Page 22 of Stay Away from Him

In the rearview, Melissa saw Bradley’s eyes light up when she drove up to the park where Thomas had asked to meet.

It was an epic construction, not the standard-issue set of slides and swings and merry-go-rounds Melissa grew up with, but a whole multicolored plastic wonderland full of zip lines and obstacle courses, forts and bridges, climbing walls and rubber lily pads for jumping on.

It looked more like an amusement park than a playground.

The price of an amazing playground was a big crowd, though, and this place had one—dozens upon dozens of children clambering over every piece of equipment, parents chasing or standing at the edge under shade, fanning themselves against the late-summer heat and craning their necks to keep eyes on their kids.

“This place is amazing ,” Bradley said as Melissa pulled up to the curb, and he was unbuckling himself from his seat and straining against the door as the car whined to a stop. As soon as she got it in park, he opened the back door and tore across the grass to the playground.

“Wait for me!” Melissa shouted as she climbed out of the driver’s side, afraid of losing him—but he was long gone, sprinting ahead of her.

She followed, the car horn chirping as the doors locked behind her.

From the crowd below, a man detached from the scrum of parents and came to intercept Bradley.

It was Thomas. He sank to one knee and talked to Bradley for a second, then raised a hand for a high five.

Bradley jumped to give it a slap, then ran the rest of the way toward the playground.

Thomas rose from the grass and came toward Melissa.

God, would she ever be able to see him without an excited flutter in her chest?

In sunglasses and a tight polo that hugged the bulk of his chest and shoulders, he looked like a movie star of the silver fox variety.

The evening sun highlighted the gray in his hair, but it made him look distinguished rather than old, and his smile had to be the brightest thing for miles.

“Hey,” he said as he came close, then leaned in for what Melissa thought was going to be a friendly peck but then turned out to be a real kiss—just long enough to get her heart rate up, his lips and hers parting only slightly, his hand coming to her hip and sliding down, not so far that he was grabbing her butt in public but far enough to let her know he wanted to.

Melissa felt a little dizzy as they parted, but then she remembered the crowd of parents around and another feeling came in behind the flutteriness: paranoia.

Was it her imagination, or were people watching them?

Were any of the people there part of the Facebook group?

Did they recognize Melissa, know her name?

Were they texting each other right now? Oh my god, he’s here, it’s Dr. Danger and that woman, he just mauled her right in the middle of the park .

She cringed to imagine it, cringed to think of strangers lurking at the edges, snapping more furtive photos that would end up online.

Melissa took a step back, put a bit of distance between her and Thomas.

“Everything okay?” he asked, a flash of hurt passing across his eyes.

“Fine,” Melissa said.

“Push me!” Bradley shouted from a distance. He was sitting on a swing at a dead stop below the bar, kicking his legs uselessly.

Thomas moved toward him, but Melissa walked quickly and got there first.

“I want Thomas to do it!” Bradley whined, but Melissa was already pulling his seat back into the air. She let go and gave him a few pushes until his feet flew high into the air on the upswing.

“Stop!” Bradley yelled as the swing creaked back and forth. “I don’t want you to do it!”

Thomas stepped close to her elbow. “Can I?” he asked.

Melissa shook her head. “I got it.”

But Bradley kept whining, and after a couple minutes she let him off the swing.

“Why don’t you go run and find something else,” Thomas suggested. “Your mom and I will watch you, okay?”

Bradley scampered off, and Melissa was alone with Thomas.

“Is something wrong?” he asked. “You seem a little distracted.”

“It was a weird day,” she said.

“Yeah? Because I’m feeling worried it’s something I did. I know in your text you said you felt this was going a little fast, and—well, we can slow things down if you want. Honestly. I just want to keep seeing you.”

“I know,” Melissa said. “You’ve made that clear.”

Thomas was quiet a beat. Melissa was watching Bradley on the other side of the playground, clambering through a contraption made of webbed rope knotted for climbing. She wasn’t looking at Thomas, but she could feel him looking at her.

“Is this about last night?” he asked. “You know, I didn’t intend to push you. I honestly thought—it seemed like something you wanted. You kissed me at the wine bar, then asked me back to your place, so I figured… But maybe that was a mistake. If so, I’m—”

“Stop,” Melissa said. “It’s not that.”

