Page 26 of Kiss Marry Kill
He furrowed his eyebrows. “I don’t know what that means.”
“I don’t know. I guess . . . you’re special to me and it means something when you say those things.” She waved her hands around, dismissing the comment almost as quickly as she started. “I don’t know, I’m just being silly, I guess. What were we talking about?”
He wanted to know more about the “you’re special” part of her comment. Special as in a friend or special as in she wanted more? His pulse quickened—he wasn’t sure what he’d say if she wanted more, or worse, how he’d feel if she just thought of him as a friend.
He cleared his throat. “You were telling me about Ryan.”
“Oh yeah. So anyway, every time I’d move around the pub, he seemed to be there, trying to get my attention somehow. As I told you earlier, he had the most unusual eyes and I told him so. I called him Ryan the Cat.” She scrunched her face as if she’d eaten something sour. “He said he’d never been told that before but that he loved cats and liked the comparison. Then he offered to buy me a drink. I politely declined. He asked me to dance, even though there was no music. Again, I politely declined. He even asked if he could walk me back to the hotel. I didn’t want to cause a big scene, so I didn’t have him thrown out when his presence got a little overwhelming.” She shrugged. “Instead, when I realized he wouldn’t be leaving anytime soon, I snuck out with one of the security guys back to the hotel. We had a lot of tour dates and I completely forgot about the incident until I got back home three months later and there was a letter waiting for me.”
“Tell me about the letter. The report referenced it but I haven’t gotten my hand on a copy yet. Should have it tomorrow. ”
“One second, I’ll show you. I made a copy before I handed it over to the police.” She stood up and jogged inside. A few minutes later she returned with a photocopy of the letter.
My little mouse,
I waited for you while you were in the bathroom. But when you didn’t come back I realized you wanted to be chased, that is why you teased me all night, so chase I will my Meggy. I’ve been watching you, following your tour. When you sing, my cock gets so hard. I know if you just gave me a chance you’d realize we were meant to be together.
Can’t wait to play again. I love games.
—Your cat.
“Jesus.”
“Exactly, right? I wasn’t playing games. And honestly, I just thought he was an excited fan. I didn’t really feel threatened at the time so much as uncomfortable or maybe even annoyed. Until I got back and saw the letter, of course. Then I was freaked out.”
He shook the letter in his hand. “And this was where?”
“It was mailed here but it didn’t have a return address.”
“Don’t you have a PO Box or some other place where you get fan mail?”
“Of course I do. That’s what’s weird. It came here. To my house. I have everything in different corporations, including this house. It’s not like you can just type in Megan Cruz in Google and my address pops up.”
“And nothing happened with that case.”
“They said that without more information, there wasn’t much they could do. All I knew was that his name was Ryan. Plus, months had passed and I hadn’t heard anything else, so I let it go.”
Jax took out his phone, flattened the paper on the nearby table, and took a series of photos.
“What’re you doing?”
“Sending it to Joey. We have some forensic handwriting software in the office. It works like fingerprints. If this guy’s never been in the database, it wouldn’t turn anything up, but it’s still worth a shot. I’m also going to try and get the original letter and try to run it for prints. I want to make sure the cops didn’t miss anything.”
“You want me to call the officer who’s handling—”
“No, I got it.”
“You can check out fingerprints too?”
“Our equipment and software is military grade. The cops are involved because you called them and because it’s the right thing to do. But you’re crazy if you think I’m leaving this to them and all their red tape. I’m doing my own investigation alongside of them.”
“Okaaaay. . . .”
Placing the letter aside, he turned back to her. “So, you got this letter. What next?”
“Nothing until six months ago, which was about nine months after getting the letter. I got a creepy drawing in an email.”
“I read about that too. Show me?”
