“Her face never appeared in the video. At least not the first one. I didn’t watch the second she sent.”
All amusement vanished from Neil’s face, and he placed his hand over his heart. “Hey, I’ll take one for you and watch it. If her face appears, I can let you know.”
Neil was joking, but he made a good point. Maybe Keith shouldn’t have deleted it without watching it. Just because he had seen no clues in the first one didn’t mean there hadn’t been some in the second.
“I deleted it as soon as I got it.”
“Does Mad Dog know what’s going on?” Spike asked, sitting in his usual spot. Keith had been to the guy’s house to watch countless games and just hang out, and if they were inside, he sat nowhere but in the leather recliner. Keith suspected it had a permanent imprint of the guy’s ass on it.
“Yeah. I had to tell Maddie last weekend. She was right next to me when I got the first video.”
From the beginning, Spike had suggested Keith tell Maddie rather than have it come back to bite him in the ass. In hindsight, he should’ve listened. Thankfully, it had caused no problems between them. At least not yet. But if it continued, she might not be as forgiving.
“What did she say?” Matt asked around a mouthful of food.
Both Spike and Matt had worked with Maddie longer than him, so they knew her well. “Just what you’d expect her to.”
“She’s got to be someone you slept with,” Matt said.
“No shit. Thanks, Captain Obvious. It never would’ve occurred to me that I know this woman.”
Matt ignored Keith’s insult and continued. “You didn’t hear what I said, Wallace. She isn’t someone you took to dinner once and then dropped her off at home. You had sex with her.”
“Matt’s right. You spent more than a couple of hours with her at a restaurant.”
If his friends were right, it’d help narrow down the list of potential people, because while he’d taken out a lot of women, he hadn’t slept with all of them. But plenty of names remained.
“Who was the woman that wanted to move in with you after like a month and a half?” Spike asked before stuffing a cracker loaded with the hot cheesy dip into his mouth.
“Lisa. But I don’t think it’s her. She was sweet but the stereotypical dumb blonde from the movies. She wouldn’t know what a VPN is, never mind use one when she’s on the internet.”
“You said she was an actress,” Spike said. “Maybe she wanted you to think she was a dumb blonde.”
Lisa had probably told him every show and commercial she’d appeared in—she’d liked to talk about herself—but the only one he remembered wasPrecinct 3. And he only remembered that one because he’d enjoyed the police drama and had been disappointed when it got canceled after season one.
“Yeah, she’s had a few minor roles in things and has done a couple of commercials. But she mostly records audiobooks.” He’d never cared enough to ask what type of books or who wrote them. “But why would Lisa want me to think she’s dumb?” He could understand pretending to be someone you weren’t, but not acting like the main character fromClueless,a movie his sister Kristen had loved at one time.
“Who knows why women do anything they do?” Matt said, lifting his beer bottle to his mouth. The oldest of five, Matt had four younger sisters. The oldest of the four had moved in with him a year ago after their parents insisted she get and keep a job for more than a month while she found her true calling.
“Don’t let Mad Dog or Alex hear you say that.” Neil grabbed his empty plate and stood.
None of them needed Neil to tell them that.
“I still don’t think it’s Lisa,” Keith said.
And that was the problem. Everyone had their quirks, but no one from his past jumped out as a potential stalker. And even if Keith still had the phone numbers of every woman he’d spent more than five minutes with, which he didn’t, he couldn’t call them and ask if they’d been harassing him.
“Doesn’t hurt to call her,” Spike said.
“And what? Ask her if she’s been sending me unwanted porn?”
“Whoever this woman is, she’s unstable. When people like that start talking, sometimes they let things slip. You know that. If it is Lisa and you call her, she might ask if you enjoyed watching the videos.”
He’d deleted Lisa’s number from his contacts when he ended things with her. If he suspected it was her, getting it wouldn’t be impossible. But unless he knew for sure, he didn’t want to contact her. She’d called him every day for two weeks when he broke up with her back in the spring, either begging him to reconsider or telling him if he ever changed his mind to call her. He’d rather not have her think he was interested in getting back together and start calling him again on top of everything else he had going on.
* * *
Whenever HRT got together,there was plenty of unhealthy but delicious food on hand. Tonight at Spike’s house wouldn’t be any different. And she would’ve accepted his invitation if, while enjoying the junk food, she didn’t also have to hear Keith and the others swear at the television when a player didn’t catch the football or a referee made a call they didn’t like. Honestly, what was the point of yelling? The players and referees couldn’t hear you, and even if they could, it wouldn’t change anything.