Blair sat bolt upright as it hit him. Tessa’s house. Tessa’s deck. Where was Tessa? Had she fallen too? Was she hurt?
He got to his knees and groped around in a wide circle for any sign of another body. A burst of pain shot from his left shoulder, but he ignored it. “Tessa,” he whispered hoarsely. “Tessa, where are you?”
He gave up after a moment. If she was down here, he couldn’t find any sign of her. She’d disappeared on him again. Just like the last time.
Blair let out a yelp—the sound of a wounded animal, sick with rage and pain. Why was she always vanishing on him? Why wouldn’t she ever stay where he put her? He could never seem to keep her still, no matter how he tried. Even with all the pictures, it never felt like enough. Never satisfying. He wanted to freeze-frame more than just her image. He wanted her body and her soul that way—forever fixed in place—so he could enjoy her at his leisure.
Had she abandoned him again now? If so, he’d make her live to regret it. One mistake he could forgive, but twice? Three times? No. For that she had to pay…
He stood, swaying unsteadily on the sloped ground as he surveyed his surroundings. No way could he climb back up to the deck from there. Not with a bum shoulder. He’d have to scramble up the slope and go around to the front of the house. Cradling his bad arm to his chest, Blair began the slow trudge uphill.
? ? ?
Eric thought he heard a siren, ever so faint. He slowed the car and rolled down his window to listen. There. He heard the sound again more clearly. His eyes took in a faint glimmer of flashing lights.
He hit the gas, and the car lurched over a rise in the road. At last the scene came into view below. Three cars? Maybe four? They were arrayed in an arc around a white clapboard house, reflecting pink in the rotating glow of the police cars’ beacons.
Tessa’s house. It had to be. Had they gotten there in time?
His eyes were fixed in the distance, straining to make out more details. He didn’t see the dark shape come up before him until it was inches from his front fender.
“Jesus!” Eric slammed the brakes.
The figure stood in front of the car, one arm raised against the glare of the headlights. Their eyes locked through the windshield glass—and in that instant, Eric understood.
Medium height. Hoodie sweatshirt. Spindly arms and legs. It was the same figure that Eric had seen lurking in that wide, empty parking lot. But the eyes that stared back weren’t green.
Brown eyes. Crooked nose. Sunken cheeks, darkened with five o’clock shadow. Not a fangirl after all.
Eric’s jaw dropped open. How had he not seen it earlier? Tessa had told him the whole story over DM last night. He knew exactly who stood before him now.
The other boy’s face registered recognition at the exact same moment. He side-stepped the car and ran.
“Oh no you don’t!” Eric cut the engine and flung his car door open.
He nearly made it back to the main road, huffing and puffing with exertion, by the time he finally caught up. If not for the sound of panting, Eric might have run right past the fleeing figure in the pitch-black night. Instead, he took a flying leap and tackled his prey to the ground.
“Oomph!”
Eric expected to overpower those toothpick limbs easily, but the other boy surprised him with his wiry strength. No match for Eric’s more muscular frame but enough to give Eric a run for his money. They rolled on the ground, locked together, and Eric gagged slightly at the overpowering stench that emanated from the boy’s clothes: a putrid mixture of sweat and flowery perfume.
“Over here!” he shouted over his shoulder when he could manage to spare a breath. “Help! Police!”
Eric turned his head back toward the figure locked in his embrace, and he felt something hard graze his temple. A rock. A glancing blow. One inch to the left, and he might have gotten his skull bashed in. This was getting out of hand. With one final burst of strength, Eric brought his fist down against the center of his adversary’s face. Then he flipped the other body over and caught hold of both wrists.
“You disgusting piece of shit,” he growled as he pressed his weight down, pinning the bony frame to the ground.
The boy only moaned in response. He stopped struggling. Had Eric knocked him out cold? Or was he merely playing dead, hoping Eric would relinquish his grasp?
Eric pressed down on the wrists more firmly and called over his shoulder once again. “Police! Over here!”
At last he heard their footfalls. He couldn’t see a thing out there in the darkened road, but the two officers came up over the rise with flashlights blazing. The beams swung over his shoulder and illuminated the form that lay on the ground beneath him.
Eric turned again and met a pair of dazed eyes staring back. The voice began to mumble, half-intelligible. Eric could just make out a few disjointed words:
“She’s mine… She said it…said the words…said she loved me… Tessa…”
At the sound of her name, something inside Eric snapped. For a moment, the whole world went black and then bright crimson. The shouts of the police officers barely penetrated from somewhere far away.
“Tessa…” the voice moaned beneath him. “I’ll never let her go… I’ll never let her forget…”
Eric picked up a jagged rock and slowly raised it overhead.
THE INTERROGATION
(FRAGMENT 11) December 31, 2016, 9:17 p.m.
Case #: 124.678.21–001
OFFICIAL TRANSCRIPTION OF POLICE INTERVIEW
—START PAGE 11—
HART: Oh God, I’m going to be sick.
INVESTIGATOR: Tessa, you showed tremendous presence of mind tonight. You should be very proud of how you handled yourself.
HART: But it was all my fault. I brought the whole thing on myself.
INVESTIGATOR: Listen to me, Tessa. I hear that kind of nonsense all the time from victims. It’s absolutely not true.
HART: Yes, it is true! I invited him here! Don’t you understand? I DM’ed with him for months!
INVESTIGATOR: No, Tessa—
HART: Months and months! It never even occurred to me that it was him.
INVESTIGATOR: Tessa, the individual you’ve been talking to on Twitter was not the suspect.
HART: Yes, it was! I’m sure now. I’m sure it was him!
INVESTIGATOR: Oh, I don’t doubt that Blair Duncan was the individual who stalked you in New Orleans. He was enrolled in the same summer program, for photography. We found numerous pictures of you on his cell phone camera roll. We’ve got him dead to rights on unlawful surveillance and abduction charges. He should be going to prison for a long time.
HART: But you just said—
INVESTIGATOR 2: I don’t think she knows who she was talking to, Chuck.
INVESTIGATOR: She didn’t see him at the scene?
INVESTIGATOR 2: I believe the responding officers already had Ms. Hart in the squad car when he arrived. He followed them back to the station in his own vehicle.
HART: No, no. He came with us in Dr. Regan’s car. He didn’t have a vehicle.
INVESTIGATOR: No, Tessa, I’m not referring to Blair Duncan. He was arrested at the scene.