Paige Racette envisioned the perfect man over and over in her romance novels.
But when Josiah Wells starts using those novels as a blueprint for the way to romance her, she finds the attention creepy, not attractive.
When Wells escalates, adding violence to his role-playing, Paige realizes she must escape the perfect man. But she might find help from someone unexpected—someone a little more flawed, a little less perfect.
“The Perfect Man,” by New York Times bestselling author Kristine Kathryn Rusch, was chosen as one of the best short stories of 2003 and is free on this website for one week only. The story’s also available as an ebook through various online retailers here.
The Perfect Man
Kristine Kathryn Rusch
Paige Racette stared at herself in the full-length mirror, hands on hips. Golden cap of blond hair expertly curled, narrow chin, high cheekbones, china blue eyes, and a little too much of a figure—thanks to the fact she spent most of her day on her butt and sometimes (usually!) forgetting to exercise. The black cocktail dress with its swirling party skirt hid most of the excess, and the glittering beads around the collar brought attention to her face, always and forever her best asset.
Even with the extra pounds, she was not blind date material. Never had been. Until she quit her day job at the television station, she’d had to turn men away. Ironic that once she became a best-selling romance writer, she couldn’t get a date to save her life. Part of the problem was that after she quit, she moved to San Francisco where she’d always wanted to live. She bought a Queen Anne in an old, exclusive neighborhood, set up her office in the bay windows of the second floor, and decided she was in heaven.
Little did she realize that working at home would isolate her, and being in a new city would isolate her more. It had taken her a year to make friends—mostly women, whom she met at the gym not too far from her home.
She saw interesting men, but didn’t speak to them. She was still a small town girl at heart, one who was afraid of the kind of men who lurked in the big city, who believed that the only way to meet the right man was after getting to know him through mutual interests—or mutual friends.
In fact, she wouldn’t have agreed to this blind date if a friend hadn’t convinced her. Sally Myer was her racquetball partner and general confidant who seemed to know everyone in this city. She’d finally tired of Paige’s complaining and set her up.
Paige slid on her high heels. Who’d ever thought she’d get this desperate? And then she sighed. She wasn’t desperate. She was lonely.
And surely, there was no shame in that.
***
Sally had picked the time and location, and had told Paige to dress up. Sally wasn’t going to introduce them. She felt that would be tacky and make the first meeting uncomfortable. She asked Paige for a photograph to give to the blind date—one Josiah Wells—and then told Paige that he would find her.
The location was an upscale restaurant near the Opera House. It was The Place To Go at the moment—famous chef, famous food, and one of those bars that looked like it had come out of a movie set—large and open where Anyone Who Was Someone could see and be seen.
Paige arrived five minutes early, habitually prompt even when she didn’t want to be. She adjusted the white pashmina shawl she’d wrapped around her bare shoulders and scanned the bar before she went in.
It was all black and chrome, with black tinted mirrors and huge black vases filled with calla lilies separating the booths. The bar itself was black marble and behind it, bottles of liquor pressed against an untinted mirror, making the place look even bigger than it was.
She had only been here once before, with her Hollywood agent and a movie producer who was interested in her second novel. He didn’t buy it—the rights went to another studio for high six figures—but he had bought her some of her most memorable meals in the City by the Bay.
She sat at the bar and ordered a Chardonnay which she didn’t plan on touching—she wanted to keep her wits about her this night. Even with Sally’s recommendation, Paige didn’t trust a man she had never met before. She’d heard too many bad stories.
Of course, all the ones she’d written were about people who saw each other across a crowded room and knew at once that they were soul mates. She had never experienced love at first sight (and sometimes she joked to her editor that it was lust at first sight) but she was still hopeful enough to believe in it.
She took the cool glass of Chardonnay that the bartender handed her and swiveled slightly in her chair so that she would be in profile, not looking anxious, but visible enough to be recognizable. And as she did, she saw a man enter the bar.
He was tall and broad-shouldered, wearing a perfectly tailored black suit that shimmered like silk. He wore a white scarf around his neck—which on him looked like the perfect fashion accent—and a red rose in his lapel. His dark hair was expertly styled away from his chiseled features, and she felt her breath catch.
Lust at first sight. It was all she could do to keep from grinning at herself.
He appeared to be looking for someone. Finally, his gaze settled on her, and he smiled.
Something about that smile didn’t quite fit on his face. It was too personal. And then she shook the feeling away. She didn’t want to be on a blind date—that was all. She had been fantasizing, the way she did when she was thinking of her books, and she was simply caught off guard. No man was as perfect as her heroes. No man could be, not and still be human.
Although this man looked perfect. His rugged features were exactly like ones she had described in her novels.
He crossed the room, the smile remaining, hand extended. “Paige Racette? I’m Josiah Wells.”
His voice was high and a bit nasal. She took his hand, and found the palm warm and moist.
“Nice to meet you,” she said, removing her hand as quickly as possible.
He wore tinted blue contacts, and the swirling lenses made his eyes seem shiny, a little too intense. In fact, everything about him was a little too intense. He leaned too close, and he seemed too eager. Perhaps he was just as nervous as she was.
