Rainey’s eyes blinked open. A searing pain was telling her to wake up and move her neck. She slowly brought her head up from the back of the couch and then rolled it from side to side, trying to relax her neck muscles. The office was quiet. She did not see Ernie and looked out front to see that her car was still there. Rainey thought she must have been really out of it, because Mackie’s Escalade was in the parking lot. She could not believe she had slept through him coming in. They must be outside, because she didn’t hear them inside.

Rainey stood and stretched out the kinks from sleeping, sitting up on the old couch. She looked down at the coffee table and saw a yellow sticky note with a message from Ernie.

“Rainey, call this number,” was all it said, and listed a number Rainey did not recognize.

Rainey used the business line to call the number, not wanting her private number on any callback list. She dialed and waited for the phone to ring on the other end. Her attention was drawn to her closed office door, which was never closed unless she had a client in there. The ring, in the receiver next to her ear, was followed by a ring, from inside her office. As soon as the second ring came through the phone in her hand, it was echoed by a ring from behind the closed door.

Rainey slowly sat the receiver down on the desk, letting it continue to ring. She reached for her Glock, but the holster was empty. She must have taken it out in the car. She had been distracted and tired on the way home. She looked out the window toward the Charger parked under the cottage. The rings continued behind the door. Maybe they were just trying to surprise her. They both should know better than that, she thought.

Very carefully, Rainey approached her office door. She listened, but only the ringing could be heard from the other side. She touched the doorknob softly, trying to avoid the click from the latch. The latch clicked anyway, forcing her to enter the room quickly, before whoever was in there could react.

The scream left her throat before she was fully able to take in exactly what she was seeing. There on her desk was the ringing phone and above it was the mutilated body of Ernie, strung up from the ceiling. The gaping Y-incision spilled the contents of Ernie’s body on her desk, still dripping blood on the ringing phone.

She heard him behind her before she had time to act. He grabbed her and shook her, all the while yelling her name over and over. Her arms and legs refused to move. She screamed in terror at the familiar black mask, inches from her face. She screamed until she had no breath left. She closed her eyes and waited for the pain to begin.

“Rainey!” she heard him shout her name. “Rainey!” again, but this time the voice was recognizable.

Another voice, a female, yelled, “Caroline Marie Herndon, wake up this instant!”

Rainey’s eyes flew open. Mackie’s face was inches from her own. He was shaking her and calling her name. Ernie’s face glowed red behind him. It was her voice that finally broke Rainey out of the nightmare.

“That is not my name,” Rainey said, groggily.

“Well, the other name wasn’t working,” Ernie said, visibly upset.

Mackie’s big paw brushed the hair from her face, “You were screaming, baby girl. I had to shake you.”

Rainey looked back and forth between the two worried faces. “I’m sorry,” was all she could say.

Mackie stopped pawing at her and asked, “Are you okay, now?”

“Yeah, yeah, I’m okay. Just give me a minute,” Rainey said.

He knew better than to ask what she was dreaming about. She would not have told him, if he did. She certainly would never tell Ernie what she saw. She excused herself to the restroom, feeling both sets of concerned eyes follow her all the way out of sight.

When Rainey closed the bathroom door, she fell back against it. Running her fingers through her hair, she tried to erase the images she had just seen from her mind. It was only a dream, but her reaction to the images had been real. She was horrified. Terrified that, if and when the time came, when that monster reappeared, she wouldn’t be ready. She knew that was what drove her dreams. The thought that he would find her, stepping out to grab her when she least expected it, to finish what he started.

Rainey bent over the sink, splashing cold water on her face. She toweled off, and then reached in the medicine cabinet where she kept a spare toothbrush. She brushed her teeth and hair, pulled the chestnut waves back into a tidy ponytail, and took a good look in the mirror. Better now, she thought. She took out her cell phone and checked the time. It was after one in the afternoon. At least she had gotten some sleep, before the nightmare came crashing through her unconscious mind.

Her stomach growled as she exited the bathroom. She was hungry and knew mentioning that fact to Ernie would set her off on a mission to whip up something good for Rainey to eat. This would also keep Ernie too busy to ask too many questions. She rubbed her belly as she stepped back into the main office, performing for Mackie and Ernie.

Rainey said, in her best Southern redneck drawl, “Ya’ll got any food around here?”

Ernie went right into motion, hustling in and out of the back room with a huge salad bowl, plates and napkins.

“I knew you’d be hungry when you woke up, so I called Mackie and asked him to go by the farm and bring us some fresh vegetables and eggs off my back porch,” she said. “I just finished making this chef salad in the back room. Do you want to eat in your office?”

“No,” Rainey said, too loudly. She saw their reaction and, in a much calmer voice, added, “No, I’d rather eat out here, if it’s all the same to you.”

Ernie filled the counter behind her desk with fresh fruit along with the salad and a loaf of fresh bread, she made the night before. Rainey thought it was smart of her father to leave the full size kitchen intact, in the back room, when he bought the building. New appliances had gone in over the years, because in truth her dad spent more time in the office than in the cottage. She realized that she had done the same since moving in last July.

The three of them sat balancing plates on their laps, while Rainey told them how she thought that JW’s wife might be in real danger. She glossed over the story of the stranger in the shadows, and how she almost shot JW, making it sound much less exciting than it was. They got out the notes and pictures the stalker had sent, laying them out on the coffee table. Rainey munched on the salad, listening to Mackie and Ernie banter back and forth about the meaning of the notes.

Mackie reached out to pick up one of the notes. “These have been dusted for prints?” he asked.

