“You’ve been under some stress.”
“Maybe.” He studied me for a long moment. “I don’t know anyone else who would’ve thought about the fact that everyone else would be in danger. You’re sort of a big-picture gal, aren’t you?”
“I’ve had a few run-ins with some bad people, so I like to know ahead of time what I might be up against in any situation. It helps to be prepared.” I spoke lightly, but I was afraid I’d already freaked him out.
He grunted. “Now you sound like a Girl Scout.”
“That’s me,” I said with a smile. “It’s not a bad thing to be.”
“I guess not.”
“So, tell me about this person who’s stalking you.”
Randy sat forward and rested his elbows on his knees. The man never sat still. “He’s subtle, like you said.”
“How subtle is he? What makes you think you’re being stalked?”
He chuckled but there was no humor to it. “You mean, what makes me think I’m important enough to be stalked? Is that what you were going to ask? Am I just a diva?”
“I didn’t say that. If you think you’re being stalked, I believe you.”
He looked confused. “You do?”
“Of course.”
“Well, that’s a first.” He’d been fidgeting with the paper rim of his empty coffee cup and now there were shredded bits everywhere.
He didn’t seem to know where to begin, so I started the conversation rolling. “What has he done to you? Is it something specific? Have you been physically attacked? Has something important been damaged or destroyed? Or do you just feel like you’re being watched?”
Randolph sucked in a big breath and let it go slowly. “Wow, you really do believe me.”
I lifted my shoulders philosophically. “Like I said before, I’ve met some bizarre people in my life so I know they’re out there.”
“I hate to admit I’m relieved by that comment, but I am.”
“Good. So, tell me what this guy has done.”
He thought for a moment, seemed to measure his words, then said, “About six months ago, dead animals started showing up on my porch at home.”
I tried not to react, but that was horrible. “Were they your pets?”
“No, I don’t have any animals of my own because I travel too much. But every time I’d come home from being on the road, I’d find something. First there was a dead squirrel and a month later, a snake. Right there on my doormat. Then a rat. But I figured one of the cats could’ve killed them. We’ve got feral cats all over the place. But recently I found a dead cat, too.”
I shuddered at the thought of discovering a dead creature on my front porch. Anyone who did that to an animal in order to scare another person? It went beyond evil.
Randy was still talking. “At first I didn’t think much about it, because I live in a wooded area and there are plenty of wild creatures running around. But after I found the dead cat, I started to wonder.”
“Yeah, I would, too.”
“And while traveling with the show, I’ve noticed other things happening. The wrong breakfast order shows up at my hotel room. Sometimes I’ll hear knocking at my door in the middle of the night and when I go to check, nobody’s there.” He tore another piece off the coffee cup and let it fall to the floor. “Once, I came back to my room and it had been ransacked.”
“Was anything taken?”
“No.” He grimaced. “It was almost more chilling to realize that nothing was missing.”
“I know what you mean.” I watched Randy as he talked and recognized that he was a man on the edge. And who could blame him? If someone had been harassing me for six months, I would have been a complete mess by now. “Has anything happened here in San Francisco?”
“Yeah.” He blew out a breath and needlessly smoothed his perfect hair. “Yesterday morning, a bouquet of dead flowers was delivered to my dressing room.”
I shivered. Dead flowers were damned creepy. “Wait. Was that the delivery you received just before we taped our short teaser segment?”
“Yeah.”
“The production assistant came out onstage to tell you about it.”
“Right. You’re awfully observant.”
I shrugged. “I notice things.” I made a mental note to talk to the assistant. I felt like a cop. A good cop, of course. “Was that the first time an incident ever happened at the studio?”
“No. Scripts have disappeared, and once in a while a weird page has been slipped into my script book. I made the mistake of memorizing one of them and recited it on camera. We had to stop taping. Everyone must’ve thought I was nuts. Anyway, things don’t happen every day, so Tom and Walter always chalk it up to human error—mine, of course—or plain old happenstance.” He scowled slightly. It had to sting, knowing that none of his coworkers believed him.
“The script mishaps have happened three times. Once in Raleigh last month, and twice in Chicago the month before that. And then there’s all the dead-animal stuff that happens at home.”
“Where’s home?”