Page 125 of A Home for Harmony

Why hadn’t she realized that was the reason he asked her?

37

HAD IT UNDER CONTROL

“What do you mean you’ve got a cyber-stalker?” Erica screeched two weeks later.

Harmony was all but jumping in place after what she’d just discovered. She needed to talk to someone and Erica was available.

“I’ll explain, but I’ve got to show you something.”

“No,” Erica said. “I want an explanation first. You know we’ve always worried about this and now you’re saying it’s happening.”

Her sister had frantically jumped up and came toward her to embrace, then ran her hands up and down as if she was looking for some imaginary injury that a computer screen could have caused.

Her arms were swinging as if she’d just stolen the batteries out of the energy bunny and slammed them into her back. “Erica,” she said. “I need to show you something first. Just tell me what you see.”

She grabbed her sister’s arm and tugged her up the stairs to her office and shoved her into her chair. “What am I looking at?” Erica asked. “Then I want an explanation. Promise me.”

“I promise.” She zoomed in on the screen. “What do you see right there?”

“I see a lot of tiny paper figures,” Erica said.

“I know,” she said. “But these three, tell me what they are.”

She was circling them on the screen with her mouse.

“It’s a smiley face emoji, I’m not sure what that next one is, but it’s an emoji too, and then a heart.”

“It’s a hug emoji, right? Look at it,” she said. “Right? Tell me I’m right!”

“Geez, Harmony,” Erica said. “Yeah, I guess so. What is going on?”

She sat on the floor and put her head between her knees. “I need to take a few deep breaths.”

“You’re scaring me,” Erica said, rushing over to sit next to her on the floor and pull her into a hug.

“I’m sorry.” She breathed in and out. How could she have been so stupid? Or worked herself up over this for so long when it was right in front of her face. “When we were living in New York.”

“New York! Don’t tell me it’s been going on that long,” Erica yelled.

“Are you going to let me talk or not?”

“Yes,” Erica said. “Go on.”

“I got some comments and messages, even emails. I thought they were just fans and brushed them off. I don’t comment or reply to everyone.”

“No,” her sister said. “You wouldn’t have the time to.”

“That’s right. These certain messages all had the same tone. I can’t explain it, but it was there. Then they had the same signature. A smiley face, a hug, and a heart.”

“Oh,” Erica said. “Like you just showed me?”

“Yes. I noticed I was getting more messages from different accounts with the same signature. It was getting creepy so I’d block them.”

“Smart,” Erica said. “How frequently were you getting them?”

“Not enough for me to pick up on it right away. But when I blocked them, they’d pop back up as a different user weeks or months later. Maybe because I never replied to them, they didn’t know they were blocked. I don’t know.”