Page 49 of Guarding the Star

Paula reads it and is dressed in seconds. She dials a number.

“Trent. Immediate protocol activation. I need visual confirmation.”

When she hangs up, she looks at me.

“Don't move from here. I'm locking the door. Don't move,” she repeats.

“Paula—”

“Iris. Listen to me,” she says, hands on my shoulders.

I hear the apartment door open and close. The key in the lock. Two turns.

I stay in bed. The sheets tangled. The smell of both of us on the pillow. The dark. Out there, somewhere on our street, a man who's spent fourteen months watching from a distance has decided to get closer.

It's no longer eight blocks.

It's zero.

Chapter 16

Paula

The street is empty.

Quarter past two in the morning. Seattle's typical drizzle. The streetlights throwing yellow circles on the wet pavement.

I walk down the avenue with the phone pressed to my ear and my eyes checking every doorway, every parked car, every shadow.

Trent said he'd be here in eight minutes. If I find the stalker, I hope that's true, because I don't know if I'll be able to control myself. I scan the gaps between buildings where someone could stand without being seen.

Nobody.

I open my firm's app on the phone. First month we got authorization to place two perimeter cameras. I rewind. 1:47 a.m. A male figure. Wearing glasses. Walking slow. Stops in front of our entrance. Eleven seconds staring at the building. Turns the corner. Gone.

Eleven seconds. It doesn't sound like much, but it's enough time to do a lot of things.

Trent arrives with two more people from my firm. They comb the street end to end, but find nothing. We check every corner again, every car, every doorway. The next block. The side alley. Nothing. Derek Linden has vanished into the Seattle night.

I get back to the apartment at three and find Iris sitting on the bed, back against the wall, hugging her knees. Waiting for me.

“Was it him?” she asks the second she sees me.

“Probably. The camera doesn't have enough resolution to confirm,” I say, shrugging.

“But you think so.”

“Yes,” I sigh.

We take a long time falling asleep even though Iris has a game tomorrow. We sit on the bed with the lights on and the bedroom door open. At four, she falls asleep with her head on my thigh. I stroke her hair, close my eyes, but I don't sleep. I listen to the street. Every car that passes. Every sound that could or couldn't be a twenty-six-year-old man with thick-framed glasses standing in front of our building.

At five in the morning, Iris wakes up screaming.

A nightmare. Derek Linden inside the apartment. She bolts up, heart racing, knuckles white on the sheet, mumbling, “I don't want to be alone.”

I hold her. I brush her cheek with the back of my hand until she falls asleep again and I stay awake staring at the ceiling. I should get up and cross-reference the press credentials against the risk profile database. I should check them one by one, same as I've done before every game. But every time I move, Iris stirs in her sleep, and she needs rest.

At six, she sleeps calm. Her right hand closed over the fabric of my shirt. Her breathing slow, deep, steady.