“What’s up?” she asked, looking worried when she saw my expression.
“Someone was in the driveway. I need you to grab your cell phone and stand right here at the door with 9-1-1 up and ready to call while I go out there and try to figure out what they were up to,” I explained.
“Maybe we should just call the police and let them check,” she suggested.
“We will if I find anything,” I promised. “But I want to make sure it’s not just a case of me being on edge with what happened to your car before we call them.”
“Okay,” she agreed.
I waited while she ran back upstairs to grab her phone before I yanked open my front door and stomped down the steps. With the lights on, it only took a quick glance around for me to discover what they’d been doing. Seeing the Mini I’d bought Morgan destroyed in much the same way hers had been, I was beyond pissed off as I swiftly turned to head back inside.
“That was quick.” She gave me a hopeful look, and I shook my head as I pulled her phone from her hand and hit the button to connect the call.
When the operator answered, I gave her the details of what I’d found in my driveway and my address. She promised to send the cops over right away. After I hung up, I sent Mario a text about the situation since it was a sure bet that my call would hit the papers at some point. Then I sent one to Shawn asking him to arrange for a tow truck and another new Mini to be dropped off tomorrow, plus a security company to come out to review my system and add to it now that I had Morgan living with me. Once that was all done, I wiped the tears from Morgan’s face and promised, “We’re going to find who did this to you and make them pay, beautiful.”Twenty-SixGageI clenched my fists, frustrated beyond measure at the lack of progress in the hunt for Morgan’s stalker. “It’s been seven weeks, and you’re still no closer to figuring out who destroyed Morgan’s cars than you were when I first hired you.”
“We’re doing everything we can to track them down, Mr. Ryan,” Brax Holden assured me. He was former military and the owner of Holden Security, which was supposed to be the best private security firm in Hollywood. The company who’d installed the system on my house had recommended them when they’d come out to overhaul my design. Mario had another client who’d used them before, and he’d pulled some strings to get Brax to personally take the case.
“As are the police,” Detective Wakeland added. He’d been assigned to the case by the Commissioner after the second Mini was destroyed. “Until the perp does something else, we don’t have much to go on.”
“The tapes from the gate at the entrance of your neighborhood didn’t turn up anything suspicious in the hours leading up to the destruction of the second car. All guests were approved by one of your neighbors, and we’ve looked into each and every one who hasn’t visited before,” Brax explained as if it wasn’t something I’d already heard from him and the cops several times before.
“And the notes were all printed on run-of-the-mill paper that can be bought in any store. Nothing special about the ink. No fingerprints. Mailed from different post offices each time, and the best we can tell, they were dropped into collection boxes so there’s no chance of spotting the culprit on video surveillance.”
At first, I’d been relieved that the stalker backed off and resorted to sending threatening notes. But that was before I’d realized that it meant we’d have fewer leads to follow. “Is it normal for a stalker to back down like this? Destroying Morgan’s car at her place could’ve been an impulse decision because the security is crap and the garage door is left open a lot of the time. But getting into this neighborhood isn’t an easy feat. They had to have put some thought into it, even though they had less than twenty-four hours to plan because nobody knew about our relationship before then.”
“You make an excellent point.” Brax turned to Detective Wakeland and asked, “Have you ever seen anything like this before?”
“No, once the perp begins to escalate, they don’t regress to less threatening behavior unless they have a damn good reason,” he answered. “If we can figure out what made them back off, then we might be able to uncover who’s behind all of this. But that could still be difficult as hell since we have no idea why they’ve targeted Ms. Kelly in the first place.”
“Let’s think about what we do know,” Brax suggested. “The perp’s first act of aggression wasn’t until Ms. Kelly won her Oscar and announced to the world that she was your girlfriend.”