When I got home from our last appointment Evan told me he’d decided to stay for the weekend. I wondered if his decision was motivated more by concern about Billy than about John, but it was nice having him home for a change. Not that it helped me get anything done. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve picked up a tool and just set it back down. Most of the day I just sit at my computer.
Now I’m resorting to Googling things like “how to know if you’re being followed” or “self-defense moves that could save your life.” One article had suggestions for what to do if you’re attacked by a serial killer or rapist, like fighting back or screaming. It even listed what might trigger each one. But it seems like the only way of knowing for sure which kind you’ve got on your hands, or rather has his hands on you, is when you’ve messed up and he’s killing you.
I still printed everything out — just in case. Then I added the pages to the enormous file I’ve already got going for all my other John stuff. I’ve been keeping a logbook, back from when he first started calling. I make note of the time of day he calls, his moods, tone of voice, speech patterns, anything.
When I’m not Googling, I’m e-mailing Billy little How’s it going out there? messages. He always answers back. Sometimes just, Don’t worry. Or Hang in there, I’ll call later and touch base. Evan would freak if he knew how much we’re in contact. I don’t like doing it behind his back but I can’t explain why I need the reassurance, at least not in a way Evan would understand. He’s great at shaking me out of my funks and balancing the roller coaster of emotions I’m generally on. But that’s when I’m operating at a level five. Once I’ve hit ten, all his just-don’t-think-about-it advice pisses me off. Billy’s we’ve-got-it-under-control attitude is what I need.
Last Friday night was brutal. Even though Evan was home and I hadn’t heard from John since Monday, I didn’t feel any more relaxed. My cell phone was quiet, but my mind was loud. All the books say that serial killers can be super impulsive. If John gets an urge to talk he just might pick up the phone regardless of how angry he is, just to tell me how angry he is. Or he might decide to do it in person. But the thing is, people of John’s type—my type — are just as obsessive as they are impulsive. What kept me up all night was wondering what was keeping him up. Then on Saturday morning the calls started again.
My cell rang while we were making breakfast — well, Evan was making it, I was talking and getting in the way. The number was new, but the area code was still for BC.
Evan said, “Don’t answer it.”
“It’s a different number.”
He turned back to the stove. “If it’s not him, they’ll leave a message.” They didn’t. “They” called back three more times — always stopping after the fourth ring. Halfway through setting the table, I was frozen with a fork in my hand, waiting for the phone to ring again.
Evan glanced over his shoulder. “Just turn it off.”
Moments before, I’d been thinking how glad I was Sandy and Billy were gone so I could have Evan all to myself, but now I wished they were here so they could tell me what to do. All my tough talk — and resolve — about ignoring John was slipping away.
I said, “But what if he has another girl?”
Evan spun around with the spatula in his hand. “Turn off the phone, Sara.”
I stared at him as it rang again.
Eggs sizzled in the frying pan behind Evan as he said, “I thought you said you were done.”
“But what if he has someone or he’s at a campsite and—”
“If you don’t talk to him, he can’t manipulate you.”
Ally came around the corner. “What stinks?”
Evan spun back around. “Christ, the eggs.” As he moved the pan to another burner he looked back over his shoulder. “Do whatever you want, Sara. But you know exactly what’s going to happen.”
I turned off the phone and set it on the table.
Evan grabbed my hand. “It’s the only way you’re going to get your life back.” I sat down, pulling a squirming Ally into my lap and burying my face in her hair, feeling sick with dread — and guilt. Whose life had I just destroyed?
After we drove Ally to Meghan’s we came home and Evan did some work around the house. I finally finished the headboard I’d been struggling with, but it felt like climbing uphill with rocks tied to my ankles. Billy had phoned to tell me John called from a pay phone near Lillooet, about three hours south of his last call — and three hours from Vancouver. While I worked I kept wondering if while I was sanding something John was looking for his next victim.
The police have a patrol car cruising by Ally’s school at all her breaks. The teacher thinks I’m involved in a bitter custody battle with her real father — luckily I never told the teacher he’s dead — but I wondered if I should’ve kept Ally home. Evan and I had talked about it but decided we should keep things as normal as possible for her. The trick was keeping me as normal as possible. I’ve run an inch below manic for most of my life, revving into high gear at a moment’s notice, but now? I don’t even know what normal is anymore.
When Evan and I stopped for lunch, I tried to look interested as he told me how he’d reorganized the woodshed, but he noticed I was picking at my sandwich.
He said, “Why don’t you go see Lauren for a bit?”
“I don’t know.” I shrugged. “We haven’t talked much lately because I feel like I’m lying all the time. And I haven’t told anyone you’re home. They’ll wonder why I didn’t mention it.”
“Just tell them I had a cancellation and wanted to spend some time with you so we could get some wedding stuff done.”