“I have reservations here if you don’t mind,” he said.
“No, that’s fine.”
He extended his arm—the perfect gentleman—and she took the elbow in her hand, trying to remember the last time a man had done that for her. Her father maybe, when they went to the father-daughter dinner at her church back when she was in high school. And not one man since.
Although all the men in her books did it. When she wrote about it, the gesture seemed to have an old-fashioned elegance. In real life, it made her feel awkward.
He led her through the bar, placing one hand possessively over hers. This exact scene had happened in her first novel, Beneath a Lover’s Moon. Fabian Garret and Skye Michaels had met, exchanged a few words, and were suddenly walking together like lovers. And Skye had thrilled to Fabian’s touch.
Paige wished Josiah Wells’s fingers weren’t so clammy.
He led them to the maitre d’, gave his name, and let the maitre d’ lead them to a table near the back. See and Be Seen. Apparently they weren’t important enough.
“I asked for a little privacy,” he said, as if reading her thoughts. “I hope you don’t mind.”
She didn’t. She had never liked the display aspect of this restaurant anyway.
The table was in a secluded corner. Two candles burned on silver candlesticks and the table was strewn with miniature carnations. A magnum of champagne cooled in a silver bucket, and she didn’t have to look at the label to know that it was Dom Perignon.
The hair on the back of her neck rose. This was just like another scene in Beneath a Lover’s Moon.
Josiah smiled down at her and she made herself smile at him. Maybe he thought her books were a blueprint to romancing her. She would have said so not five minutes before.
He pulled out her chair, and she sat, letting her shawl drape around her. As Josiah sat across from her, the maitre d’ handed her the leather bound menu and she was startled to realize it had no prices on it. A lady’s menu. She hadn’t seen one of those in years. The last time she had eaten here had been lunch, not dinner, and she had remembered the prices on the menu from that meal. They had nearly made her choke on her water.
A waiter poured the champagne and left discretely, just like the maitre d’ did. Josiah was watching her, his gaze intense.
She knew she had to say something. She was going to say how nice this was but she couldn’t get the lie through her lips. Instead she said as warmly as she could, “You’ve read my books.”
If anything, his gaze brightened. “I adore your books.”
She made herself smile. She had been hoping he would say no, that Sally had been helping him all along. Instead, the look in his eyes made her want to push her chair even farther from the table. She had seen that look a hundred times at book signings: the too-eager fan who would easily monopolize all of her time at the expense of everyone else in line; the person who believed that his connection with the author—someone he hadn’t met—was so personal that she felt the connection too.
“I didn’t realize that Sally told you I wrote.”
“She didn’t have to. When I found out that she knew you, I asked her for an introduction.”
An introduction at a party would have done nicely, where Paige could smile at him, listen for a polite moment, and then ease away. But Sally hadn’t known Paige that long, and didn’t understand the difficulties a writer sometimes faced. Writers rarely got recognized in person—it wasn’t their faces that were famous after all but their names—but when it happened, it could become as unpleasant as it was for athletes or movie stars.
“She didn’t tell me you were familiar with my work,” Paige said, ducking her head behind the menu.
“I asked her not to. I wanted this to be a surprise.” He was leaning forward, his manicured hand outstretched.
She looked at his fingers, curled against the linen tablecloth, carefully avoiding the miniature carnations, and wondered if his skin was still clammy.
“Since you know what I do,” she continued in that too-polite voice she couldn’t seem to shake, “why don’t you tell me about yourself?”
“Oh,” he said, “there isn’t much to tell.”
And then he proceeded to describe his work with a software company. She only half listened, staring at the menu, wondering if there was an easy—and polite—way to leave this meal, knowing there was not. She would make the best of it, and call Sally the next morning, warning her not to do this ever again.
“Your books,” he was saying, “made me realize that women looked at men the way that men looked at women. I started to exercise and dress appropriately and I…”
She looked over the menu at him, noting the suit again. It must have been silk, and he wore it the way her heroes wore theirs. Right down to the scarf, and the rose in the lapel. The red rose, a symbol of true love from her third novel, Without Your Love.
That shiver ran through her again.
This time he noticed. “Are you all right?”
“Fine,” she lied. “I’m just fine.”
***
Somehow she made it through the meal, feeling her skin crawl as he used phrases from her books, imitated the gestures of her heroes, and presumed an intimacy with her that he didn’t have. She tried to keep the conversation light and impersonal, but it was a battle that she really didn’t win.
Just before the dessert course, she excused herself and went to the ladies room. After she came out, she asked the maitre d’ to call her a cab, and then to signal her when it arrived. He smiled knowingly. Apparently he had seen dates end like this all too often.
She took her leave from Josiah just after they finished their coffees, thanking him profusely for a memorable evening. And then she escaped into the night, thankful that she had been careful when making plans. He didn’t have her phone number and address. As she slipped into the cracked backseat of the cab, she promised herself that on the next blind date—if there was another blind date—she would make it drinks only. Not dinner. Never again.
