Page 35 of Pride

“I work for the Merivale Echo,” I went on. “And an article was published not long ago that wasn’t very...” I paused to try andfind the right word. “Flattering about his artwork. That piece had my name on it. He took offense, and now he’s stalking me.”

“S.K.A.M.,” he stated plainly. “Is stalking you.” He leaned right up the glass and whispered, “Do you know his real identity?” He still had a look of excitement and wonder on his face. He clearly wasn’t listening to what I was saying. Still wrapped up in the celebrity of it all like a star-struck fan.

“No. Like I said, I know him, but I don’t know him.”

His eyes narrowed slightly, and he said, “Okay. I get what you mean now. Could you tell me what’s happened since?”

“He sent threatening emails to my work.”

“Can you show me those emails?” he asked.

“Well, no. I deleted them.”

“You deleted them.” He sighed in disappointment.

I sighed, too. I was getting tired of running around in circles.

“Yes, I deleted them,” I stated. “I didn’t want them in my inbox. It’s not a crime to delete an email, but they were there. He did send them.”

“Could you recover them?”

“I don’t know.” I had no idea. Maybe the IT department could, but I knew they weren’t in my inbox anymore. “Isn’t my word enough?”

“The evidence would be helpful. If you get anymore, you mustn’t delete them. We could trace the IP address. It could be a crazy fan who saw your article and wants to frighten you for writing about their favourite artist.”

“It isn’t a crazy fan,” I snapped. “I’m sure of it.”

“Without evidence, we can’t say for sure.”

“But there’s more,” I urged, and he waited for me to elaborate. “He broke into my house.”

“So we’re logging a breaking and entering incident, too,” he asked, raising his brows again in exasperation.

“Yes and no.”

He closed his eyes and let out a breath. “Go on.”

“He broke into my house, but I can’t tell how. The locks weren’t broken, the windows are all secure. I have no idea how he got in there, but he did.”

The policeman made a face to show he thought this was another tall story. A sneer of disbelief.

“Are you sure it wasn’t just someone you trusted with your key going in and unsettling things? Or maybe you forgot you’d left things the way you had in your house.”

“No one that I’ve left my key with would leave a package like that on my coffee table,” I seethed. “And I certainly didn’t put it there myself.”

“And what was in the package?” he asked in a disinterested manner, humouring me in what he thought was my deranged story.

“I think it was a heart. Or an organ of some kind.” His eyes went wide as his head whipped up to glare at me. “No, wait. It was definitely a heart, because the message inside said, ‘Here’s a heart, seeing as you clearly don’t have one.’”

He shook his head with his mouth agape at what he’d heard.

“Definitely a heart then,” he said, but I wasn’t entirely sure he believed it. He probably couldn’t believe that my story was growing more twisted by the minute. “And do you have this heart with you?”

“No. I threw it in the bin outside my house and came straight here.”

“Of course you did,” he muttered under his breath.

“I’m not lying.” I stood tall, ready to argue my case.