On the Street Where you Live Read Free Page A

his meek, little-boy-lost exterior, Eric had been gifted with massive intelligence.
    One day, when she realized how depressed he seemed, she’d made him tell her the reason. It turned out that his fledgling dot-com company was being sued by a major software provider who knew he could not afford an expensive lawsuit.
    She took the case without asking for a fee, expecting it to be a pro bono situation, and joked to herself that she would be papering the walls with the stock certificates Eric promised her.
    But she won the case for him. He made a public offering of the stock, which immediately rose in value. When her shares were worth ten million dollars, she sold them.
    Now Eric’s name was on a handsome new office building. He loved the races and bought a lovely old home in Saratoga from which he commuted to Albany. Their friendship had continued, and he’d been a rock during the time she was being stalked. He even had a high-tech camera installed at her townhouse. The camera had caught the stalker on tape.
    â€œJust wanted to see that you made it okay. Hope I didn’t wake you up?”
    They chatted for a few minutes and promised to talk again soon. When she put the cell phone down, Emily went to the window and opened it slightly. Arush of cold, salty air made her gasp, but then she deliberately inhaled slowly. It’s crazy, she thought, but at this moment it seems to me that all my life I’ve been missing the smell of the ocean.
    She turned and walked to the door to be absolutely sure it was double locked. Stop doing that, she snapped at herself. You already checked before you showered.
    But in the year before the stalker was caught, despite her efforts to convince herself that if the stalker wanted to hurt her he could have done so on many occasions, she had begun to feel fearful and apprehensive.
    Carrie had told her that she was the only guest at the inn. “I’m booked full over the weekend,” she’d said. “All six bedrooms. There’s a wedding reception at the country club on Saturday. And after Memorial Day, forget it. I don’t have a closet available.”
    The minute I heard that only the two of us were here, I started wondering if all the outside doors were locked and if the alarm was on, Emily thought, once again angry that she could not control her anxiety.
    She slipped out of her bathrobe. Don’t think about it now, she warned herself.
    But her hands were suddenly clammy as she remembered the first time she had come home and realized he’d been there. She had found a picture of herself propped up against the lamp on her bedside table, a photograph showing her standing in the kitchen in her nightgown, a cup of coffee in her hand. She had never seen the picture before. That day she’d had the locks of the townhouse changed and a blind put on the window over the sink.
    After that there’d been a number of other incidents involving photographs, pictures taken of her at home, on the street, in the office. Sometimes a silky-voiced predator would call to comment on what she was wearing. “You looked cute jogging this morning, Emily . . .” “With that dark hair, I didn’t think I’d like you in black. But I do. . . .” “I love those red shorts. Your legs are really good . . .”
    And then a picture would turn up of her wearing the described outfit. It would be in her mailbox at home, or stuck on the windshield of her car, or folded inside the morning newspaper that had been delivered to her doorstep.
    The police had traced the telephone calls, but all had been made from different pay phones. Attempts to lift fingerprints from the items that she had received had been unsuccessful.
    For over a year the police had been unable to apprehend the stalker. “You’ve gotten some people acquitted who were accused of vicious crimes, Miss Graham,” Marty Browski, the senior detective, told her.