Feb nodded, put her arm around Keira’s shoulders, moved Keira’s stiff body around and she led her to the back of the house, Cheryl, Kate and Dane following.
I watched until I lost sight of them then I ran to my house.
Joe, Colt and Sully were standing at my front door. Joe had a little white card between his fingers but he looked from it to me when I hit the yard and he watched me run until I stopped at their huddle.
“Talk us through this,” he ordered the minute I arrived, his head jerking to the flowers.
“It’s Saturday,” I explained stupidly.
“And?”
“He sends me flowers every Saturday.”
Joe’s mouth got tight and even in the bright sunshine of the day he shifted straight to sinister.
“You been gettin’ flowers?” Joe asked and I shook my head.
“This is the first here,” I answered.
His eyes went to Colt.
“Moratorium,” he growled and I blinked in confusion at his strange word.
“We’ll call the florists in town,” Sully said quickly and I got it then.
“That won’t work, I tried that,” I informed them, Joe’s eyes came to me and it took a lot for me not to shrink from him, he looked so pissed.
“We’ll be thorough,” Joe told me and I couldn’t do anything but nod because, the way he said that, I didn’t doubt for a second they would.
“What comes after this?” Colt asked and I looked at him.
“Gifts,” I answered, “then visits.”
“What kind of gifts?” Colt asked.
“It could be anything, it started small. Like he sent caviar which was weird. Then he sent fancy champagne and gift certificates to nice restaurants for me and the girls. Then he started to send jewelry.”
“Expensive?” Colt asked and I nodded.
“Visits come after the jewelry?” Joe asked and I nodded to him too. “What’d you do with the shit?”
“Gave it to Barry, Tim’s partner. He’s got it all still, at the Station.”
“How much time we got?” Joe went on.
“I don’t know, it went on for months and then he started to come ‘round.”
“Don’t suspect we got months,” Sully muttered and I suspected he was right, it had been months, me being away, I figured Daniel Hart would speed things up a bit.
“You talk to him?” Joe asked.
“He just showed, sat outside in his car. Then his man would come to the door, knock on it. Then he would. I didn’t go out in the beginning, didn’t answer the door. Barry talked to him at first and it didn’t work so then Barry talked to him officially and that didn’t work either. In the end, I talked to him a couple of times, thought he’d get it. That didn’t work either. Barry helped me get a restraining order so, after that, he’d sit in his car just outside of order range and just watch.”
“You don’t talk to him now,” Joe commanded. “Colt or me talk to him. We aren’t here, you stay in the house and call the police. We’re here, you stay in the house and call one of us then you call the police, got me?”
I nodded.
“He come when the girls were with you?” Joe asked.
“Yeah.”
I watched Joe’s face go hard as granite before he continued. “He come when the girls were home alone?”
I nodded and repeated, “Yeah, in the end, that’s when I decided to move.”
“Fuck,” Colt muttered.
“All right, buddy, listen to me,” Joe stated. “You stay in the fuckin’ house, you keep the alarm armed at all times, you keep the doors locked. Even when you’re home, alarm on, doors locked. You only work in your yard if you know Colt or me are here. You go to your car with your keys in your hand, ready to roll. You lock your doors in your car the minute your ass is in the seat and the door is closed, at home, comin’ from work, at the store. You tell Kate the same. You stay in the fuckin’ house if he shows. That’s your job, that’s all you do, you leave the rest to me, Colt and the cops. Got me?”
“Got you.”
“You get anything, flowers, gifts, calls, hang ups, you think someone’s followin’ you in your car, you think someone’s watchin’ you, you even get a bad fuckin’ feelin’, you report it to Colt or me. Yeah?”
I nodded again and whispered, “Yeah.”
Joe’s eyes moved over my face and he declared, “He’s gonna go away.”
I licked my lips and didn’t say anything.
“Buddy, he’s gonna go away.”
“He found me,” I was still whispering and I had started trembling.
Joe’s voice was a lot less tight and scary when he said, “Yeah, he’s found you. His problem is, you moved to the right fuckin’ place. Okay?”
“Okay,” I said but I didn’t believe him, not for a minute.
Joe read that and got closer. “He’s through dickin’ with you, Violet.”
“He’s pretty powerful,” I whispered, tipping my head back to look at him.
“He’s a man, just a man.”
“A powerful man.”
“Lotsa different kinds of power, buddy.”
I stared at him, tall, broad, strong, sinister Joe Callahan and the look on his face made his words penetrate.
I swallowed and said, a lot more convinced this time (but not thoroughly convinced, it must be noted), “Okay.”
Joe held the card up between us. “What’s this mean, ‘DH’?”
I looked at the card then in Joe’s eyes. “It’s his initials. Daniel Hart.”
Joe’s torso shifted back, his eyes cut to Colt and his face wasn’t granite, it was carved from ice, as were his eyes.
“You didn’t tell me it was Hart,” he said to Colt.
“You know him?” Colt asked and I stared at Joe in shock as his one word answer seemed to come from somewhere ugly in him.
“Yeah.”
“How do you know him?” I asked but Joe didn’t look at me, he kept his eyes on Colt.
“We gotta talk.”
“Joe –”
“We’ll talk now,” Colt said over me.
I butted in. “Hang on a second, Joe –”
“No, now I’m gonna fix Vi’s wiring, we’ll talk later,” Joe told Colt, ignoring me.
“But –”
“Gotcha,” Colt said.
Joe looked at Sully. “You deal with the flowers,” then to Colt, “get her outta here.”
“Hang on!” I snapped but Joe was moving away, Sully was moving toward the flowers and Colt had hold of my arm.
“Party time, Vi,” Colt said softly to me and I looked up at him as he pulled me gently away, “time to forget this shit.”
“But, I wanna know –”
Colt’s hand gave me a squeeze then it dropped to take my hand and he did this all without stopping as he walked me across my yard.
“Time where you deal with this is over. Hart brought this to my town, now it’s my problem. We clear on that?”
I looked at him and saw he looked weirdly both relieved and angry. I suspected the relieved was because now he had the excuse to get in my business and sort this, seeing as he was a cop. I knew that look, that feeling, Tim had it too. Tim wouldn’t let his neighbor be harassed by a crazy crimelord either. On the other hand, I suspected Colt was angry because he knew how this felt, having some creepy psycho sending flowers.
“We’re clear,” I whispered and said a short prayer of thanks to God that he steered me in the right direction and let this house in this town be on the market when I was looking for refuge.
“We get to my house, I’ll give you my numbers and Cal’s. You program them into all your phones and Kate and Keira’s. Okay?” Colt told me.
“Okay.”
We hit the street and he dropped my hand but his arm went around my shoulders and he quit talking.
So I called, “Colt?”
He looked down at me as we stepped up on the sidewalk on his side of the street. “Yeah?”