“God, the wedding. We still have to order the cake, the flowers, rent your tux, get the wine, make the labels.” I threw my hands into the air. “We still haven’t even sent invitations.”
“It’s going to be fine, Sara.”
“The wedding’s in three and a half months, Evan. How is that fine?”
Evan raised an eyebrow. “Hey, Bridezilla, you might want to be a little nicer to the groom.”
I sighed. “Sorry.”
“What’s the biggest thing on your list?”
“I don’t know.… The invitations, I guess.”
He thought for a moment. “You go visit Lauren, and I’ll find a template for a cover e-mail and update the site. When you get back we’ll fine-tune it, then tomorrow we can go through our e-mail addresses and send the link out.”
“But…”
“But what?”
“Once the invites are out there … I don’t know, maybe you’re right. What if things get worse with John and—”
Evan said, “They’re not going to. He’s out of our lives. And you’re going to keep him out, right?” I nodded. “So unless you’re having second thoughts about marrying me?”
I tapped my chin. “Hmm … let me think.”
He grabbed my hair and pulled my face close for a kiss.
“I’m not letting you get away. Not when there’s a cop waiting to take my place.”
I smacked his shoulder. “Billy doesn’t like me that way. And right now he probably hates me for screwing their case up.”
Evan just grunted and said, “Good. Now go see your sister.”
When I got home — feeling a lot better about life after inhaling half a dozen of Lauren’s peanut butter cookies and a whole pot of coffee — Evan told me he’d gotten a couple of calls from the lodge. I said I was worried about him losing business, he said he was more worried about losing me.
Once John realized I wasn’t going to answer my cell phone he tried the landline a couple of times. When Ally came home she wondered why we weren’t picking it up, so we told her that it was just salespeople and she was not to answer it. We turned the ringer off at night and gave the police Evan’s cell number because my cell was also off. John tried a couple more times on Sunday. All the calls came from around Cache Creek, and I felt safer knowing where he was, or at least the general area, but Evan said it just made me more insane trying to predict his next move. He had a point. I agreed to call the phone company on Monday to change our number. Then I got the e-mail Sunday night.
Evan was about to show me the wedding Web site he’d spent all weekend updating when I decided to check my e-mail. As soon as I saw the address [email protected] I knew it was from John. The message was in all caps.
SARA,THE PRESSURE IS BAD. I NEED YOU.JOHN
The walls of my office closed in as I stared at my screen. Behind me Evan was talking, but I couldn’t make sense of the words. My body felt hot all over, my legs heavy with dread.
Evan said, “What’s wrong?”
“John just e-mailed.”
Evan spun his chair around, asked me something else I didn’t catch. I opened the window above my desk, needing air, but I still felt like I was suffocating. Billy, I had to get in touch with Billy. I forwarded the e-mail and he called right away to say the RCMP would try to find out where John had sent it from, but I was sure he’d used a public computer.
When I showed Evan the e-mail he told me to just ignore it. I tried to focus on the wedding site, but I couldn’t get John’s words out of my head.
I said, “What if he kills someone?”
“The police have warnings out to all the campsites. But he’s going to end up killing you if you keep communicating with him, Sara.” He scrolled through another page on the Web site. “Come on, this will take your mind off it. See, I changed the format and added our horoscopes and links to a map — there’s a little quiz too. And people can RSVP right online.” “That’s cool — and thanks for trying to distract me. But not communicating with John is what’s pushing him over the edge.”
“So let him get pissed off. I’m here, the house is wired, and we have cops patrolling by. If you’re going to talk to him at all, that’s what you should tell him — that the police know he’s been contacting you and they’ll catch him if he steps foot on the island again.” “That might make him go totally ballistic.”
Evan turned from the screen. “What do you want to do, Sara?”
“I just want this to all go away.”
“Then let the police do their job.”
“But they can only do so much and I can’t stand not knowing what he’s doing.”
“Sara, if you talk to him, I’m going to be really pissed off.”
“Now you’re threatening me? That’s not fair.”
“It’s not fair that I have to worry about you. You said you were done.”
“But he’s not done. We can change our numbers — I can change them a million times — but as long as he’s out there he’s going to find new ways to contact me.”
Evan’s face was stony. “So what do you want to do?”
“I think — I think maybe I should try to meet with him again. If—”
“No, Sara. You can’t do it.”
“Evan, just think about it. Please. I don’t want to do it either — it’s terrifying. But we have to catch him. It’s the only way this is ever going to end. How are we going to be able to have a wedding with this hanging over us?”
“If you do this, I don’t want any part of it.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means I’m not sitting in that truck, wondering if you’re getting yourself killed. You’re risking Ally too, you know.”
“That’s so unfair — I’m trying to protect Ally. She’s not going to be safe until he’s caught.”
