Landry.
His hands and feet bound with duct tape, another strip plastered across his mouth, eyes wide with terror above the silver gag. Blood trickled from a gash on his forehead, and his once-handsome face was mottled with fresh bruises layered over the yellowing ones Anson had given him.
“Sarah, what the fuck?” Maggie stumbled back, knocking over a can of wood stain. Dark liquid puddled across the workbench, but she couldn’t tear her eyes away from Landry’s bound form. “What have you done?”
“I brought you a gift!” Her voice pitched higher than normal, breathless with excitement. She smiled wide, too wide. A fanatical gleam lit her eyes. “You said you never wanted to see him again. I’m going to make sure that happens.”
“This isn’t—you can’t—” Maggie’s throat closed around the words. How did Sarah know she’d said that? She’d told Anson that in the solitude of his room at the bunkhouse.
Landry thrashed against his restraints. He locked eyes with Maggie, silently begging for help.
“How did you—” Her mind raced, trying to make sense of this nightmare, but the pieces weren’t fitting together. “How did you get him? He was in jail.”
“Oh, that was easier than you’d think.” Sarah dropped Landry’s bound legs with a thud and straightened, brushing her hands together like someone who’d just taken out the trash. “He thought I was a madly in love fan helping him escape. Men are so predictable. Flash a little cleavage, and they’ll believe anything.” She giggled, and the sound was so childlike it sent a chill scraping down Maggie’s spine. “I’ve been sending him letters in jail.”
Maggie raised her hands, palms out, keeping her voice as steady as possible. “This is kidnapping. You need to stop this right now.”
“No. This isjustice.” Sarah reached into her jacket pocket and pulled out a box cutter, the blade gleaming under the fluorescent lights. “He hurt you. He deserves to be punished.”
“Not like this.” Maggie glanced toward the door, calculating the distance, but it suddenly seemed so much farther away than it had been only moments ago. Could she make it? Call for help? “The police were handling it. He was in jail.”
“And for how long? A year? Two?” Sarah’s face twisted with disgust. “Then he’d be back, stalking you again. Men like him don’t stop. They never stop.”
Landry’s eyes bulged above the tape as he tried to scream. The muffled, silent plea that made her skin crawl.
Two weeks ago, she’d told him she’d let Anson kill him if he ever came near her again. She’d spent the days after his arresthoping that, while in prison, he’d experience the fear he’d made her live with for the last five years. Now he was bound at her feet and so terrified he’d pissed himself, and it felt nothing like the victory she’d imagined.
“We need to call the sheriff,” She said, careful to keep her voice steady. “This is kidnapping, Sarah. You’ll go to prison.”
Sarah laughed, high and brittle. “My name’s not Sarah.” She crossed to her keepsake box and smiled when she saw it lying open on the bench where Maggie had dropped it. She ran her fingers reverently along the carving inside the lid. “It’s Laura.”
L+M forever.
That carving in the tree had always bothered her, because it wasn’t Landry’s style.
Now it made so much more sense.
“Laura Kemp?” Sarah—Laura—added as if she should recognize it. She didn’t.
“I’m sorry. I don’t understand.”
Laura’s face clouded with disappointment. “I’m your biggest fan. Since the very beginning. Since Building Home. You replied to one of my emails.”
“I… reply to a lot of emails.”
“But mine was special!”
She flinched back at the vehemence. She had to play along. “Right. Of course. Your email about…” God, she didn’t remember it. She racked her brain but still came up empty.
“About the window seat you built in episode six,” Laura prompted. “I asked about the type of foam you used for the cushions, and you said memory foam was too expensive for most DIY projects, but polyurethane was a good alternative if you doubled the thickness.” Her eyes shone with reverence. “You signed it ‘Happy Building, Maggie.’”
Maggie nodded slowly, but she still didn’t remember it. She’d answered thousands of viewer questions over the years. “That was thoughtful of you to write.”
“I’ve written you hundreds of times.” Laura’s voice dropped to a whisper. “Sometimes from different email addresses when you didn’t answer. I needed to make sure you were getting them.” She moved closer to Landry, nudging him with her foot as she twirled the box cutter. He whimpered behind the tape. “I sent you so many gifts, too. Did you like them?”
The breath froze in Maggie’s lungs. The gifts. The flowers delivered to her home with no card. The tools that appeared on her doorstep. The unsigned notes left on her car. She’d always assumed they were from Landry, especially after they broke up and the gifts became more persistent, more invasive.
“That was you? Not him?” She looked at Landry, and he shook his head hard. He’d always denied the stalking, but she’d never believed him because of his stalker-like calls.
