Stalker Read online

  She’d heard plenty of tales of cults and charismatic leaders who were able to sway even the most cynical. Jim Jones sprang immediately to mind, and how he was able to get some nine hundred of his followers to obediently drink the fatal Kool-Aid. Melissa knew it was silly to expect a Styrofoam cup of death, but she still had anxieties.

  Even so, she spent a lot of her off time at the club looking for the woman, hoping to bump into her. That’s why she came here today, after stopping by the video store to rent a movie.

  She did another flip turn, snapping her thigh muscles tightly against the wall, pushing off. Tiny bubbles slid down her back, unable to latch on. She kicked fiercely. She tried to drive her failure from her mind, concentrating on her stroke and the pleasant feel of slicing cleanly through the water. She tucked her head down, not breathing until she touched the smooth tile of the other wall.

  She stopped, gulping for air, brushing the hair from her face. She looked at the clock to see how fast she swam that last set. Not bad, but far from her peak years.

  As her gaze returned to the pool, Melissa had to contain a gasp. Standing in the lane next to her, not five feet away, was the woman she sought. One look at the slightly milky crystal around her neck confirmed that.

  The woman returned her gaze with a kind of quizzical smile, and then submerged under the water, pushing off the wall and surfacing fifteen yards farther down employing a smooth breaststroke. Melissa reflexively almost followed her, and then thought better of it.

  She didn’t want to come on too strong. As she watched her coming back, her head bobbing up and down, she tried to think of a line to prompt conversation, but couldn’t think of how to start. She felt uneasy.

  But all her worry was for nothing. As soon as the woman reached the wall, she stopped swimming and stood up, addressing Melissa.

  “I thought I knew you from somewhere,” she said. “It took me the length of the pool to figure it out.”

  Melissa immediately thought she was going to say she knew her from television, and that would make gaining her confidence more difficult. Celebrity had its benefits, but this was not one of them.

  “You’re the girl I talked to a while back about this, aren’t you?” she asked, indicating the crystal she gently twirled between her breasts.

  Melissa was relieved that she didn’t mention TV. “That’s a beautiful crystal. I still can’t believe you wear it swimming.”

  “I wouldn’t part with it,” the woman said, looking Melissa over, not sure what to make of her. She felt awkward asking the next question. “You looked like you wanted to say something just before I took off. Did you?”

  The woman certainly made it easy for Melissa. Instead of having to come up with a clever way to introduce the topic at hand, all she had to do was play along.

  “Well…yes, I did,” Melissa said. The woman was so kind and open she felt ashamed for having her Kool-Aid thoughts. “Last time we spoke, you started to tell me about a group you belonged to.”

  The woman nodded, recalling the incident.

  Melissa stopped talking, instead extending her hand over the lane marker. “This is awkward talking to you without knowing your name. I’m Melissa.” She purposefully withheld her last name.

  The woman took Melissa’s hand in hers, smiling warmly. “I’m Kim. Pleased to meet you.”

  *2*

  Melissa bought Kim an orange juice at the club’s juice bar and brought it over to the table. Kim thanked her, and took a big sip.

  “That tastes great. It’s funny, but every time after I swim, I get really thirsty. You’d think that would be the last thing to happen with all that water around.”

  “It’s probably just the exercise making you thirsty,” Melissa said. “Of course, washing the chlorine out of your mouth doesn’t hurt either.”

  Kim laughed. “I know what you mean.”

  After they made introductions, they didn’t speak much. Melissa ducked under the lane marker to join Kim in her lane, and they spent the next ten minutes swimming laps, occasionally engaging in a race.

  They chatted some more in the locker room. Melissa tried to get a feel for Kim, and she thought Kim was doing the same. Kim dressed very professionally, wearing a sharp navy blue blazer combined with a matching skirt. Her white blouse was buttoned all the way up, the collar held together by a beautiful amulet. Underneath she wore her necklace holding the crystal, but no one could see it now. Even though she was dressed rather conservatively, she had an exotic look to her. Her eyes were like almonds, dark and smoky, and she had long black hair held off her face with barrettes.

  It was easier to engage in an almost flirtation than to discuss the issues on both of their minds. Melissa found that she liked Kim, happy to have a female friend her age to pal around with. That was the one thing she had been lacking since her move.

  Now, resting after their swim, Melissa thought it was time to play the reporter. She had spent enough time with Kim to gain at least a little insight into the woman, and felt that she could now ask questions without rebuke.

  “What more can you tell me about your group?”

  Kim raised an eyebrow skeptically. “What do you want to know?”

  “Everything you can tell me.”

  Kim let out a small snicker. “Everything?” she said, looking at Melissa over her glass of juice. She took a drink, set down the glass, and added, “That will take a while.”

  “Can you at least try?”

  Kim gave her a straightforward look. “If you’re sincere about knowing all there is, I’m not the one to tell you. I’m just a mere novitiate. I can really only give the invitation.”

  Melissa gulped. “Are you extending one to me?”

  “Yes,” Kim said, apparently very pleased to have found not only a new friend, but also a new initiate for the sect. “In fact, we’re having a meeting tonight. It would be great if you would come.”

