Chapter 7 - The Invisible Threat|
Detective Reynolds arrived at my house less than twenty minutes after I made the frantic phone call. He was a tall, broad-shouldered man with a salt-and-pepper mustache and eyes that had seen far too much of the dark, twisted side of human nature. He stepped into my living room, taking off his worn beige trench coat, and immediately zeroed in on the photograph sitting on the kitchen island like a venomous snake coiled to strike. I had refused to touch it again after reading the terrifying message on the back, leaving it exactly where it had fallen from my trembling hands.
"Don't touch the surface," Reynolds instructed firmly, pulling a pair of blue latex gloves from his coat pocket before carefully picking up the picture by its very edges.
"I only touched the corners," I said, wrapping my arms tightly around my chest to stop myself from shivering uncontrollably. "Is it him? Is it Richard Sterling? He's supposed to be legally bound to stay away from us. He signed the plea agreement in front of a judge."
Reynolds held the photo up to the harsh, bright kitchen light, scrutinizing the ink, the glossy finish, and the exact angle of the shot.
"Sterling is a billionaire, Elena. Men like him don't stand in the bushes taking creepshots outside of a middle school. If this is him, and it likely is, he hired a proxy. A private investigator, or worse, a professional fixer."
"But why?" I pleaded, feeling the sting of hot, desperate tears threatening to spill over my eyelashes. "He lost. He paid the massive civil settlement. He stepped down from all his corporate boards. His reputation is in tatters. What more does he want from us? We just want to be left alone to live our lives."
"Ego," Reynolds replied flatly, slipping the photograph into a clear plastic evidence bag and sealing it tight. "You humiliated him in front of the entire city. You proved that his money and his immense power couldn't shield his son from the consequences of his violent actions, and you exposed his own corporate corruption in the process. Men like Richard Sterling do not forgive that kind of public defeat. They obsess over it. They fester."
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"So what do we do?" I asked, my voice barely a whisper. "Maya is coming home from school in an hour."
"We beef up your security," Reynolds said, his tone leaving absolutely no room for argument. "I'll have a patrol car stationed down the block. And we start hunting the rat he hired to take this picture. In the meantime, you don't let Maya out of your sight. Not for a single second."
