Page 32 of Stay Away from Him

The week passed strangely for Melissa, a feeling of nervous anticipation hovering over every moment.

She and Thomas set the date of their dinner for Friday evening.

Bradley received the news that they’d be eating with Thomas and his girls with barely a shrug, but her kindergartner’s nonresponse only made Melissa wonder how the news was going over at Thomas’s house.

Whether Kendall or Rhiannon (it was Rhiannon she worried about, mostly) were giving him attitude, reacting with sullen silence or outright resistance.

When she prodded him, Thomas only said that they were excited to have Melissa and Bradley over, which sounded like a lie to her.

Teenage girls were like icebergs, everything sharp and dangerous about them submerged beneath the waterline.

Melissa wouldn’t know what she was facing with them until she walked into their house on Friday.

Lawrence and Toby promptly said yes to Melissa’s invitation when she texted it upstairs on Tuesday evening—but Lawrence, insatiable gossip that he was, almost immediately came down to ask more about what this evening was, and why it was happening.

“Thomas and I have been seeing each other for a few weeks now,” Melissa said. “It’s getting a little serious.”

Lawrence shot her a withering glance. “ Honey ,” he said, “I know. These ceilings aren’t exactly soundproof.”

Melissa’s face flushed hot, and her hands shot up to cover her eyes.

Lawrence was a corporate lawyer, part of the in-house counsel team at a medical device company; sometimes he worked at the office, sometimes at home.

She supposed she could have been more careful about only bringing Thomas back to the basement apartment on days when she knew Lawrence was gone, but there were times when they wanted each other so badly that they didn’t care.

They’d been about as discreet as a pair of horny teenagers, stealing moments alone and thinking they were being sneaky while everyone around them rolled their eyes and shared knowing glances.

“Oh God , Lawrence,” Melissa said. “Please tell me you haven’t been listening in on us these past six weeks.”

“Melissa, don’t be embarrassed. This is why noise canceling headphones were invented. Besides, I’m happy for you. You know that getting you laid was one of my main goals when you got away from that asshole husband and came to live here?”

“No, it wasn’t.”

“It was . The only thing I don’t understand is, why do you need me and Toby there on Friday?”

Melissa hesitated before explaining. It all made sense when she and Thomas had made the plan—they were going public, making their relationship official and serious in the eyes of their families and friends.

It felt good at the time, hopeful and beautiful.

But in the days since then, Melissa’s insecurity had reared its head again.

Did Thomas really want to declare his love for Melissa to the world?

Or did he want Lawrence, Toby, and—worst of all—Amelia there to make the relationship seem less than it was?

Was he hedging his bets with a bigger crowd at dinner, giving himself an escape route in case his girls didn’t take to Melissa as well as he’d hoped?

“You’re overthinking,” Lawrence told her when she admitted her misgivings. “Thomas is obviously crazy about you. Who wouldn’t be?”

“You’re sweet. I think I’m just getting in my head about…” She trailed off, too embarrassed to say it.

“What?”

“Amelia,” Melissa said after a pause.

Lawrence waved her worry away. “I don’t think you’ve got anything to worry about there. I mean, they dated back in college. They’re, what, both in their mid-forties now? It’s ancient history.”

“If it’s such ancient history, then why is she a part of his life? Why is she his next-door neighbor?”

“They’re friends. Close friends.”

Melissa huffed an exasperated breath. Lawrence wasn’t listening. Melissa had been doing pretty well not thinking about Amelia at all for the past few weeks, but now that she’d brought her up, it was as though she’d pulled all her misgivings to the surface, unable to deny them anymore.

“Is that all, though?” Melissa asked. “She’s a beautiful woman, Lawrence. You don’t think, in the years since Rose has been gone, that they haven’t been tempted, at least once? Her in that big house all by herself? And him a new widower, without a wife to keep him warm at night?”

Lawrence squinted. “I don’t think Rose was exactly keeping him warm at night. Not at the end.”

“ Lawrence . You’re not helping.”

Lawrence put his hand on Melissa’s, gave it a squeeze. “Honey. You’re spiraling. This is a good thing, okay?”

“What is?”

“You have a man, a good man, who is serious enough about you that he wants to introduce you to his kids.”

“We already met.”

“ Properly introduce you, then,” Lawrence said. “Introduce you as someone who he wants to be part of his life. Of their lives.”

Melissa bit her lip. Lawrence was right. She was losing perspective. “And Amelia?”

“Thomas wants to properly introduce you to her too,” he said.

“She’s part of his life. And now, so are you.

It makes sense that you’d feel threatened by her—but Melissa, he chose you .

He had three years to get with Amelia, if that was what he wanted.

But he didn’t. He waited. And then he saw you at the dinner party we threw, picked you out of all the women in the world, everyone he could’ve been with. Okay?”

Melissa nodded. “Okay.”

Lawrence stood, moved to the stairs. “I’m sorry I was weird about the dinner. I just wanted to gossip a bit. You know me. It’s going to be great.”

Melissa smiled, feeling better. “It will.”

***

But the week kept moving at a crawl. The other thing that hung over it was the deal Melissa had made with Kelli Walker, especially Kelli’s promise that her contact in the police department would reach out to Melissa with information about the case against Thomas.

A promise that felt like a threat— He’ll find you .

