Riptide Read Free Page B

exactly where I am and what I’m doing. I can feel him, you know?”
    â€œYou told the officers that he wouldn’t tell you what he wanted.”
    â€œNo, not really, other than to tell me if I didn’t stop having sex with the governor, he would kill him. I asked him why he’d do that and he just said he didn’t want me to havesex with any other man, that he was my boyfriend. But it sounded funny, like it was just something he was saying, not something he really meant. So why is he doing this, really? I don’t know. I will be frank with you, Dr. Burnett. I’m not crazy, I’m terrified. If that’s his aim, he’s certainly succeeded. I simply don’t understand why the police think I’m the bad guy here, that I’m making all of this up for some crazy reason. Perhaps you could believe me now?”
    He was a shrink; he hedged well. “Tell me why you believe this man is stalking you and making these phone calls to you, why you don’t believe that he wants to be your boyfriend, that it really all just boils down to an obsession and his possession of you?”
    She closed her eyes. She’d thought and thought about why, but there wasn’t anything. Nothing at all. He’d targeted her, but why? She shook her head. “At first he said he wanted to know me. What does that mean? If he wanted that, why wouldn’t he just come over and introduce himself? If the cops wanted a nutcase to send to you, they should find him. What does he really want? I just don’t know. If I even had a supposition about it, I’d throw it out there, believe me. But the boyfriend thing? No, I don’t believe that.”
    He sat forward, his fingertips pressed together, studying her. What did he see? What was he thinking? Did she sound insane? Evidently so, because when he said very quietly, gently even, “You and I need to talk about you, Ms. Matlock,” she knew he didn’t believe her, probably hadn’t believed her for a minute. He continued in that same gentle voice, “There’s a big problem here. Without intervention, it will continue to get bigger and that worries me. Perhaps you’re already seeing a psychiatrist?”
    She had a big problem? She rose slowly and placed her hands on his desktop. “You’re right about that, doctor. I do have a big problem. You just don’t know where the problem really is. That, or you refuse to recognize it. That makes it easier, I guess.”
    She grabbed up her purse and walked toward the door.He called after her, “You need me, Ms. Matlock. You need my help. I don’t like the direction you’re going. Come back and let me talk to you.”
    She said over her shoulder, “You’re a fool, sir,” and kept walking. “As for your objectivity, perhaps you should consult your ethics about that, Doctor.”
    She heard him coming after her. She slammed the door and took off running down the long dingy hallway.

3
    B ecca kept walking, her head down, out the front doors, staring at her Bally flats. From the corner of her eye, she saw a man turn away from her, quickly, too quickly. She was at One Police Plaza. There were a million people, all of them hurrying, like all New Yorkers, focused on where they were going, wasting not an instant. But this man, he was watching her, she knew it. It was him, it had to be. If only she could get close enough, she could describe him. Where was he now?
    Over there, by a city trash can. He was wearing sunglasses, the same opaque aviator glasses, and a red Braves baseball cap, this time backward. He was the bad guy in all of this, not her. Something hit her hard at that moment, and she felt pure rage pump through her. She yelled, “Wait! Don’t you run away from me, you coward!” Then she started pushing her way through the crowds of people to where she’d last seen him. Over there, by that building, wearing a sweatshirt, dark