Chapter

Dove still hadn’t figured out what to do with herself with all the time off work. She read her Bible, and ran on the treadmill, and watched old television shows. Columbo was one of her favorites. But she didn’t see how long she could keep this up for. Most people would kill for a paid vacation, but Dove just wanted to get back to her classroom. It wasn’t as if she could even go anywhere fun.

She was flipping through Proverbs, reading about wisdom incarnate, when she heard a knock on the door. Rather than answer, she grabbed her phone and peeked through a window. A man with a very straight nose. She quickly dialed 911, not caring about using the emergency number.

“Hello, what’s your emergency?” a voice Dove thought was much too chipper asked.

“It’s Dove Babcock, the stalking victim. My stalker is knocking at my door.”

“Don’t let him in, ma’am.”

“I wasn’t going to let him in! I need to know what I am supposed to do.”

“Wait here. Stay on the line. We’re sending the closest officers your way. Stay away from the windows; pretend you’re not home.”

“My car’s here. He’ll know the truth.”

“Don’t panic, ma’am, just stay calm. Everything will be alright if you stay calm.”

“How can you say everything will be alright?” she asked in an angry whisper. “The man that has been following me for weeks is knocking at my door as if he has a freaking package.”

“Just stay on the line. The cops are coming.”

“Which cops?”

“Whichever ones are closest to you. Would you like to hear their names?”

“Yes, I want to hear their names!”

“Jessica Daniels and Nathaniel O’Bannon. Does that help you stay calm, ma’am?”

Surprisingly, it did. But it didn’t stop the soft, incessant, yet somehow polite knock-knock-knock. Then, another sound. Glass shattering. “He just broke the pane of door,” she said. “My door has window panes. I could hear it.”

“Just stay calm, ma’am. Do you have any room you could lock yourself in? Stay very quiet and go to that room.” She rushed up the stairs, thinking every footfall was much too loud, and slammed the bedroom door shut behind her without much thought for the sound. Then she realized what she had done. She locked the door and grabbed her desk chair, pushing it against the doorknob like she had seen in so many detective shows. She wasn’t sure if it would actually do anything to help her, but she had try.

“Dove?” a voice called. A voice she didn’t recognize. A light, airy, slightly high-pitched, friendly voice. “Dove, I know where you are. Why don’t you come out, sweetie?” Dove wanted to scream at him to leave.

“Ma’am, are you okay?” the woman on the phone said. Dove didn’t dare answer.

Footsteps came closer, closer. Too close. A moment later, the doorknob jiggled. She heard someone tsk their tongue.

“Tsk, tsk, tsk. Dove, honey, locking me out, that’s not very nice. Do you know what happens to girls who aren’t very nice?”

Dove found herself taking slow steps backwards until her back hit the wall. She couldn’t breathe. All the oxygen had left the room. If she breathed, she might die. If she breathed, he might kill her. She found with some surprise that tears were dripping down her cheeks.

“I know an old trick,” the man said, jiggling the door handle once more. “See, for simple locks, such as these, one can unlock them with a dime.”

Dove knew this was true, because her mother used to do it when she locked the door in her old house. She looked around frantically for where to go, what to do. She needed to hide. Get out of his line of sight. Get far away. The jump from the window to the ground was too long. She had to find a way to get out. Another way.

She saw the closet and climbed in. It wasn’t a long-term solution, but it would get her out of his line of sight. She closed it behind her as softly as she could, remembering the fiasco with the bedroom door. She heard the click of a lock. “Dove, my dear, I’m coming to see you now.” But the chair. It was still jammed between the handle and the floor. He shook the door, but she didn’t hear it move.

“Hello? Ms. Babcock? Are you okay, Ms. Babcock? The police are on their way. They should be arriving momentarily.” Dove wondered if the phone was making enough noise to be heard, and quickly hung up. She gave no thought to how that would look.

“Dove. Let me open the door. I just want to talk to you. Do you know how long it’s been since we talked?” Dove wondered who he was. How she knew him. Had they made eye contact at the grocery store? Was he the father of one of her schoolchildren? She didn’t recognize him, but he clearly recognized her. She held her breath. She wished she had left part of the door open, so she could see what was happening.

She heard the sound of something being jabbed into the chair, of wood scraping wood. For a moment, there was more scraping and jabbing, until there was the loud sound of a chair clattering to the floor.

“Oh, Dove,” he cooed. “Naughty, naughty, naughty Dove.” She heard footsteps go slowly around the room. The window opened with a sliding noise, wood on wood once again, then shut. “Dove.” Footsteps away, slowly, one after another, then back towards her. Close. Close. Closer. “Oh, there you are, my little dove.” The door creaked open, light sliding over her face, blinding her from seeing him.

* * *

“Police! Nobody move!” Nathaniel screamed as the door slammed against its hinges. There was a red car outside. License plate PMCB12. He prayed silently, over and over, that they hadn’t come too late. He ran into the kitchen, looked high, low, high again, as if maybe she’d be hanging from the ceiling. “Clear!” he shouted, throwing open the pantry door with a clatter. The pantry had stairs leading down into the basement. He fumbled down the stairs in the dark, then felt desperately along the wall for a light. Everything was stale and the air was stagnant. He could feel the emptiness, and yet he needed to see it to be sure. Finally, finally, finally he found the light and flipped it on. The boiler, the heater, the foosball table. “Clear!” he shouted at the top of his lungs. He left the light on and scrambled back up the stairs.

Vaguely, he heard Jessica shouting “clear” in other rooms of the house. He channeled the cool, calm collectedness of Dove. Where would he go if he were her? He knew they were supposed to go through the house systematically, but did it make sense when he had thrown the system out the window? It was time to go to where it made the most sense. If he heard someone break in through the living room, he’d run upstairs. Far away from the man as he could get.

He rushed up the stairs. Bathroom first. That locked, didn’t it? Didn’t they generally tell people to go in the locking rooms? He threw open the shower curtain. “Clear!” he shouted. He ran into one of the bedrooms. A window was open, the curtains moved quietly in the breeze. “Possible exit point!” he screamed.

The closet was ajar. He looked inside it. Neat, orderly, nothing to say anything might be amiss. “Clear!” he shouted. There was one more room upstairs. Another bedroom. He ran to it. There was a chair, scratched up, collapsed across the floor. There was Jessica, standing, with her gun drawn. There was a man with a very straight nose. And crouched on the floor, in silent tears, was Dove.

“Make the arrest,” Jessica said. Nate wanted to ask Dove if she was okay, but he knew how this worked. He walked over, pulled the man’s hands into cuffs, and read him his rights.