“What, then?”

She turned and took a moment to study him.

She wondered if she could imagine him doing it—killing Rose.

Stabbing her in his kitchen. Then trying to clean up the blood.

Putting her body in his trunk, driving north to bury her where no one could find her.

At first Melissa thought she could imagine it, could believe it was true, and something in her recoiled from him, drew back in horror.

Then she blinked slow, a split second of black before Thomas appeared again before her eyes, and suddenly it was unimaginable again.

Unthinkable that this man standing before her could be a killer.

She sighed and reached for her phone in her pocket. She thumbed it open, tapped her way to Facebook, then showed him the photo. Held the screen out toward him, forcing him to look at it.

“What the fuck?”

“Take it,” Melissa said, pushing the phone in his face.

He took it from her hands, holding it gingerly by the sides. “This is us,” he said. “But who—oh God. Kelli. That fucking bitch.”

Melissa hated that word— bitch —but she grinned to hear him use it against Kelli Walker. She’d never met Kelli, never spoken to her in person, but since she’d learned Kelli existed there might not have been a single person in the world she hated more.

“Melissa,” Thomas said. “I’m so sorry. This is—it’s a total violation of privacy. It’s outrageous.”

“It gets worse,” Melissa said. “I’m pretty sure she broke into my apartment.”

Thomas’s jaw bulged, and he seemed to struggle for a moment with a wave of anger that tightened his whole body.

Then he calmed and suggested they sit down.

They found a bench to keep talking. Melissa told him about the note, then about getting tagged in the photo, and what she read on the Facebook page.

“So you read all about—well, I was going to say ‘the evidence against me,’” Thomas said. “But it would be generous to call it evidence . How about ‘what they think they have on me’?”

“You’re saying there’s nothing to it?” Melissa said, unable to disguise the hopeful note in her voice.

“Melissa, you have to believe me—Kelli Walker is completely nuts.”

“She says she was Rose’s friend.”

Thomas scoffed. “That would be a generous description too. Rose and Kelli met up sometimes. But the friendship, if there was one, was much more on Kelli’s side than Rose’s.

Rose never liked her. Honestly, she thought Kelli was stupid.

But Rose was lonely. She hung out with Kelli only to have something to do.

She tolerated her. But Kelli was obsessed with Rose.

I don’t know why she got it in her head to hate me so much, but I honestly think she just wanted Rose all to herself.

After Rose went missing, I thought Kelli might have killed her.

Maybe Rose tried to break off the friendship or something, and Kelli snapped. ”

“Could she have been the stalker?” Melissa asked.

Thomas’s eyes sharpened, grew guarded. “You know about that?”

“I’ve heard some things.”

“Rose thought she was being watched,” Thomas said.

“I never knew what to make of it. She’d sense presences in the house, swear that things were getting moved around in the bedroom or the living room.

A chair was warm, like someone had just sat in it.

A dead bird on the deck—had it broken its neck on the sliding door, or did someone kill it and put it there?

Stuff like that. She had a paranoid streak.

She did report a stalker to the police about a week before she went missing.

That much is true. She never told me about it.

I had no idea it had gotten bad enough for her to call it in.

But then, later, my lawyer found the police report. ”

“So you never knew who it might be?” Melissa asked.

“No,” Thomas said. “Rose might not have even known. The police report didn’t include a name.

I did think Kelli might be the stalker—maybe they had a falling out I didn’t know about, and she started following Rose, her obsession turning unhealthy.

I told the cops they should look into her.

But nothing ever came of it. Obviously, the cops didn’t arrest Kelli.

They couldn’t even prove that anybody was stalking Rose at all.

Meanwhile, Kelli’s got this whole Facebook army of bored housewives with nothing else in their lives but to harass me. And you.”

He handed the phone back to Melissa, face down so she wouldn’t have to look at the photo again—but she didn’t have to see it. She felt as though the image was seared into the back of her eyeballs.

She cleared her throat. “About the evidence,” she began. “I’m sorry, I know you don’t like talking about this. You told me that last night—having to constantly defend yourself, how furious it makes you. And I get it. But—”