***
The next day, she and Sally met for lattes at an overpriced touristy café on the Wharf. It was their usual spot—a place where they could watch crowds and not be overheard when they decided to gossip.
“How did you meet him?” Paige asked as she adjusted her wrought iron café chair.
“Fundraisers, mostly,” Sally said. She was a petite redhead with freckles that she didn’t try to hide. From a distance, they made her look as if she were still in her twenties. “He was pretty active in local politics for a while.”
“Was?”
She shrugged. “I guess he got too busy. I ran into him in Tower Records a few weeks ago, and we got to talking. That’s what made me think of you.”
“What did?”
Sally smiled. “He was holding one of your books, and I thought, he’s wealthy. You’re wealthy. He was complaining about how isolating his work was and so were you.”
“Isolating? He works for a software company.”
“Worked,” Sally said. “He’s a consultant now, and only when he needs to be. I think he just manages his investments, mostly.”
Paige frowned. Had she heard him wrong then? She wasn’t paying much attention, not after she had seen the carnations and champagne.
Sally was watching her closely. “I take it things didn’t go well.”
“He’s just not my type.”
“Rich? Good-looking? Good God, girl, what is your type?”
Paige smiled. “He’s a fan.”
“So? Wouldn’t that be more appealing?”
Maybe it should have been. Maybe she had over-reacted. She had psyched herself out a number of time about the strange men in the big city. Maybe her overactive imagination—the one that created all the stories that had made her wealthy—had finally betrayed her.
“No,” Paige said. “Actually, it’s less appealing. I sort of feel like he has photos of me naked and has studied them up close.”
“I didn’t think books were that personal. I mean, you write romance. That’s fantasy, right? Make-believe?”
Paige’s smile was thin. It was make-believe. But make-believe on any level had a bit of truth to it, even when little children were creating scenarios with Barbie dolls.
“I just don’t think we were compatible,” Paige said. “I’m sorry.”
Sally shrugged again. “No skin off my nose. You’re the one who doesn’t get out much. Have you ever thought of going to those singles dinners? They’re supposed to be a pretty good place to meet people…”
Paige let the advice slip off her, knowing that she probably wouldn’t discuss her love life—or lack of it—with Sally again. Paige had been right in the first place: she simply didn’t have the right attitude to be a good blind date. There was probably nothing wrong with Josiah Wells. He had certainly gone to a lot of trouble to make sure she had a good time, and she had snuck off as soon as she could.
And if she couldn’t be satisfied with a good-looking wealthy man who was trying to please her, then she wouldn’t be satisfied with any other blind date either. She had to go back to that which she knew worked. She had to go about her life normally, and hope that someday, an interesting guy would cross her path.
“…even go to AA to find dates. I mean, that’s a little crass, don’t you think?”
Paige looked at Sally, and realized she hadn’t heard most of Sally’s monologue. “You know what? Let’s forget about men. It’s a brand-new century and I have a great life. Why do we both seem to think that a man will somehow improve that?”
Sally studied her for a moment. “You know what I think? I think you’ve spent so much time making up the perfect man that no flesh-and-blood guy will measure up.”
And then she changed the subject, just like Paige had asked.
***
As Paige drove home, she found herself wondering if Sally was right. After all, Paige hadn’t dated anyone since she quit her job. And that was when she really spent most of her time immersed in imaginary romance. Her conscious brain knew that the men she made up were too perfect to be real. But did her subconscious? Was that what was preventing her from talking to men she’d seen at the opera or the theater? Was all this big city fear she’d been thinking about simply a way of preventing herself from remembering that men were as human—and as imperfect—as she was?
She almost had herself convinced as she parked her new VW Bug on the hill in front of her house. She set the emergency brake and then got out, grabbing her purse as she did.
She had a lot of work to do, and she had wasted most of the day obsessing about her unsatisfying blind date. It was time to return to work—a romantic suspense novel set on a cruise ship. She had done a mountain of research for the book—including two cruises—one to Hawaii in the winter, and another to Alaska in the summer. The Alaska trip was the one she had decided to use, and she had spent part of the spring in Juneau.
By the time she had reached the front porch, she was already thinking of the next scene she had to write. It was a description of Juneau, a city that was perfect for her purposes because there was only two ways out of it: by air or by sea. The roads ended just outside of town. The mountains hemmed everything in, trapping people, good and bad, hero and villain, within their steep walls.
She was so lost in her imagination that she nearly tripped over the basket sitting on her porch.
She bent down to look at it. Wrapped in colored cellophane, it was nearly as large as she was, and was filled with flowers, chocolates, wine and two crystal wine goblets. In the very center was a photo in a heart-shaped gold frame. She peered at it through the wrapping and then recoiled.
It was a picture of her and Josiah at dinner the night before, looking, from the outside, like a very happy couple.
Obviously he had hired someone to take the picture. Someone who had watched them the entire evening, and waited for the right moment to snap the shot. That was unsettling. And so was the fact that Josiah had found her house. She was unlisted in the phonebook, and on public records, she used her first name—Giacinta—with no middle initial. And although her last name was unusual, there were at least five other Racettes listed. Had Josiah sent a basket to every one of them, hoping that he’d find the right one and she’d call him?