Days passed, and still nothing. Melissa kept waiting for a voicemail, a text from an unknown number, but it never came—just the usual progression of junk calls, telemarketers, and fundraising scams.

Even Thomas seemed to forget about Melissa that week.

He texted her a few times apologizing, claiming he was extra busy at the clinic.

But there were no surprise visits, no lunches or happy hours, no stolen midday trysts.

The accounting work only kept Melissa busy for a few hours, and when she finished it each day a little before lunchtime, the afternoons stretched out desolate and depressing, a wasteland of alone time before she had to pick up Bradley from kindergarten.

This was what she thought she wanted when she divorced Carter and moved across the country—time to herself, time to reconnect with who she was.

But it turned out she was terrible at being alone.

Her rush to a relationship with Thomas was proof of that.

In the quiet boredom, Melissa started to feel imprisoned, like a fairy-tale princess locked up in a tower—or, more appropriately, a dungeon.

She startled at minor sounds: Lawrence and Toby’s clock chiming upstairs, the roar of a lawnmower in the yard next door, the creaks and cracks of the house settling around her.

Once, looking up from cleaning a plate in the kitchen, she glanced out the back door and thought she saw someone moving through the trees at the back of the yard, a silhouette that she spotted in one moment and then immediately lost in the tangles of brush and leaves.

With a clatter, Melissa dropped the plate back in the sink and went to the sliding door, craning to spot the silhouette again.

But she couldn’t find it. Maybe she’d imagined it.

All the same, she poked her head out the door and called out.

“Hello?” she asked. “Is anyone there?”

In answer, she heard nothing but the wind, the distant sound of cars on the freeway.

Instead of easing her fear, the ring of her own voice in her ears brought a shiver.

She backed into the house and then whipped around, suddenly feeling eyes on her, not from the trees but from inside the house.

But there was no one there. She walked to the table, the place where she’d found a threatening note weeks ago.

It was empty. Just her mind playing tricks.

“You’re losing it,” she said to herself, forcing a laugh. “Time to get out of here.”

It was 2:30, still an hour before she had to pick up Bradley. There was a nice park with a trail and a lake close to his school; maybe she could take a walk to clear her head and return to sanity before she got her son. She picked up her keys off the counter and left.

It was a beautiful fall day, cool but bright, an orange autumn sun crisping the few leaves that still clung to their branches.

In spite of the cars and highways, subdivisions and strip malls, nature thrived in the gaps, postcard-perfect.

Even so, as she drove to the park near the school, Melissa couldn’t shake the jittery feeling of being watched.

She glanced in the rearview and saw a cop car following close behind her.

She wasn’t sure where it came from, couldn’t remember seeing it behind her until that moment, but suddenly it was on her bumper.

Then the lights flashed red, the siren let out a whoop, and she pulled over, hoping the officer merely wanted to get around her to some emergency elsewhere.

But he didn’t. He pulled in behind her on the shoulder.

Melissa watched in her rearview as the door opened and the officer stepped out.

He hulked toward her, looking abnormally large in the huge vests all cops seemed to wear, armed as if for battle even for a traffic stop.

He rapped on the driver’s window with a knuckle.

Melissa’s hand shook as she pressed the button to bring it down.

“I wasn’t speeding, was I?”

The cop bent down. Reddish hair, round face, skin slightly red in the sunshine.

“Just want to talk.”

“Talk? About what?” A patch on his vest said SPPD—Saint Paul Police Department. But they were in the burbs, not in the city. “You’re far from home. Is it even legal for you to pull me over out here?”

The cop just blinked at her, and for a second Melissa thought she’d gone too far—it wasn’t a good idea to antagonize a cop. But when he spoke next, it was to say something Melissa didn’t expect.

“Kelli sent me,” he said. “Kelli Walker.”

“Oh,” Melissa said, then again, as she put it together: “Oh.” Kelli’s source on the inside, the one with all the information on the evidence against Thomas.

But something still wasn’t adding up. The case against Thomas had been handled by the county.

The sheriff’s department would have been the agency investigating Rose’s disappearance.

What business did a Saint Paul cop—a beat cop, at that, not a detective—have with information about a murder investigation conducted in the north suburbs?

“How long have you been following me?” Melissa asked. “Was that you sneaking in the trees about fifteen minutes ago?”

“I wasn’t sneaking,” the cop said. “I was on official business.”

“Uh huh. Outside your jurisdiction.”

He sighed and sank lower onto his haunches, steadying himself with a hand on the side mirror, until he and Melissa were eye to eye.

“Maybe we’re getting off on a bad foot here,” he says. “I scared you, you’re mad, I get it. But I’m trying to help you. Can we just talk for a bit? Kelli told me that’s what you wanted.”

Melissa sniffed. “Might be a little generous to say I want it. I agreed to it.”

He gritted his teeth, glanced up the road. “Look. There’s a café not too far from here. Can we sit down and talk this through?”

Melissa looked ahead, her hands clenched hard on the steering wheel, her vision blurring.

She felt sick with fear and anger at the way this man—she still hadn’t gotten his name—found her.

It felt less like finding and more like stalking .

But he was right about one thing: She had agreed to this, even if she didn’t necessarily ask for it.

And maybe she even wanted to hear what he had to say.

“Fine,” Melissa said. “I’ll follow you.”