Survive the Night. Vicki Hinze

But I can’t look his way without evidence.” She’d been on the receiving end of that from him. She’d never deliberately put another person through that. “I need to track this package.”

      “What about the knife?” Beech asked. “Don’t you want the locals to take it from us to protect the chain of evidence?”

      She wanted this mess to go away. She wanted peace. She’d never have it, but the shade of it she’d spent three years building was as close as she’d get, and she wanted it back. “Can you keep possession and give me a little time to see what I can find out?”

      “I can.” Beech rubbed at his thick neck. “I shouldn’t, but I will.”

      Della knew why he was willing. When she’d been assigned at the Nest, Beech had been at the Pentagon. According to Madison’s assistant, Mrs. Renault, he’d hooked up with an ambassador’s assistant named Christina. They’d been discovered, she’d been fired and he’d been sent to Iceland for a year. They’d done nothing wrong, but he’d played by the rules and been burned—and that’s why Paul had called him. Beech would understand. Others wouldn’t. Beech had returned from Iceland and married Christina, so at least things had worked out for him. But he hadn’t forgotten the challenges of having suspicion hanging over his head. “I appreciate it, Major.”

      Beech nodded, turning to one of the guys. “Log it in. I want art, and cut her a written receipt for it.”

      Art. Every conceivable kind of photo of everything.

      “Yes, sir.” He began taking snapshots of the outside of the box and working his way to capturing images of the contents.

      “Could you email me a photo of the shipping label?” Della asked.

      “Yes, ma’am.” He nodded and got busy.

      Soon they were done and departing. “Della,” Major Beech said. “You realize you’re on dangerous ground, right? If this was Dawson, he’s crazy and he has a violent history. If not, whoever it was has been in your home. Don’t take that lightly.”

      “I’m not, and I am aware.” Very dangerous ground. She’d been acutely aware of danger for weeks.

      “Very well. If you need me, call. Paul has the number.”

      “Thank you.” Della shook his hand and watched them load into their vehicles and pull away as silently and swiftly as they’d arrived.

      She turned to Paul, whose expression was more sober than she ever recalled seeing it. “What?”

      “What?” He frowned. “Della, what’s going on? You’re surprised but not shocked. Someone has invaded your home and you’re not acting violated. Why?”

      “I feel violated—everything victims usually feel. I’m just trying to keep my wits.”

      His frown warned he wasn’t buying it for a second. “I brought you to North Bay. I got you in with Lost, Inc. If some nut on one of your cases is after you, I have to help. We’re friends, and that’s what friends do. Just don’t hold out on me, Della. Tell me the truth.”

      “I really don’t know who he is or if it’s personal or case-connected. But this isn’t first contact. It started with me sensing someone was following me.” The hair on her neck had stood on end. Her flesh had crept and crawled. Her every instinct had shouted with certainty that someone was watching her, but she hadn’t seen anyone. Still, she knew. She knew.

      “And then...?”

      “I got the first note.”

      “The first note?” Surprise rippled through his voice, charged the air between them. “How many notes have there been?”

      “This is the second one.” Her stomach knotted.

      “What was in the first package?”

      “It wasn’t a package. Just the note. I was leaving for work one morning and found it under the windshield wiper on my car.”

      “So this person already knew where you lived and had been in your garage?”

      “Yes and no. He knew where I lived, but the car was parked outside that night, not in the garage.” She risked a glance up at Paul. “Baby killer—that’s all the first note said.” The words hurt her throat. Made her eyes sting.

      “What?” Paul looked thunderstruck.

      No way could she say it twice. She’d been honest but glossed over details of what had happened in Tennessee. Now she had no choice but to be specific. “Leo Dawson used that same term.” The urge to cry bit her hard. She refused it, just as she’d refused to shed the first tear since hearing about Danny. “Before I was deployed, Dawson and I got into an argument in my driveway. I was in uniform, out getting my newspaper. Dawson lived a few houses down the street. He’d heard I was being deployed and he blindsided me and beat me half to death. He said I had no right to abandon my son to go to Afghanistan. Then he called me...that. I don’t for sure know why. The man’s crazy. Nobody knew why.”

      “How old was Dawson?”

      “Fifty-five or so.”

      “Vietnam era,” Paul said. “Many called soldiers ‘baby killer’—it was a common antiwar slur.”

      “That’s what his psychiatrist said. Dawson had mental challenges, and events just made them worse. Around the neighborhood, people said he often slipped in and out of that era. His doctor said there were also people who exploited him. Apparently after the war he had been different but functional. They thought he was safe to cut loose, so they did. From all accounts, he did well until 9/11 happened. I guess the trauma of it and the war that followed set him off again. That was what his doctor suspected, anyway. To him, anyone with a weapon of any kind was a baby killer. That’s how his twisted mind associated things.”

      “What did you suspect?” Paul asked.

      “Nothing more than that until the mailbox bomb. But the day he assaulted me in the driveway, he told the police a mother should never leave her child, especially not to fight in a war. That a mother didn’t belong in the military, and one who was and would leave didn’t deserve a child.” She blinked hard, swallowed a knot from her throat. “He was clearly unbalanced. The police arrested him, and the D.A. settled. Dawson went back to the mental hospital and the D.A. didn’t pursue a conviction for the assault.” She shrugged. “I’m not blaming anyone. It seemed right at the time to me, too. He was sick. None of us could have known Dawson would get out and do what he did to Danny and Jeff.” Danny had died and Jeff had been injured. He swore he’d rather have died, too, and having felt that way herself, Della felt certain he’d been sincere.

      “So Dawson is loose and you suspect he’s stalking you?”

      “I suspect it, but I don’t know it. I haven’t located him. I checked with some of our former associates.” Paul would intuit that she meant people still active in the intelligence community. She and Paul had revealed working in the realm during their assignments, but they hadn’t discussed specifics. Often she’d wondered if he’d been assigned to the Nest, too, and, if so, in what capacity. But of course she hadn’t asked. One of the first things you learned was to not ask questions if you didn’t want to be asked questions you didn’t want to answer. “They’ve confirmed Dawson’s release and that he returned home, but then he disappeared. No sightings for the last ten days.”

      “So he could be here.”

      “Or anywhere else in the world.” In ten days, he could have traveled to Fiji or Siberia. But in her gut she knew he hadn’t. He was here. He had to be here. Who else would send her a bloody knife and threatening notes?

      “I know you’ve checked. Nothing on travel, credit cards, any of the usual?”

      She shook her head. “Nothing.”

      “What about comparing his handwriting to the first note?”

      “Zero