Or had he had her followed?
The thought made her look over her shoulder. Maybe there was someone on the street now, watching her, wondering how she would react to this gift.
She didn’t want to bring it inside, but she felt like she had no choice. She suddenly felt quite exposed on the porch.
She picked up the basket by its beribboned handle and unlocked her door. Then she stepped inside, closed the door as her security firm had instructed her, and punched in her code. Her hands were shaking.
On impulse, she reset the perimeter alarm. She hadn’t done that since she moved in, had thought it a silly precaution.
It didn’t seem that silly any more.
She set the basket on the deacons bench she had near the front door. Then she fumbled through the ribbon to find the card which she knew had to be there.
Her name was on the envelope in calligraphed script, but the message inside was typed on the delivery service’s card.
Two hearts, perfectly meshed.
Two lives, perfectly twined.
Is it luck that we have found each other?
Or does Fate divine a way for perfect matches to meet?
Those were her words. The stilted words of Quinn Ralston, the hero of her sixth novel, a man who finally learned to free the poetry locked in his soul.
“God,” she whispered, so creeped out that her hands felt dirty just from touching the card. She picked up the basket and carried it to the back of the house, setting it in the entryway where she kept her bundled newspapers.
She supposed most women would keep the chocolates, flowers, and wine even if they didn’t like the man who sent them. But she wasn’t most women. And the photograph bothered her more than she could say.
She locked the interior door, then went to the kitchen and scrubbed her hands until they were raw.
***
Somehow she managed to escape to the Juneau of her imagination, working furiously in her upstairs office, getting nearly fifteen pages done before dinner. Uncharacteristically, she closed the drapes, hiding the city view she had paid so much for. She didn’t want anyone looking in.
She was cooking herself a taco salad out of Bite-sized Tostitos and bagged shredded lettuce when the phone rang, startling her. She went to answer it, and then some instinct convinced her not to. Instead, she went to her answering machine and turned up the sound.
“Paige? If you’re there, please pick up. It’s Josiah.” He paused and she held her breath. She hadn’t given him this number. And Sally had said that morning that she hadn’t given Paige’s unlisted number to anyone. “Well, um, you’re probably working and can’t hear this.”
A shiver ran through her. He knew she was home, then? Or was he guessing.
“I just wanted to find out of you got my present. I have tickets to tomorrow night’s presentation of La Boheme. I know how much you love opera and this one in particular. They’re box seats. Hard to get. And perfect, just like you. Call me back.” He rattled off his phone number and then hung up.
She stared at the machine, with its blinking red light. She hadn’t discussed the opera with him. She hadn’t discussed the opera with Sally either, after she found out that Sally hated “all that screeching.” Sally wouldn’t know La Boheme from Don Giovanni, and she certainly wouldn’t remember either well enough to mention to someone else.
Well, maybe Paige’s problem was that she had been polite to him the night before. Maybe she should have left. She’d had this problem in the past—mostly in college. She’d always tried to be polite to men who were interested in her, even if she wasn’t interested in return. But sometimes, politeness merely encouraged them. Sometimes she had to be harsh just to send them away.
Harsh or polite, she really didn’t want to talk to Josiah ever again. She would ignore the call, and hope that he would forget her. Most men understood a lack of response. They knew it for the brush-off it was.
If he managed to run into her, she would just apologize and give him the You’re Very Nice I’m Sure You’ll Meet Someone Special Someday speech. That one worked every time.
Somehow, having a plan calmed her. She finished cooking the beef for her taco salad and took it to the butcher block table in the center of her kitchen. There she opened the latest copy of Publisher’s Weekly and read it while she ate.
***
During the next week, she got fifteen bouquets of flowers, each one an arrangement described in her books. Her plan wasn’t working. She hadn’t run into Josiah, but she didn’t answer his phone calls. He didn’t seem to understand the brush off. He would call two or three times a day to leave messages on her machine, and once an hour, he would call and hang up. Sometimes she found herself standing over the Caller ID box, fists clenched.
All of this made work impossible. When the phone rang, she listened for his voice. When it wasn’t him, she scrambled to pick up, her concentration broken.
In addition to the bouquets, he had taken to sending her cards and writing her long e-mails, sometimes mimicking the language of the men in her novels.
Finally, she called Sally and explained what was going on.
“I’m sorry,” Sally said. “I had no idea he was like this.”
Paige sighed heavily. She was beginning to feel trapped in the house. “You started this. What do you recommend?”
“I don’t know,” Sally said. “I’d offer to call him, but I don’t think he’ll listen to me. This sounds sick.”
“Yeah,” Paige said. “That’s what I’m thinking.”
“Maybe you should go to the police.”
Paige felt cold. The police. If she went to them, it would be an acknowledgement that this had become serious.
“Maybe,” she said, but she hoped she wouldn’t have to.
***
Looking back on it, she realized she might have continued enduring if it weren’t for the incident at the grocery store. She had been leaving the house, always wondering if someone was watching her, and then deciding that she was being just a bit too paranoid. But the fact that Josiah showed up in the grocery store a few moments after she arrived, pushing no grocery cart and dressed exactly like Maximilian D. Lake from Love at 37,000 Feet was no coincidence.