“If you do this, she should come to the lodge with me.”
“Ally’s staying here.”
“So you want her in town where he can snatch her from school?”
“She’s safer here with police protection than up at the lodge. The drive there is deserted, there are only like three policemen in the entire town — and he knows where the lodge is, Evan. If anything happened up there—”
“I could protect her better up there.”
“Billy can protect her—” I pulled back as I realized what I was about to say.
“So you think Billy can take better care of Ally?”
“He’s a cop, Evan.”
“I don’t care what he is, if you do this I’m taking Ally to the lodge or I’m telling your parents and she can stay there.”
“You’re not taking my daughter anywhere.”
“Your daughter? That’s what it comes down to? She’s not mine so I don’t have any say in what happens to her?”
“Evan, that’s not what I meant!”
He closed down his computer and headed for the office door.
“Do what you want, Sara. You will anyway.”
That night Evan slept on the couch. I tossed and turned for hours, still arguing with him in my head, but by midnight most of my anger had burned off. I hated that he was mad at me. I turned onto my back and stared at the ceiling. Why couldn’t Evan see that meeting with John was the best chance — like Billy said, probably the only chance — of getting him out of our lives?
In the dark I turned over everything we’d said. My daughter? Evan was more of a father than she’d ever had in her life. Did I really think because she wasn’t biologically his that he shouldn’t have a say in what happens to her? Now I realized that subconsciously I’d always considered Evan’s opinions second when it came to Ally.
Maybe he was right. Maybe it was time to cut John completely off. I’d done everything the police had asked, endured all of John’s calls to the point where I was a walking panic attack, finally agreed to meet him — and he still hadn’t been caught. He’d said he wouldn’t hurt anyone as long as I talked to him, then killed Danielle even after I pulled off to the side of a highway to answer his call. And how did I know he wouldn’t have attacked her even if he had reached me in Victoria? If I made the slightest misstep he used it as an excuse to do what he was going to do anyway. Now the stakes were higher. He knew he could use Ally as leverage — if I was willing to lie to protect her, he might wonder what else I’d be willing to do for her.
I could’ve explained my feelings to Evan better, but why was he being so dominating? I ran back through the fight and this time tried to put myself in his shoes. Then I got it. Evan was scared. And he had every right to be. How would I feel if he was going to do something that terrified me but I couldn’t stop him? The last thing I wanted was a marriage like my parents’—Mom in the kitchen and Dad calling the shots — but Evan wasn’t bossing me around; he was just worried.
I crept downstairs and into the living room. Evan was on his back, one arm thrown up over his head. I knelt by his side and admired his features in the moonlight. I love his high cheekbones and the way his upper lip is slightly fuller on one side. His hair was messed up, making him look even more boyish. I moved my face close to his.
“What are you doing?” he murmured.
“Sucking up.”
He grunted in the dark and wrapped his arm around my shoulders, pulling me up and on top of him so my head rested on his chest.
He said, “You weren’t very nice.”
“I know. I’m sorry. But you were being all alpha-male guy.”
“I am alpha male. You just need to accept that.” I heard the smile in his voice.
He grunted into my neck. I grunted back. It had been a long time since we’d done that. I smiled against his cheek. His left hand crept down and grabbed my butt.
“You know, you could make it up to me.…”
I giggled into his shoulder.
“Evan?”
“Yeah, baby.”
“I won’t meet him, okay?”
“Good, because I have to go back to the lodge in the morning and I don’t want to worry about you.”
“First thing in the morning, I’ll change all the phone numbers.”
He pulled me in tight and gave me a kiss, then our bodies relaxed against each other, my head on his shoulder, his arms loose around my back as he drifted off to sleep.
The next morning after Evan left I changed my cell and my landline. I gave the police the new numbers. My family would wonder why I changed them, so I just told them that since the article had come out we’d had a lot of newspapers and wackos calling. When I talked to Melanie she said, “I heard Evan was home.” “Yeah, for a bit.”
“What’d he think of the CD?”
“Um…” Before I could make up an excuse Melanie said, “You’re unbelievable. Some sister,” and hung up.
When I tried to call her back and apologize, her phone just rang. Then my guilt turned to anger — I didn’t need this crap. I had a serial killer messing with my life. Okay, so she didn’t know that, but she could just wait for once.
Since I changed my numbers the calls from John have stopped. The first couple of days were hard — I checked my locks and the alarm constantly — but when nothing happened I started to relax. Evan was right, I should have done this a long time ago. No more jumping up, no more checking my cell every ten seconds. I haven’t watched the news or Googled anything. I’m even getting caught up with some projects — yesterday I returned a ton of e-mail quotes. It’s like I was addicted to some horrible drug, and now that I’m sober I can’t believe how much it had taken over my life. But this is it. I’ve quit for good.