Jace sat back against the headboard and listened to his non-shopkeeping, non-goat-owning, non-beekeeping non-neighbor lay out her thought process. With a concussion.
How he’d ever thought this woman could be anything but what she was—that was the question. The human mind was capable of some mighty feats of rationalization.
She told her sister—the real Lily, whom Jace could envision, no doubt wearing something effortlessly feminine, looking as ethereal and perfect as Paige somehow never managed—“The first thing you need to know is that Jace has a stalker.”
“Another stalker?” Lily asked. “Or the same person?”
“See?” Paige said. “That’s it. That’s the question. Another stalker, almost certainly. Entirely different motivation. At least I think so. Mine’s got to be motivated by getting me—you—to sell. At least I’ve assumed they are. Jace’s is personal, and it sure sounds like a woman. She’s escalated fast, and she’s invaded his space. Broken into his house, even, which is pretty significant. It also shows us that she’s physically here. Living here, or living close by. And I think she could have attacked me.”
“But you said my chickens got killed,” Lily objected. “That my shop window got broken. That’s invading my space. Why wouldn’t they have hit you, too? Or why wouldn’t it be the same person? Breaking the shop window, killing the chickens, and doing… whatever to Jace?”
“But you see,” Paige said, “the person didn’t actually kill the chickens. Not hands-on. And by the way, your window’s getting fixed. Today.” Jace made a note to check on that. “And we’re doing the greatest sale. Remind me to tell you. So don’t worry.”
“Would you quit telling me not to worry? I’m not worried about my window.” Paige might think Lily was sweeter than she was, and maybe she was, but right now? She didn’t sound all that sweet to him.
“All right,” Paige said. “Fine. Maybe all of it’s been the same person. If it is, it’s Jace’s, not mine. Or rather—I don’t have a stalker. We have a stalker. I’m pretty sure Jace’s stalker is jealous of me.”
Jace said, “She implied that. More than once.” He managed to get the words out even through that freezing prickling of your scalp when you realized the danger that had been there all along. When you saw the enemy and finally recognized him for what he was.
Or what she was.
“Tobias was here last night,” he said. “My dog,” he explained to Lily. “My stalker’s a risk taker, but she’s not that big a risk taker. She hasn’t come farther than the front porch when Tobias or I have been home. She knows what I used to do. I’m too hard a target. Paige isn’t, or the person doesn’t think so.” Might not be a bad idea, he thought, to make sure she knew what he’d used to do. And that nobody was going to be an easy target, not if he had anything to say about it.
“Right,” Paige said. “On the one hand, you don’t have alarms or cameras here, Jace, and neither do I. But everybody knows the cops will take a while to show up to an alarm, and who’s going to look at that blurry security footage? The cops aren’t putting in overtime matching it against photos of convicted burglars and finding their last known addresses, I’ll tell you that. Unless the homeowner recognizes their teenage kid’s lowlife buddy, good luck. And you’re remote up here. No neighbors to look out their kitchen windows. But a big dog? A scary breed? An arrest might or might not happen in the future, and they’re betting on ‘might not.’ But a big dog will bite you right now.”
“OK,” Lily said, “but—”
“And I don’t have a big dog,” Paige said. “There my place is, empty all day. I mean your place, Lily. When did Jace’s stalker come into his house? After he spent the night at mine. And when did I get hit? When he was with me again. When he went to the gym with me. For the third time. And last night was different. That was a personal attack. About as personal as you can get. When you hit somebody in the head? That’s more personal than a gunshot. That’s trying to wipe them out. Their face. Their head. Their self.”
Lily said, “Oh, no.” Faintly.
Paige said, “She didn’t wipe me out, so don’t worry.” Which Jace thought was pretty cavalier of her, but which wasn’t too different from all the things he’d said to his mum. Downplaying the danger didn’t mean you weren’t aware of it. It meant you didn’t want the people you loved to worry about it. “And it didn’t have to be a woman,” Paige went on, “but it was the woman’s locker room. A man would have a job convincing people he’d, what? Wandered in there in the dark? Suspicion falling on him right there, bingo. And I don’t believe the person seized an opportunity, either, after a mysterious power failure. Maximum of fifteen seconds after the lights went out, and I was in a curtained cubicle. The person had to know where I was, to be holding whatever they hit me with, to get to me fast, and then to look innocent again by the time the lights came back on. They either turned out the lights, or they worked with somebody who did.”
“That second part,” Jace said. “That looks more likely. That’s the problem with your scenario, and you know it. My stalker’s one person. How many people want Lily out, do you know?”
“Lots,” Lily said. “Enough to talk to me about it.”
“Me, too,” Paige admitted. “I’ve heard from, who? The woman who owns the gym, Jennifer whoever. I need to find out more about her, because the gym seems pretty critical here. But the other woman was there, too. Raeleigh Franklin. They were both in the locker room when I went into that cubicle. And the guy at the gas station. He wasn’t there, but he’s another one. Those are just the people I’ve happened to run into, who’ve seen fit to tell me how much they hate my decision-making. Your decision-making. Whatever.”
“You reported all this, right?” Lily asked. “Both things, Jace’s stalker and this? The police know?”
“Yeah,” Jace said, “for what it’s worth. I don’t think Sergeant Worthington has me on the top of his priority list.”
“Oh,” Lily said. “But the gym… well, if it was Jennifer Turner, or if Jennifer was involved somehow, though I can’t believe she’d do that. She has kids. Her daughter’s in college. But if it was…”
“That doesn’t stop anybody,” Paige said. “Mothers can do horrible things. I could tell you stories.”
“I don’t want to hear your stories,” Lily said.
“Wait.” Jace put a hand up when Paige would have spoken. “Lily’s the one who knows these people best. If it was Jennifer, what?”
“Well,” Lily said, “I mean, he’s her brother.”
A long moment, then Jace asked, “Who’s her brother?”
“Chris Worthington. You know. The cop.”