He wore a new brown leather bomber jacket, aviation sunglasses, khakis and a white scarf. When he saw her in the produce aisle, he whipped the sunglasses off with an affected air.
“Paige, darling! I’ve been worried about you.” His eyes were even more intense that she remembered, and this time they were green, just like Maximilian Lake’s.
“Josiah,” she said, amazed at how calm she sounded. Her heart was pounding and her stomach was churning. He had her trapped—her cart was between the tomato and asparagus aisles. Behind her, the water jets, set to mist the produce every five minutes, kicked on.
“You have no idea how concerned I’ve been,” he said, taking a step closer. She backed toward the onions. “When a person lives alone, works alone, and doesn’t answer her phone, well, anything could be wrong.”
Was that a threat? She couldn’t tell. She made herself smile at him. “There’s no need to worry about me. There are people checking on me all the time.”
“Really?” He raised a single eyebrow, something she’d often described in her novels, but never actually seen in person. He probably knew that no one came to her house without an invitation. He seemed to know everything else.
She gripped the handle on her shopping cart firmly. “I’m glad I ran into you. I’ve been wanting to tell you something.”
His face lit up, a look that would have been attractive if it weren’t so needy. “You have?”
She nodded. Now was the time, her best and only chance. She pushed the cart forward just a little, so that he had to move aside. He seemed to think she was doing it to get closer to him. She was doing it so that she’d be able to get away.
“I really appreciate all the trouble you went to for dinner,” she said. “It was one of the most memorable—”
“Our entire life could be like that,” he said quickly. “An adventure every day, just like your books.”
She had to concentrate to keep that smile on her face. “Writers write about adventure, Josiah, because we really don’t want to go out and experience it ourselves.”
He laughed. It sounded forced. “I’m sure Papa Hemingway is spinning in his grave. You are such a kidder, Paige.”
“I’m not kidding,” she said. “You’re a very nice man, Josiah, but—”
“A nice man?” He took a step toward her, his face suddenly red. “A nice man? The only men who get described that way in your books are the losers, the ones the heroine wants to let down easy.”
She let the words hang between them for a moment. And then she said, “I’m sorry.”
He stared at her as if she had hit him. She pushed the cart passed him, resisting the impulse to run. She was rounding the corner into the meat aisle when she heard him say, “You bitch!”
Her hands started trembling then, and she couldn’t read her list. But she had to. He wouldn’t run her out of here. Then he’d realize just how scared she was.
He was coming up behind her. “You can’t do this, Paige. You know how good we are together. You know.”
She turned around, leaned against her cart and prayed silently for strength. “Josiah, we had one date, and it wasn’t very good. Now please, leave me alone.”
A store employee was watching from the corner of the aisle. The butcher had looked up through the window in the back.
Josiah grabbed her wrist so hard that she could feel his fingers digging into her skin. “I’ll make you remember. I’ll make you—”
“Are you all right, miss?” The store employee had stepped to her side.
“No,” she said. “He’s hurting me.”
“This is none of your business,” Josiah said. “She’s my girlfriend.”
“I don’t know him,” Paige said.
The employee had taken Josiah’s arm. Other employees were coming from various parts of the store. He must have given them a signal. Some of the customers were gathering too.
“Sir, we’re going to have to ask you to leave,” the employee said.
“You have no right.”
“We have every right, sir,” the employee said. “Now let the lady go.”
Josiah stared at him for a moment, then at the other customers. Store security had joined them.
“Paige,” Josiah said, “tell them how much you love me. Tell them that we were meant to be together.”
“I don’t know you,” she said, and this time her words seemed to get through. He let go of her arm and allowed the employee to pull him away.
She collapsed against her cart in relief, and the store manager, a middle-aged man with a nice face, asked her if she needed to sit down. She nodded. He led her to the back of the store, past the cans that were being recycled and the gray refrigeration units to a tiny office filled with red signs about customer service.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m so sorry.”
“Why?” The manager pulled over a metal folding chair and helped her into it. Then he sat behind the desk. “It seemed like he was harassing you. Who is he?”
“I don’t really know.” She was still shaking. “A friend set us up on a blind date, and he hasn’t left me alone since.”
“Some friend,” the manager said. His phone beeped, and he answered it. He spoke for a moment, his words soft. She didn’t listen. She was staring at her wrist. Josiah’s fingers had left marks.
Then the manager hung up. “He’s gone. Our man took his license number and he’s been forbidden to come into the store again. That’s all we can do.”
“Thank you,” she said.
The manager frowned. He was looking at her bruised wrist as well. “You know guys like him don’t back down.”
“I’m beginning to realize that,” she said.
***
And that was how she found herself parking her grocery-stuffed car in front of the local precinct. It was a gray cinderblock building built in the late 1960s with reinforced windows and a steel door. Somehow it did not inspire confidence.
She went inside anyway. The front hallway was narrow, and obviously redesigned. A steel door stood to her right and to her left was a window made of bullet-proof glass. Behind it sat a man in a police uniform.
