Chapter 9
Toby
I finished revising my scene and tried not to think about Dex without a shirt.
All those muscles. And the tattoos. And he smelled really good. And he was super helpful when it came to my work.
There weren’t honestly that many people I could talk to about my writing. Josh and Sebbie were proud of me and respected all that I’d accomplished, but they were more amused by my random ramblings. They didn’t actually help me. They joked about me following the trails of plot bunnies and laughed at my macabre search history, but it just wasn’t their thing. And that was totally fine. When Josh started talking about spreadsheets, my eyes glazed over in boredom, but I still listened.
That’s what friends did.
Still, it was really cool to have someone who was so interested and helpful. Of course, Amy, my PA was super helpful too, but she had a ton of clients, and I hated to bother her with random stuff unless I was really stuck. She handled all my social media and my releases, and she was a godsend for doing it.
Who knew that being an author was so much more than writing books?
Still, I couldn’t complain. I was doing what I loved, and I made a successful living at it.
That reminded me that I probably needed to let Amy know about the most recent email. She had been the one to actually block him on my socials, since she had the sign in for all those accounts and monitored them more closely than me, especially when I was in the middle of writing a book. I should probably forward the email to her as well.
I opened my inbox to do just that, and I saw that there were more messages.
As in, numerous messages.
I opened the first one and skimmed it, then went through the rest. I felt sicker as I read each one, snippets of them jumping out at me and blazing across my mind.
I’m your biggest fan.
I’m sure that bitch of a PA is the one who blocked me. I know you would never do that to me. Hopefully she isn’t checking your email, too. Don’t worry, I’ll find some way around that bitch.
I’m sure it’s lonely being an author, but I’ll keep you company and provide inspiration for ALL your scenes.
I can protect you and take care of you just like Carlos did for Antoine in your book.
Because that was the stalker guy from my book that he’d already referenced. I felt like screaming. That was fiction . This was real life . Stalking was not sexy . Ok, so maybe being a bit stalkerish about my neighbor was sexy, but hey, we knew each other, so that didn’t count as stalking. I almost giggled hysterically, and I knew I had to pull it together.
I counted the emails. Ten. He’d sent me ten emails in the span of twenty-four hours.
What. The. Fuck.
What was I supposed to do with this? What could I do with this?
I had no idea what the guy’s name was or where he was from, and it was only a small consolation that he had no idea what my real name was either.
I forwarded the emails to Amy and started pacing. I ended up walking around and checking to make sure all my windows and doors were locked before heading up to my bedroom. I locked myself inside and sat on my bed, staring at the door.
I was being absurd, because he didn’t know who I was. There was no way for him to know who I was.
Fuck. Had I actually acquired a stalker?
I wrote dark romance and suspense. I was popular in my genres, but I wasn’t getting interviewed on tv or anything. I was no Stephen King, for fuck’s sake. I wasn’t supposed to get a stalker. I was plain, and boring, and I ate too many potato chips and lived like a hermit. I barely even made it onto social media, letting Amy take care of most of that.
As if on cue, my phone rang.
I might’ve jumped a bit, and then giggled a little hysterically. I answered my phone.
“Toby.” Amy’s voice sounded like she was scolding me, and I put my head in my hands.
“I know,” I murmured.
“Toby, this is serious,” she pronounced.
“I know!” I stated. “I haven’t heard anything for ages!”
“Well…” Amy sort of trailed off.
Great. What the fuck didn’t I know?
“Amy,” I grumbled, “you blocked him on all my socials.”
“I did,” she stated firmly. “And when he made a new account and joined and sent you a private message, I blocked that account too.”
“Are you serious? You didn’t tell me?” I asked.
Amy sighed. “Toby, I knew you’d just worry. And it was a lot of hateful shit that you did not need to read. I replied and told him that your PA handled all social media and he would be blocked. I kind of figured he was just irate that you blocked him, and I thought if he could blame someone else he would lay off and wouldn’t blast you in reviews or anything. I know you specifically said you were worried about that. I was trying to help!”
“Did you save the message?” I asked.
Maybe we could take the emails and the social media messages to the cops, although really, I’d done enough research over time to know there wasn’t much they could do. They weren’t going to devote a detective to a few creepy emails, and everyone had their servers blocked or encrypted or whatever the fuck it was called these days, so chances of learning who the guy was from the emails were extremely slim.
Gotta love technology.
Fuck.
“I should have saved them,” Amy replied. “Honestly, I just wanted it gone before you saw it, because I knew you’d panic, and you were in the middle of edits at the time. I was trying to help!”
“Fuck,” I muttered, getting up and pacing. “I know. That was it, though? Just the one message that you replied to?”
“Well…” Amy hesitated.
“Amy!” I hissed. “I am freaking the fuck out here!”