  Melissa looked down, biting her lip. If she went to the meeting, that meant blowing off Dan. She didn’t want to do that. On the other hand, she didn’t want to risk alienating Kim after all the progress she’d made.

  Kim noticed her dilemma. “Is there a problem?”

  “I do have plans tonight,” she said sheepishly, as though she needed Kim’s permission to continue her evening as scheduled. “Is there some other time I could meet your friends? Maybe tomorrow?”

  Kim frowned. “You’ll have to wait until next week. You can meet me here at eight o’clock, and the two of us will go together.” She started to collect her things.

  “Are you going already?”

  “Yes. I have some errands to run,” Kim said sternly, sliding back her chair and standing.

  Melissa also stood and extended her hand again, suddenly uneasy and wishing she had said yes. “I’m glad we met again. I’m really looking forward to next week.”

  Kim took her hand and some of the kindness returned, but she was still stern. “I have to let you know that if you are really serious there are sacrifices to be made. Most of your friends won’t understand you anymore. They are just ignorant. You will discover this for yourself. But you will make many new friends, friends that share the same philosophy of life that you do.”

  Melissa nodded understanding, pretending to follow along.

  “I guess what I’m trying to say is this: right now your plans are more important to you than meeting us. That will change. I want you to know that we expect that of you. In time, you will learn to expect that from yourself if you stay with us, but you’ll see it more as a privilege than a duty.” She smiled broadly. “Don’t worry about all that I’m telling you. The best time of your life is about to begin.”

  *3*

  “…and then she left.”

  “That seems kind of weird,” Dan said.

  “But she was so sincere,” Melissa said. “She truly believed every word of it, and seemed so content with herself.” She leaned back against the sofa and stared off into the darkened room, contemplating. “I wo
nder what it is they’re preaching?”

  “You’d just better watch yourself. These people are masters at brainwashing.”

  “There’s nothing to worry about. As long as I know what I’m doing when I go there they can’t change my mind about anything. Besides, so far I can’t find any evidence of brainwashing. It’s just a different way of life. Of course it seems strange to us.”

  Dan didn’t like the way she was talking. It almost seemed that she had more than a journalistic interest in probing what he still considered a cult.

  Melissa saw the concern displayed on his face. She reached over and placed a hand on his thigh. “Would you relax, you dummy? It’s just a story.”

  “At least let me go with you when you go.”

  “How am I supposed to gain any kind of trust from them if I drag along my camera crew? I have to feel them out for myself first before I can do any kind of story.” Her eyes softened and they met Dan’s. “I’m touched that you want to go, but you can’t. Not yet.”

  He looked down, dodging her gaze, and focused on Melissa’s hand resting on his leg instead. He folded his hand over hers and nodded. He knew she was right. The next words were hard to say:

  “It’s just that…I get worried about you. It’s funny. When Lynnette goes off on a potentially dangerous crime story, I see it as part of her job. But with you…” Unable to complete his thought, he shifted in his seat. “And this probably isn’t even dangerous. All the other religions you’ve investigated so far were harmless.” He flushed red. “I feel so stupid.”

  She placed a hand on his cheek and turned his face toward her. “Don’t,” was all she said before kissing him.

  Dan, caught by surprise at first, inhaled sharply through his nose. Her kiss was different from Janet’s, softer, more tender. After his initial shock, he returned her kiss, holding her hand, their fingers entwined.

  Induction

  *1*

  Melissa sat in her car in the spa parking lot, breathing deeply.

  “Nervous?” asked Dan.

  Although she said he couldn’t come along and shoot during her first meeting, Melissa let him ride along with her to the health club. Since last week, they had been acting like a couple of teenagers falling in love for the first time, constantly talking on the phone, meeting for dinner, catching themselves gazing at the other when there was work to be done. It was all so fast, yet it felt so natural.

  His comment broke her out of her daze. She looked at him, sitting next to her in the front seat of her Sentra, and smiled reassuringly.

  “I’d be lying if I didn’t say I was a little apprehensive, but I think most of my jitters come from never doing anything like this before.”

  Dan nodded. He still wasn’t big on the idea of Melissa going off alone to this meeting, but he kept his mouth shut. He knew if he opened it he was likely to say something he might regret later. Besides, she already knew about all his reservations.

  “I guess I should go in,” Melissa said. “Kim’s waiting.”

  “What time do you want me to pick you up?”

  A small frown creased Melissa’s face. “I really have no idea how long this will last. It could be a few minutes, it might be hours.”

  “I could go get something to eat, and then come back and wait for you. I brought along a book…” he offered, waving a paperback.

  Melissa shook her head. “I don’t want you to have to do that. I’ll call you from here when I get back. The spa’s open late, so it shouldn’t be a problem.”

  “Okay. Be careful.”

  “I will,” she said, kissing him.

  Dan watched her go until she disappeared behind the spa’s double doors. He wanted to see Kim, but didn’t want Mel to catch him sitting in the parking lot, waiting for them to come out. That would show a lack of trust, so he forced himself to let it go and drove off back to his place, where he would spend the rest of the night sitting by the phone, anxiously awaiting her call.