She stepped up to the window. He finished typing something into a computer before speaking to her. “What?”
“I’d like to file a complaint.”
“I’ll buzz you in. Take the second door to your right. Someone there’ll help you.”
“Thanks,” she said, but her voice was lost in the electronic buzz that filled the narrow hallway. She opened the door and found herself in the original corridor, filled with blond wood and doors with windows. Very sixties, very unsafe. She shook her head slightly, opened the second door, and stepped inside.
She entered a large room filled with desks. It smelled of burned coffee and mold. Most of the desks were empty, although on most of them, the desk lamps were on, revealing piles of papers and files. Black phones as old as the building sat on each desk, and she was startled to see that typewriters outnumbered computers.
There were only a handful of people in the room, most of them bent over their files, looking frustrated. A man with salt and pepper hair was carrying a cup of coffee back to his desk. He didn’t look like any sort of police detective she’d imagined. He was squarely built and seemed rather ordinary.
When he saw her, he said, “Help you?”
“I want to file a complaint.”
“Come with me.” His deep voice was cracked and hoarse, as if he had been shouting all day.
He led her to a small desk in the center of the room. Most of the desks were pushed together facing each other, but this one stood alone. And it had a computer, screen showing the SFPD logo.
“I’m Detective Conover. How can I help you, Miss…?”
“Paige Racette.” Her voice sounded small in the large room.
He kicked a scarred wooden chair toward her. “What’s your complaint?”
She sat down slowly, her heart pounding. “I’m being harassed.”
“Harassed?”
“Stalked.”
He looked at her straight on, then, and she thought she saw a world-weariness in his brown eyes. His entire face was rumpled, like a coat that had been balled up and left in the bottom of a closet. It wasn’t a handsome face by any definition, but it had a comfortable quality, a trustworthy quality, that was built into the lines.
“Tell me about it,” he said.
So she did. She started with the blind date, talked about how strange Josiah was, and how he wouldn’t leave her alone.
“And he was taking things out of my novels like I would appreciate it. It really upset me.”
“Novels?” It was the first time Conover had interrupted her.
She nodded. “I write romances.”
“And are you published?”
The question startled her. Usually when she mentioned her name people recognized it. They always recognized it after she said she wrote romances.
“Yes,” she said.
“So you were hoisted on your own petard, aren’t you?”
“Excuse me?”
“You write about your sexual fantasies for a living, and then complain when someone is trying to take you up on it.” He said that so deadpan, so seriously, that for a moment, she couldn’t breathe.
“It’s not like that,” she said.
“Oh? It’s advertising, lady.”
She was shaking again. She had known this was a bad idea. Why would she expect sympathy from the police? “So since Donald Westlake writes about thieves, he shouldn’t complain if he gets robbed? Or Stephen King shouldn’t be upset if someone breaks his ankle with a sledgehammer?”
“Touchy,” the detective said, but she noticed a twinkle in his eye that hadn’t been there before.
She actually counted to ten, silently, before responding. She hadn’t done that since she was a little girl. Then she said, as calmly as she could, “You baited me on purpose.”
He grinned—and it smoothed out the care lines in his face, enhancing the twinkle in his eye and, for a moment, making him breathlessly attractive.
“There are a lot of celebrities in this town, Ms. Racette. It’s hard for the lesser ones to get noticed. Sometimes they’ll stage some sort of crime for publicity’s sake. And really, what would be better than a romance writer being romanced by a fan who was using the structure of her books to do it?”
She wasn’t sure what she objected to the most, being called a minor celebrity, being branded as a publicity hound, or finding this outrageous man attractive, even for a moment.
“I don’t like attention,” she said slowly. “If I liked attention, I would have chosen a different career. I hate book signings and television interviews, and I certainly don’t want a word of this mess breathed to the press.”
“So far so good,” he said. She couldn’t tell if he believed her, still. But she was amusing him. And that really pissed her off.
She held up her wrist. “He did this.”
The smile left Conover’s face. He took her hand gently in his own and extended it, examining the bruises as if they were clues. “When?”
“About an hour ago. At San Francisco Produce.” She flushed saying the name of the grocery store. It was upscale and trendy, precisely the place a “celebrity” would shop.
But Conover didn’t seem to notice. “You didn’t tell me about the attack.”
“I was getting to it when you interrupted me,” she said. “I’ve been getting calls from him—a dozen or more a day. Flowers, presents, letters and e-mails. I’m unlisted and I never gave him my phone number or my address. I have a private e-mail address, not the one my publisher hands out, and that’s the one he’s using. And then he followed me to the grocery store and got angry when the store security asked him to leave.”
Conover eased her hand onto his desk, then leaned back in his chair. His touch had been gentle, and she missed it.
“You had a date with him—”
“A blind date. We met at the restaurant, and a friend handled the details. And no, she didn’t give him the information either.”
“—so,” Conover said, as if she hadn’t spoken, “I assume you know his name.”
“Josiah Wells.”
Conover wrote it down. Then he sighed. It looked like he was gathering himself. “You have a stalker, Ms. Racette.”