“I know. Just… take a deep breath. Stay calm. You don’t use your real name on the internet, and the guy is just sending creepy emails. I’ll call your local police station and forward everything to them, and I’ll tell them about the social media stuff and the message I deleted. I don’t know how far we’ll get…”
“Not far,” I muttered, “but at least we’ll have documented it.”
“I think… I think he’s probably tried to rejoin a few times since then with fake accounts,” Amy said carefully.
“Amy!” I hissed again.
“I can’t be sure! I make it a policy to not let anyone who has just created an account into your groups or socials, because they end up being spammers. After I blocked him, for a few days there were a lot of requests from new accounts, but I can’t be sure. Anyway, he gave up, so I figured he moved on,” Amy defended.
“I’m freaking out,” I said, continuing to pace back and forth.
“Listen Toby, relax. The guy doesn’t know who you are. It’s a creepy internet fan, but I’ll call the local police in the morning and file a report. I have more information than you, so it makes sense. I’ll keep you posted, ok? Just breathe and try not to panic,” she said.
I blew a breath out. That was easier said than done. Amy tried to calm me down by talking about my current project and the logistics of my next release. I let myself get distracted by those details, and we talked about a new series I was thinking about.
By the time we got off the phone, I was feeling calmer and had stopped pacing. I was about to get undressed for the shower when I remembered my PO box.
I’d emptied it just the other day when I went into town, and of course I’d been too lazy to bother going through the mail at the time. It was sitting downstairs in a tote bag. I hadn’t even rifled through the envelopes yet. I knew I had a few copyrights due in from the Copyright Office, and I often exchanged stickers of my characters and fun stuff like that with other authors, and I received some junk mail, so I hadn’t really put it at the top of my list.
But what if my stalker fan had sent something?
I had a PO Box for all author related stuff, and I didn’t think it would be impossible for someone to track it down. That’s why I’d used a PO Box and not my home address.
It was going to bother me now until I went and checked. The blue reusable tote bag was taking on sinister proportions in my head.
What if he sent a bomb?
No, I didn’t have any packages, only envelopes. So no bomb. But wasn’t there a thing on the news ages ago where people were sent anthrax or something? Maybe he sent me anthrax or some other poison. I’d open an envelope and powder would float out and I’d be dead.
Although he didn’t seem to want to just kill me—he seemed to want to stalk me and probably kidnap me before eventually killing me. So maybe there’d be some sort of sleeping powder in the envelope.
Or maybe I was being delusional and letting my imagination run away with me. Again. Perils of being an author, I supposed.
I took a deep breath and headed downstairs. I’d have to check or I’d just work myself into an anxiety spiral of doom over it.
I grabbed the bag from by the door where I’d left it and walked it into the living room, dumping it out onto the coffee table. It was pretty easy to spot the junk mail, and I got rid of that. That left me with about seven envelopes.
Three of them had return addresses of other authors I recognized. Down to four mystery letters.
The first one was a bunch of character stickers and a bookmark. I almost rolled my eyes at Jay for not putting his return address on the envelope. The character stickers were super cute though, but I put them aside.
Second envelope was junk mail disguised as something interesting. Stupid junk mail.
Third envelope was fan mail. I opened it and skimmed it, then went back and read it more slowly. It was a very complimentary letter, but of course the person requested some swag. They even had a folded up self-addressed envelope inside, so I set that aside. It certainly wouldn’t hurt to send them a few stickers.
One envelope left. It took on epic proportions of dread in my mind. It was always the last envelope in my books, but what were the odds it was from Creepy Guy in real life? Because this was real life, not one of my novels or a horror movie. The power wasn’t going to go off, there wasn’t a serial killer out on the loose (well, unless you counted my very hot neighbor, but jury was still out on whether he was a serial killer), and there wasn’t someone hiding in my attic.
Fuck. Now I was gonna totally worry about the damn attic. Why did I do this to myself?
I sighed and picked up the last envelope. I opened it carefully, and of course no white powder floated out.
There were only two sentences written inside, and it was handwritten in a pretty cursive on a plain piece of paper. My heart raced at the sight of it, and I noticed my hands were shaking a bit.
I placed the sheet of paper down and looked at the envelope. It was postmarked from a city not even an hour away.
It was ok. I’d tell Amy, and I’d bring this to the police station if I needed to, not that I thought there was much they were gonna be able to do. I took some deep breaths, walked to the pantry, grabbed a bag of chips, and headed upstairs. I’d shower and then get comfy clothes on and snack in bed (fuck the crumbs for once) and find the best, most graphic romance I could lay my hands on to lose myself in.
My plan almost worked, but even though the book I chose was really good with great sex scenes, the lines from the letter just kept looping in my head.
Don’t worry Toby, I’m sure we’ll be seeing each other soon. We were meant to be together.