Mindy Sue laughed with her, relief in her voice. “Sorry, I had this strange feeling something was wrong.”
“I’m fine.” Brooke said the words, but it had been a long time since she felt fine. The stress was getting to her.
Cody. The stalker. Finals coming up. Missing her mom and home. Planning for the arrival of her baby girl. The list went on.
It was a lot to handle mostly on her own.
“I think there might still be a pint of ice cream in the freezer.”
“Are there any of those cheese curl chips left too?”
“You eat the strangest things. I don’t know about the chips, but there’s an apple and an orange on the desk. Eat those.”
“You’re right. I will. How about I meet you guys at the south parking lot. There’s a covered bus stop with lights. I can sit and wait for you.”
“Just wait in the library.”
“They’re about to lock the doors with me inside. I’ll meet you at the parking lot. It’ll only be two minutes at the most and there are a couple of other students headed that way. I’ll tag along with them.”
“Okay, but you stay put. We’ll be there in a few minutes.”
The librarian waved her arm, shooing everyone out. “Come on, I need to get home or my babysitter will quit because I’m late again.”
Brooke tucked her cell in her back pocket. She wished she’d worn one of her dresses. They were less constricting than pants, even if they were maternity wear. She headed down the library steps, the click of the locks sounding behind her.
She kept the phone in her hand as she made her way down the path that led around the building to the parking lot in the rear. She followed three other students headed in the same direction. Nothing would happen with them so close.
A beautiful star-studded night, not too hot or humid. She gazed up at the bright stars and wished she were at the creek. She loved it there late at night with the water rushing by and the quiet of the night wrapped around her. She loved it when the breeze whispered through the leaves, making them whistle in the wind. She wondered if she’d ever see her perfect little getaway again.
Maybe when she took the baby to see her father.
Cody would teach her to ride when she got older, just like he’d taught Brooke. She hoped her daughter loved horses as much as she did.
The three other students she’d been following disappeared around the corner to the parking lot. She hurried to catch up. The two lights above this section of the path had burned out or something. She looked at her phone to turn on her light, but got distracted by a rustling noise coming from the nearby bushes. She looked into the shadows, but didn’t see anything. Still, her heart jackhammered and her mind conjured one horror after the next.
She hurried to close the distance between her and the other students but stumbled on a crack in the pavement with her unsteady pregnancy bod and had to slow down again.
Suddenly she heard the scrape and thump of footsteps behind her. She tried to turn and face the threat she felt all the way to her bones, but an arm came around her neck and another wrapped around her chest and suddenly she was pulled up against a tall, thin body.
“Hi, Brooke.”
She wanted to believe the guy was a friend or classmate just being overly affectionate with his surprise hello. Greg from her business class who was an outrageous flirt. Thomas, who worked at the campus bookstore and asked her out before he realized she was pregnant under the cardigan she usually wore.
But no. This felt off from an overly friendly, or even drunk and happy, guy snuggling up to her like they knew each other as more than passing acquaintances.
She couldn’t shake the creepy feeling she got every time she felt like her stalker was watching her. But she didn’t want to be wrong and offend someone she knew either, even though every internal alarm went off the second he touched her.
“Do I know you? Your voice. It sounds familiar, but I’m sorry, I can’t place it.” The man wasn’t much bigger than her. Based on the skinny arm she could see and the frame of him pressed up behind her, she knew he wasn’t that big of a guy.
His head pressed to the side of hers. “Of course you know me. You understand me better than anyone. You see me the way others don’t,” he said, excitement in every word.
The only man she knew like that was Cody, and it wasn’t his tall, muscular frame pressed up against her. It wasn’t his deep, familiar voice at her ear.
But God, she wished he were here right now.
She wished she’d stayed in the library and waited for Mindy Sue and Tony to come to her. They’d be here any second.
But it didn’t matter, because she wasn’t safe anywhere, because the man holding her wanted her, and he’d stop at nothing to have her.