“I know.”
“And while stalking is illegal under California law, the law is damned inadequate. I’ll get the video camera tape from the store, and if it backs you up, I’ll arrest Wells. You’ll be willing to press charges?”
“Yes,” she said.
“That’s a start.” Conover’s world-weary eyes met hers. “but I have to be honest. Usually these guys get out on bail. You’ll need a lawyer to get an injunction against him, and your guy will probably ignore it. Even if he gets sent up for a few years, he’ll come back and haunt you. They always do.”
Her shaking started again. “So what can I do?”
“Your job isn’t tied to the community. You can move.”
Move? She felt cold. “I have a house.” A life. This was her dream city. “I don’t want to move.”
“No one does, but it’s usually the only thing that works.”
“I don’t want to run away,” she said. “If I do that, then he’ll be controlling my life. I’d be giving in. I’d be a victim.”
Conover stared at her for a long moment. “Tell you what. I’ll build the strongest case I can. That might give you a few years. By then, you might be willing to go somewhere new.”
She nodded, stood. “I’ll bring everything in tomorrow.”
“I’d like to pick it up, if you don’t mind. See where he left it, whether he’s got a hidey hole near the house. How about I come to you in a couple of hours?”
“Okay,” she said.
“You got a peephole?”
“Yeah.”
“Use it. I’ll knock.”
She nodded. Then felt her shoulders relax slightly, more than they had for two weeks. Finally, she had an ally. It meant more to her than she had realized it would. “Thanks.”
“Don’t thank me yet,” he said. “Let’s wait until this is all over.”
All over. She tried to concentrate on the words and not the tone. Because Detective Conover really didn’t sound all that optimistic.
***
The biggest bouquet waited for her on the front porch. She could see it from the street, and any hope that the meeting with Conover aroused disappeared. She knew without getting out of the car what the bouquet would be: calla lilies, tiger lilies and Easter lilies, mixed with greens and lilies of the valley. It was a bouquet Marybeth Campbell was designing the day she met Robert Newman in All My Kisses, a bouquet he said was both romantic and sad. (Not to mention expensive: the flowers weren’t in season at the same time.)
She left the bouquet on the porch without reading the card. Conover would be there soon and he could take the whole mess away. She certainly didn’t want to look at it.
After all this, she wasn’t sure she ever wanted to see flowers again.
When she got inside, she found twenty-three messages on her machine, all from Josiah, all apologies, although they got angrier and angrier as she didn’t answer. He must have thought she had come straight home. What a surprise he would have when he realized that she had gone to the police.
She rubbed her wrist, noting the soreness and cursing him under her breath. In addition to the bruises, her wrist was slightly swollen and she wondered if he hadn’t managed to sprain it. Just her luck. He would damage her arm, which she needed to write. She got an ice pack out of the freezer and applied it, sitting at the kitchen table and staring at nothing.
Move. Give up, give in, all because she was feeling lonely and wanted to go on a date. All because she wanted a little flattery, a nice evening, to meet someone safe who could be—if nothing else—a friend.
How big a mistake had that been?
Big enough, she was beginning to realize, to cost her everything she held dear.
***
That night, after dinner, she baked herself a chocolate cake and covered it with marshmallow frosting. It was her grandmother’s recipe—comfort food that Paige normally never allowed herself. This time, though, she would eat the whole thing and not worry about calories or how bad it looked. Who would know?
She made some coffee and was sitting down to a large piece, when someone knocked on her door.
She got up and walked to the door, feeling oddly vulnerable. If it was Josiah, he would only be a piece of wood away from her. That was too close. It was all too close now.
She peered through the peephole, just like she promised Conover she would, and she let out a small sigh of relief. He was shifting from foot to foot, looking down at the bouquet she had forgotten she had left there.
She deactivated the security system, then unlocked the three deadbolts and the chain lock she had installed since this nightmare began. Conover shoved the bouquet forward with his foot.
“Looks like your friend left another calling card.”
“He’s not my friend,” she said softly, peering over Conover’s shoulder. “And he left more than that.”
Conover’s glance was worried. What did he imagine?
“Phone calls,” she said. “Almost two dozen. I haven’t checked my e-mail.”
“This guy’s farther along than I thought.” Conover pushed the bouquet all the way inside with his foot, then closed the door, and locked it. As he did, she reset the perimeter alarm.
Conover slipped on a pair of gloves and picked up the bouquet.
“You could have done that outside,” she said.
“Didn’t want to give him the satisfaction,” Conover said. “He has to know we don’t respect what he’s doing. Where can I look at this?”
“Kitchen,” she said, pointing the way.
He started toward it, then stopped, sniffing. “What smells so good?”
“Chocolate cake. You want some?”
“I thought you wrote.”
“Doesn’t stop me from baking on occasion.”
He glanced at her, his dark eyes quizzical. “This hardly seems the time to be baking.”
She shrugged. “I could drink instead.”
To her surprise, he laughed. “Yes, I guess you could.”
He carried the bouquet into the kitchen and set it on a chair. Then he dug through the flowers to find the card.
