that every fun or cherished moment in her life had Max in it—her first dance, the field trip to Animal Kingdom at Disney, playing video games at the arcade in the mall one town over from Destiny. And there was their graduation photo, the last one taken of the two of them. They’d walked together, hand in hand in their black graduation robes, each of them boasting the gold stoles of the National Honor Society. Both of them smiling and happy.

“Figures I’d find you both here, in your bedroom. Just like old times, huh?”

Bex and Max both turned to see Bex’s old high school nemesis, Marcia Knolls, standing in the doorway. Max’s hand had automatically gone to the gun holstered at his hip, but he relaxed when he saw who was standing there.

“What are you doing in here?” he demanded. “You should have knocked.”

“I did. You two were apparently too busy to hear me.” She smirked at Max. “Does your girlfriend know about all those police interns you’ve been screwing?”