Rainey nodded and then swallowed a mouthful of salad. When she could speak again, she said, “Yes, the only prints found on the notes were JW’s.”

Mackie held the paper up in the sunlight. He checked the paper front and back.

“Looks like regular printer paper to me,” Ernie said, squinting over her reading glasses. “I don’t see a watermark, do you?”

Mackie answered her, “No, nothing identifiable on this sheet. Are they all printed on the same paper?”

They spent some time examining each note, looking for any distinctive marks on the paper. They concluded, after much passing of paper, that there was none. They also agreed that it looked like the same printer had produced each note. There was a characteristic shadow of smudge after each period. If they could find a suspect, they might be able to match the notes to a printer he had access to.

“Lord, JW went and got him a fine looking woman,” Mackie said.

He had just picked up one of the five by seven photographs from the table. When Rainey saw that he was looking at the picture of Katie in her bathing suit, she unconsciously nodded in agreement. Then, feeling odd about the way Ernie was looking at her, she felt the need to qualify.

“That one gives me the creeps. It looks like he was standing right over her,” Rainey said.

Ernie leaned in to get a better look, “How could a stranger get that close?”

“If she was my woman, I wouldn’t let a man get within a mile of her, much less close enough to touch,” Mackie said matter-of-factly.

Rainey answered Ernie, “I’m beginning to think it may not be a stranger. He knows too much about where she goes and what she does. And you’re right; I don’t think a stranger could have gotten close enough to take that picture, in particular.”

Mackie thumbed through the other shots, “Did you ask JW where the bathing suit picture was taken? Maybe he can tell you who else was there.”

“I didn’t see it when I first went through the envelope and I forgot to ask him about it when I talked to him,” Rainey answered.

She could not believe she had not thought to ask JW about the bathing suit picture. What else had she overlooked? The memories and dreams of her attack were interfering with her thought processes. That is why she left the bureau; she could not concentrate well enough. The image of Ernie filleted over her desk flashed into her mind. She closed her eyes and pinched the space between her brows.

“Are you alright, honey,” Ernie said.

Rainey covered with, “Yeah, just a headache.”

“Can I get you anything for it?” Ernie asked, at the same time beginning to clean up the lunch dishes.

“No, I need to go to the house and take a shower. That will probably take care of it,” Rainey responded.

Rainey opened her eyes and stood up. She walked over to the counter and put her empty plate and fork down. She finished off her bottle of water, leaving the bottle in the recycle bin so Ernie would not gripe.

“I’ll be at the house for the next thirty minutes at least, and then I need to get back to the teacher,” she said, heading for the front door.

Mackie unfolded his considerable frame, “Let me walk you over,” he said.

Once they were out of Ernie’s earshot, Rainey told Mackie the truth about her encounter with the stalker last night. He agreed that JW’s wife was definitely in danger.

“If this guy is that bold, he won’t stop until he has made face to face contact with her,” he grumbled out in his deep bass voice.

“Yep, he will not be deviated from his plan,” Rainey said. “These guys can’t stop themselves, they have to be stopped.”

Mackie added, before she left him at the bottom of the cottage steps, “I don’t care what JW said, you keep that Glock on you all the time.”

Rainey laughed, “You didn’t think I would go anywhere without it, did you?”

A laugh rumbled out of his barrel chest, then he said, “Rainey, call me before you get out of the car next time, okay?”

“Sure Mackie, I’ll call you next time,” Rainey said, smiling down at the big man from her front deck.

Mackie backed away, smiling up at her, “You’d better, because I’d hate like hell for your father to come back from the grave and haunt my ass, if I let anything happen to you.”

“Don’t worry; he’s too busy making my grandmother’s afterlife a living hell to worry about us. He’s probably messed with Constance a few times, too,” Rainey said, laughing at the image of her mother screaming through the mansion.

Mackie waved goodbye, shouting, “No doubt about that… Call me when you get parked tonight.”

She waved goodbye, then picked up Freddie, who had come out to greet her and was purring, rubbing against her legs.

“I sure hope you didn’t leave me any presents in there, I don’t think I can take any more surprises today,” Rainey said, hugging the big cat to her chest.

She looked around the property from her tree top vantage point. From here, she could see out onto the lake and far down the approaching road. The property was truly out-of-the-way. She could not see another soul. It was the perfect place for her to heal. Now if she could just get on with it. Just as she turned to unlock the door, Freddie sprang from her arms.

Freddie was the kind of cat that did what he wanted when he wanted, and only then. Evidently, he did not want to go in the house. Rainey found him one day hanging out behind the office. He could have only been six weeks old, at the most. He was solid black with wild hair shooting in all directions. He had a tail, but it was so twisted and curled, it looked like a nub. His tail never grew out, and the nub was currently flicking back and forth, while he stood on the railing of the deck. His fir had flattened out into a sleek black coat and he grew so large, he looked like a miniature panther, with a nub tail, of course. His wide gold eyes were staring across the parking lot, his chest rumbling in a low growl. Rainey believed Freddie thought he was a dog, or at least a tiger.

“Whatever it is, leave it outside,” Rainey said, running her hand along his back.

Freddie jumped down and hurried down the steps, beginning the long slow stalk toward his prey, as soon as his feet hit the ground. Rainey scanned the edge of the woods holding his focus. She could not see what he was after, but she hoped he would not catch it. His prizes for her tended to be messy. Rainey looked back down at him and smiled, turning toward the door anticipating happily, a much-needed long soak in a hot tub.