It was a different picture of their date. The photograph looked professional, almost artistic, done in black and white, using the light from the candles to illuminate her face. At first glance, she seemed entranced with Josiah. But when she looked closely, she could see the discomfort on her face.
“You didn’t like him much,” Conover said.
“He was creepy from the start, but in subtle hard-to-explain ways.”
“Why didn’t you leave?”
“I was raised to be polite. I had no idea he was crazy.”
Conover grunted at that. He opened the card. The handwriting inside was the same as all the others.
My future and your future are the same. You are my heart and soul. Without you, I am nothing.
—Josiah
She closed her eyes, felt that fluttery fear rise in her again. “There’ll be a ring somewhere in that bouquet.”
“How do you know?” Conover asked.
She opened her eyes. “Go look at the last page of All My Kisses. Robert sends a forgive-me bouquet and in it, he puts a diamond engagement ring.”
“This bouquet?”
“No. Josiah already used that one. I guess he thought this one is more spectacular.”
Conover dug, and then whistled. There, among the stems, was a black velvet ring box. He opened it. A large diamond glittered against a circle of sapphires in a white gold setting.
“Jesus,” he said. “I could retire on this thing.”
“I always thought that was a gaudy ring,” Paige said, her voice shaking. “But it fit the characters.”
“Not to your taste?”
“No.” She sighed and sank back into her chair. “Just because I write about it doesn’t mean I want it to happen to me.”
“I think you made that clear in the precinct today.” He put the ring box back where he found it, returned the card to its envelope and set the flowers on the floor. “Mind if I have some of that cake?”
“Oh, I’m sorry.” She got up and cut him a piece of cake, then poured some coffee.
When she turned around, he was grinning.
“What did I do?” she asked.
“You weren’t kidding about polite,” he said. “I didn’t come here for a tea party, and you could have said no.”
She froze in place. “Was this another of your tests? To see if I was really that polite?”
“I wish I were that smart.” He took the plate from her hand. “I was getting knocked out by the smell. My mother used to make this cake. It always was my favorite.”
“With marshmallow frosting?”
“And that spritz of melted chocolate on top, just like you have here.” He set the plate down and took the coffee from her hand. “Although in those days, I would have preferred a large glass of milk.”
“I have some—”
“Sit.” If anything, his grin had gotten bigger. “Forgive me for being so blunt, but what the hell did you need with a blind date?”
There was admiration in his eyes—real admiration, not the sick kind she’d seen from Josiah. She used her fork to cut a bite of cake. “I was lonely. I don’t get out much, and I thought, what could it hurt?”
He shook his head. That weary look had returned to his face. She liked its rumpled quality, the way that he seemed to be able to take the weight of the world onto himself and still stand up. “What a way to get disillusioned.”
“Because I’m a romance writer?”
“Because you’re a person.”
They ate the cake in silence after that, then he gripped his coffee mug and leaned back in the chair.
“Thanks,” he said. “I’d forgotten that little taste of childhood.”
“There’s more.”
“Maybe later.” And there was no smile on his face any more, no enjoyment. “I have to tell you a few things.”
She pushed her own plate away.
“I looked up Josiah Wells. He’s got a sheet.”
She grabbed her own coffee cup. It was warm and comforting. “Let me guess. The political conferences he stopped going to.”
Conover frowned at her. “What conferences?”
“Here in San Francisco. He was active in local politics. That’s how my friend Sally met him.”
“And he stopped?”
“Rather suddenly. I thought, after all this started, that maybe—”
“I’ll check into it,” Conover said with a determination she hadn’t heard from him before. “His sheet’s from San Diego.”
“I thought he was from here.”
Conover shook his head. “He’s not a dot-com millionaire. He made his money on a software system back in the early nineties, before everyone was into this business. Sold his interest for 30 million dollars and some stock, which has since risen in value. About ten times what it was.”
Her mouth had gone dry. Josiah Wells had lied to both her and Sally. “Somehow I suspect this is important.”
“Yeah.” Conover took a sip of coffee. “He stalked a woman in San Diego.”
“Oh, God.” The news gave her a little too much relief. She had been feeling alone. But she didn’t want anyone else to be experiencing the same thing she was.
“He killed her.”
“What?” Paige froze.
“When she resisted him, he shot her and killed her.” Conover’s soft gaze was on her now, measuring. All her relief had vanished. She was suddenly more terrified than she had ever been.
“You know it was him?”
“I read the file. They faxed it to me this afternoon. All of it. They had him one hundred percent. DNA matches, semen matches—”
She winced, knowing what that meant.
“—the fibers from his home on her clothing, and a list of stalking complaints and injunctions that went on for pages.”
The cake sat like a lump in her stomach. “Then why isn’t he in prison?”
“Money,” Conover said. “His attorneys so out-classed the DA’s office that by the end of the trial, they could have convinced the jury that the judge had done it.”
“Oh, my god,” Paige said.
“The same things that happened to you happened to her,” Conover said. “Only with her those things took about two years. With you it’s taking two weeks.”
“Because he feels like he knows me from my books?”
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