Despite Freya’s tough demeanor, she’s shivering. I go to wrap my arm around her waist. “Do you mind?” I ask.
“Don’t make a move on me,” she says. “You won’t be likable.”
“I don’t care if people like me.”
“I don’t believe that for a second.”
Freya rests her head on my shoulder, and Ginger’s growls are replaced by a whine.
“Come,” Freya says, and the dog shimmies right in between us. “Paul warned me not to play those shows at the Landing.” She adds, “Too much publicity. I didn’t think it would be a big deal, but anything can be a big deal these days with social media.” She inhales. “I have a stalker. I’ve had one for years. He comes and goes, disappearing for months and years, then reappearing out of nowhere like we’re planning storylines for May Sweeps.”
I scratch Ginger’s belly. A canine tooth peeks out from under her lip. “What can I do?” I ask.
“I don’t want you involved,” Freya says.
“I’m involved already. I’m so involved, I nearly set myself up for a murder charge with that rifle.”
Freya manages a tired smile. “Manslaughter, actually. There was no intent. And being famous isn’t what it’s cracked up to be. When you’re beamed into millions of living rooms every week, the line between what’s real and what isn’t gets blurred.”
“How long has this been going on?” I ask.
“Since I was onEternal Flamein the nineties. The first time it happened was at a mall event in Albany. There was a problem with the car service, so I rented and drove myself. Hundreds of people were there—soap fans were so devoted then—and when we finished, I found a handwritten note under my wiper that said,Nice to see you in person. You look great in green.I didn’t think anything of it. I’d been sitting by a fountain at the mall meeting strangers for hours at that point, and any one of them could have left the note, but on my way to the city, I started feeling like someone was following me. I pulled over when I saw a state cop, and he listened and sat with me for a bit, but I couldn’t show him anything tangible. After the cop took off, I realized whoever had left the note had seen mearriveat the mall, like they were waiting for me.”
“Otherwise,” I say, “how else would they have known which car was yours?”
“Exactly. So, they were either there when I pulled into the parking lot—”
“Or they followed you.”
“A few days later, I found a second note in my dressing room on the set—same handwriting. This time he wrote,I wish we could have spent the weekend upstate.The cops took a statement and collected the note as evidence, but didn’t do much about it. I was a public figure at a public event. There were no stalker laws on the books then in New York, so the cops couldn’t do anything unless he physically harmed me. The producers on the show wrote it off, too. As far as they were concerned, stalkers came with fame, but the notes kept coming, and they got more aggressive, more threatening. In the last one, he told me not to leave my apartment after dark. It said,You should be terrified.That’s the real reason Brenda Jackson disappeared at that costume party.Paul arranged for me to get out of New York and stay with a friend in the Hamptons. He told the producers I wouldn’t return to set without additional security.”
My voice tightens. “What happened next?”
Freya puts a hand to my chest and pushes me away. “Don’t go all testosterone on me. I have Duncan for that. You’re my gentle soul.”
I don’t want to play that part this time. “Didn’t you see how I wielded a rifle?”
“And I don’t want to see it again,” Freya says. “But I walked away from the soap for good a few months later. I couldn’t take being afraid anymore, and once I left, the stalking stopped for a while. I had a fallow period between Brenda and Gina Shock where I took guest spots or had roles in off-off-Broadway or waited tables. I hoped he’d moved on to someone else, or—”
“Or he believed he’d won and had you to himself.”
Freya nods. “Scene of the Crimedebuted in 2000, and it was as if I turned on a faucet. The threats started at once, and we suddenly had the web and internet cafés to protect his anonymity. He’d send emails and attach photos of me on the set or leaving my apartment. In the second season, there was a continuing storyline about a serial killer who targeted gay men. This guy hated that storyline. He thought we were writing about him and implying something about his masculinity, and he went from annoying to threatening.” She nods down the road toward Burkehaven Farm. “One night, I got home from meeting Paul for dinner and there were photos in my inbox of the two of us at the restaurant. That time, the stalker threatened to kill me. He threatened to kill both of us.”
“You told me you and Paul hadn’t dated,” I say.
“We haven’t, but the stalker couldn’t have known. He imagined whatever he wanted. By then, the laws had changed in New York, and the cops took stalking more seriously. They traced the source of the email to a public computer but couldn’t identify who’d used the machine. I almost leftScene of the Crimelike I had with the soap.Instead, I learned what I could about self-defense. Journalists used to come to set and focus on how much of my own stunt work I did, how I was in such great shape. The stories were supposed to be empowering, but I did all that work because I didn’t feel safe.”
She stops for a moment, her brow furrowed.
“What are you thinking?” I ask.
“It’s nothing.”
“Tell me.”
“That time Isaac Haviland showed up on the set,” Freya says. “When he asked me to invest in the Landing, part of me suspected he might be the stalker. He’d always given me the creeps, as though he was watching me no matter what I did. One summer, this necklace I’d gotten for my birthday went missing, and I’m certain Isaac took it. I asked him to go to the diner because I wanted to see if I could get him to confess.”
“I’m not the only reckless one,” I say. “Sounds dangerous.”