  *2*

  Cameron sat hunched over his desk and rubbed his eyes. He spent the day reading files and reports, poring over hundreds of photos. He sought some kind of modus operandi, searching for some sort of clue that might have been overlooked. He feared the day was spent in vain.

  When the police psychologists put together their theory about a homicidal maniac with an Oedipus complex— killing women because he’s angry with his mother—Cameron scoffed at it. It appeared to him as too easy a solution. But over time, he had allowed the idea to seep into his system, where it stewed and germinated, taking a life of its own. Eventually he convinced himself that it had to be true.

  But then the last victim, the male, had shown up. Skinny, not able to put up much of a fight, but a man nonetheless. That kind of shot the mother fixation thing to hell. Cameron had his men perform intensive research into this man’s background, so much so that at times he bent the law a little bit, disregarding the late man’s privacy. What he was looking for wasn’t pretty, but it would answer a lot of questions, keeping the case neat and tidy.

  He hoped the killing was a mistake, the murderer confusing him for a woman for a few fatal seconds. They searched his apartment for clues that he might have been gay or at least a cross-dresser. They searched for male pornography. They looked through his credit card receipts for billings to phone sex lines. They searched for panties and bras, wigs and makeup—anything that might prove that the man had started out the evening dressed as a woman.

  While all of this sounded farfetched to Cameron, he was willing to cling to it. The pressure he felt from above was unbelievable. In the end, the man turned out to have a healthy, heterosexual sex life. So much, in fact, that some of his escapades were hard to believe, but they were all backed up by different women.

  That left the most frightening theory of all. It wasn’t an Oedipus complex, it wasn’t someone with an intense hatred of women, it wasn’t a case of mistaken identity—the victims were chosen completely at random for their ease of opportunity. Sex didn’t matter. Age didn’t matter. Lifestyle didn’t matter.

  And that wasn’t much to go on.

  *3*

  Melissa walked into the juice bar and spotted Kim immediately. She walked over and said hello.

  “I’m glad you came,” Kim said. “Often they don’t.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “It’s the same old story over and over. I’ll meet someone who seems to be interested in what we’re offering, but once it becomes time to commit, they abandon us.”

  “Why do they do that?”

  “They’re afraid of us,” Kim said, “but there’s nothing to be afraid of. You feel that, don’t you?”

  Melissa thought back to the parking lot a few minutes ago, gathering the courage to walk in the door; she relived the tense walk on wobbly legs to the door; she recalled the butterflies in her stomach and her dry mouth. She remembered all these things, but didn’t speak of them.

  “Yes,” she said, lying.

  Kim smiled, fooled so thoroughly. This made Melissa feel guilty about the ruse. She was straightforward with the other churches she covered, never coy about who she was or why she was there. Why was it different this time? Was it because she already had a level of communication with Kim and wasn’t approaching her as a stranger? Was it because the whole concept of crystal worship fascinated her more than the others? Or was it because she sensed something half-baked under Kim’s façade, a truth that she wouldn’t be able to reach if she was completely honest?

  Melissa thought for a moment about coming clean right here, right now. If Kim didn’t want to continue that was her prerogative. At least she would feel less of a manipulator and more like a reporter. She had already uncovered plenty of material to use in her series. What would be the big deal if the spark that drove the whole thing fizzled? The big deal would be that I wouldn’t feel like I’ve done my job, Melissa thought bitterly.

  “So, how did you get into this, Kim?”

  “Now’s not the time for q
uestions,” she said abruptly. “There will be ample time for that later. We should probably go.”

  Her succinct response caught Mel off guard, but she didn’t push the issue any further. She decided it would be best to just sit quietly and ride it out, crossing her bridges when she came to them.

  The two women left the club.

  *4*

  Dan watched the Pacers getting slaughtered by the Pistons on ESPN. Chips and beer surrounded him. When the Pistons stole the ball and hurled it back down the court for a quick two, Dan punched the throw pillow he was nuzzling and grabbed for his beer, taking a healthy swig. The performance of his team disgusted him, but it was something to take his mind off whatever Melissa was doing at the moment. The silent phone ate at him.

  At halftime Dan stood up to shake the weasel, remembering that tried and true drinking expression: you don’t buy beer; you only rent it. The tightness of his bladder could testify to the truth of that statement, as could his overworked kidneys.

  He remembered back to the night when he threw out all the beer in his refrigerator, vowing to never drink again. How long had that lasted? Not very.

  He decided that throwing out his beer and movie memorabilia was a knee-jerk reaction to his relationship problems. He partially regretted doing it—not because some of it was worth a lot of money, but because he threw away a lot of memories. How many of his friends wished they hadn’t let their mothers throw out their comic books or sell off their baseball cards at a garage sale? He sighed.

  He understood that since the events of last December he had buried himself in his hobby. Renting horror movies, seeing them in theatres, reading ghoulish works of fiction—all of it had increased beyond what was once a harmless distraction. All the horror in the world couldn’t have prepared him for that train wreck, but he’d been confronting horror head on ever since trying to deal with why he ran away that night instead of helping.