Jealousy Junction by Cathryn Grant (rosie project .txt) 📗

without being captured. So…” She shrugged. “I have no idea what to do. No idea. I thought maybe you and Jerry could figure out something, but I hadn’t gotten up the nerve to tell you yet.”

“I’ve figured out something—calling the police.”

“I’m telling you, he wouldn’t be caught. And what would they ask him—Why are you walking past this house? It’s not like they can arrest him, so then he’d be out there still, even angrier. I’m afraid…” She started to whimper. “I’m scared he’ll hurt me.”

I stood and gave her a light hug. “Let’s sleep on it. There has to be something we can do. We can’t live like this, looking over our shoulders. It’s unacceptable.”

She nodded, tears filling her eyes again. She sniffed. “Thank you for being so nice to me.”

“Yeah, but you didn’t come here to reconnect. You came to find a place to hide.”

“A little, sure. Well, yes, that’s what made me come to see you. But I do want to be closer. Family is everything, right? And we only have a few of us left. I just want to be better friends.” She sniffed again.

I gave her a careful smile. I wasn’t sure about her motives, but I was convinced that we had to get the police involved in getting rid of this guy.

Chapter 11

The argument with Tanya continued the entire next day over text messages while I was at work.

She insisted the police would never find Dave and there wouldn’t be enough to get a warrant. She was trapped.

I told her I refused to be a prisoner in my house. And besides, this creep was following me, so I had the right to do something about it. When I got home that evening, I would call the police.

She sent floods of messages, filled with all caps and rows of emojis. She begged me not to, begged me to listen to her, begged me to give it time.

I couldn’t believe her hysteria over this. Maybe she was still feeling fragile herself, damaged by the breakup of what she’d believed was a lifelong relationship. Maybe this guy, Dave, had a more emotional hold over her than she was saying. Perhaps she’d hooked up with him briefly. I just had the sense there was more to the story. She’d insisted that was it, she’d told me everything, but I couldn’t be sure. Finally, I put my phone away and gave my full attention to the store.

When I arrived home, it was more of the same—tears, pleading, an insistence that police would make him angrier.

We argued and discussed our helplessness through a dinner of pasta and clams and in the living room over mugs of peppermint tea.

Finally, Tanya stood and went to the window. She looked out and turned with a frantic look on her face. “He’s out there. Right now.” Her voice had turned shrill.

Jerry stood and moved toward the stairs. “I’m gonna talk to him.”

“No!” Tanya lunged at him, hanging onto his shoulders as if she hoped to pull him to the ground.

He reached behind himself and patted at her arm. “Let go.” He twisted away from her.

She collapsed to the floor, crying.

If I hadn’t seen the guy myself, if he hadn’t come into my store and followed me, I might have thought her behavior was ridiculous. She was acting as if the man was creeping up the stairs that very minute, holding a dagger in his fist, his arm raised.

“Tanya,” Jerry said. “Let’s calm down.”

She stopped her wailing, but her chest still heaved, and her words were rushed. “You have to listen to me. It’s better to wait until he gets tired of this. Until he cools off.”

“You said he stalked you for months,” I said. “He followed you all the way here from California. It doesn’t look at all like he’s giving up any time soon.”

“I just don’t want to confront him. I don’t know what he’ll do. And I don’t want to call the police because I know it doesn’t work. Then they mark you as a crank, and if we really do need them—”

“The police here aren’t like that,” I said.

“Yeah. Sure.” She wiped her cheeks.

When we both turned away from each other, we saw that Jerry was gone. A moment later, I heard the front door close.

“Oh, shit,” Tanya said.

“Maybe this is better. Maybe he’s not as crazy as you think. He didn’t look angry or out of control at all. He was the opposite.”

“Of course. That’s how he’s trained to be.”

We went to the window and saw Jerry at the end of the path. The man was no longer standing across the street. Jerry looked around, then walked across the street. He stood staring toward the water. He turned slowly, leaning this way and that as he looked past the trees planted along the strip of grass. He started walking, turning his head, which made him look a little suspicious himself—with his long, shaggy hair and the ripped jeans he wore all the time.

A moment later, he disappeared from our line of sight. We turned our attention back to the spot across the street, but the area was empty of human life. The way we stared at that empty spot, it was as if we expected Dave to drop from one of the trees, revealing his hiding place. Still, Tanya and I continued to keep our eyes glued to the place where he’d been standing only a moment earlier. It felt like we were dealing with a ghost.

For several minutes, neither of us spoke.

Finally, she whispered. “I guess he’s gone.”

“Yeah.”

We continued looking out at the quiet street until we saw Jerry come into view. He continued past the house, walking in the opposite direction, and a few minutes later, returned again.

When he finally came upstairs, Tanya and I turned to him, expecting something, but knowing he wouldn’t have a thing to tell us.

“I couldn’t find him.”

“I told you,” Tanya said.

“I’m not going to live like this,” I said for