INTRUSION (Whitney Holmes Series) (9 page)

“
Did you hear my messages?” she asked.

“
I never even got to yours, he blew my phone up so much that my voicemail box got full,” I said.

“
All I said was, we were all praying for you and to have a safe surgery,” she said.

“
Thank you, Chanda, that was sweet,” I said.

My mom let Gretchen out and then in again she came over and nuzzled me.

“She is such a good dog, she knows I am sick,” I said.

“
That is so cute,” Chanda said.

My father came in and he was holding a huge bouquet of red roses in a gorgeous glass vase.

“Daddy, those are beautiful,” I said.

“
Yes, they are, but they are not from me,” he said.

“
What do you mean, dear?” my mom asked coming in from the kitchen.

“
They were sitting on the doorstep when I went to go outside,” my father said.

“
Chanda, were they there when you came over?” I asked her.

“
No, I think I would have said something,” Chanda said.

“
Of course, I am not thinking right,” I said.

“
How long have you been here?” my father asked her.

She looked at her watch.

“Oh, about five minutes,” she said.

“
He is long gone then,” my father said.

“
Let’s see if there is a card,” my mom said, after my father put the flowers down in front of me.

I looked through the flowers, but there was only one of those cards that you get when you buy flowers.

It said, “get well soon,” in print. Nothing personal.

“
I don’t want them,” I said.

“
I think I am going to take that vase down to the precinct. It should give us a good print if he didn’t wipe it down,” my father said.

“
Take the whole thing, let them enjoy them,” I said because they were making my stomach hurt.

“
Okay, honey.”

Jacob came in and said, “Wow, Dad, did you get those for Whitney?”

“No, I didn’t,” my father said grimly.

Jacob, who usually had to have things spelled out for him, got who they were from and didn’t say anything more.

My dad told my mom he would be back soon and he left with the flowers after he poured the water out so it wouldn’t spill in his car.

I got another text asking me if I loved the flowers. I turned off my phone. I thought I might need to get another phone number.

Chanda stayed and talked for a while then she went home.

I was getting hungry and I asked my mom if I could eat something and she said she had made Jell-O a couple of hours ago, and asked if I would I like that.

“Yummy,” I said sarcastically.

“
I am sorry but the doctor wants you to have a liquid diet. I will make you some toast and eggs tomorrow,” she said.

“
Okay, thank you, Mom,” I said.

She brought me the Jell-O, which was orange, and I ate it.

My dad came back and he said he had to be fingerprinted since he had touched the vase. He said, so far, there hadn’t been any fingerprints on anything we had given the police. They are hoping for a print on the vase.

The phone rang and my mom picked it up. She mouthed to me that it was the doctor and she walked into her bedroom and talked. My stomach, which was already nervous, got more nervous. She was on the phone for five minutes and she came out of her room, smiling.

“The cyst was benign,” she yelled.

My father gave a whoop.

“What does benign mean?” I asked.

“
Not cancerous, it was just a normal cyst,” my mom said.

“
That is so great,” I said relieved. I hadn’t realized I was really afraid that I might have cancer. The boys came over and hugged me and I hugged each one of them back.

“
Tomorrow, we will celebrate by going out to dinner,” my father said.

“
Sounds good to me,” my mom said.

I laid on the couch the rest of the night. My neck hurt most of the night and I had to get up and take my pain pills twice.

My mom wanted me to stay home another day and I didn’t fight her. I think the codeine in the Tylenol was making me a little loopy.

I turned my phone on and I had so many messages that they couldn’t all come through. I was bored, so I listened to them.

All of them were from the stalker. He was using some sort of voice-changing machine so I couldn’t recognize his voice. This scared me more than if he didn’t use it. I wondered if I knew this weirdo and he was toying with me. Why would he change his voice if we didn’t know each other?

I made a list of every boy who had ever asked me on a date and then crossed out every name as I asked myself if any of them were capable of terrorizing me. I didn’t know anyone who was that mean, or that crazy. It seemed impossible that a sixteen-year-old male classmate, or maybe older, was the likely culprit. We were all just…
kids.

I made a list of every male teacher I had ever talked to, and every staffer. I asked myself if any of them had ever been the least inappropriate toward me, the answer was no. One by one, I crossed off all of their names, I was completely baffled.

I thought of another list to make: boys at church who also went to my school, but didn’t have classes with me. Again, I came up with no likely suspect. Those boys were squeaky clean in my mind, in their choir robes and Sunday School skits.

I thought of clubs at school, I was in a ton of them last year, before I had to drop out because I had mostly honors classes this year. A lot of boys liked me in glee club because it was just so fun and I was good at it. I had often had soprano solos in our many singing productions…

“Ugh!” I said, ripping up all the stupid lists of suspects and burying them at the bottom of the kitchen garbage. “Stop it, Whitney!” I told myself out loud.

I was frustrated and upset as I had mentally picked apart every single male I had contact with for the last year. I was unsettled and felt horrible for judging them: my classmates, my friends, my teachers, my church friends. I felt terrible and my head was spinning with all of their faces in my mind.

I slept on and off most the day and when my father came home, I got dressed and we went out to eat. It hurt to put my shirt over my head, but otherwise I was better.

We had a great dinner and the boys were in a great mood talking over each other, telling stories about their day. I ordered a hamburger and fries and it was delicious, I realized it was the first food I had eaten all day.

I decided to stop taking the pain pills or if I needed something, to just take regular Tylenol. I wanted to be normal again.

We drove home and we were dismayed to see our house had been egged. There were about a hundred eggs thrown at the house. It was a huge mess. No adult would do such a thing. This was definitely a teen boy. Short of questioning every teenage boy I had ever known, I was out of answers and out of patience.

CHAPTER SEVEN

My dad was really upset because it had cost thousands of dollars to paint the exterior of the house last summer. He got the pressure-washing hose out and started hosing off and scrubbing the house with the pressure washer, which had a brush.

The rest of us swept the water off the sidewalks and into the grass with big push brooms. Mom immediately picked up all the eggshells so Gretchen wouldn’t eat any. There were dozens, maybe even a hundred. I wondered if we went to the grocery store and asked if they saw anyone buy about ten dozen eggs if they would remember what the guy looked like. Then, I ditched that idea because, if he was clever, which I suspected he was, since he was so hard to catch, that he bought a couple of cartons of eggs at each of five different stores.

I kept getting the feeling that someone was watching me and I would turn around fast to catch them, but there would not be anyone there.

My dad saw me looking around and shouted, very loud, “Leave us alone! Do you hear me? Leave us alone!”

Gretchen barked at my dad because he was shouting and I put her in the house, as they got each other going pretty good.

After we cleaned up the egg mess, as best as we could, we went into the house.

“Do you report it to the police if we get egged?” Jacob wanted to know.

“
No, stupid,” Jordan said. “We just cleaned up the evidence.”

I wanted to report it, but I think the police were getting tired of us.

“I think we will let this one go,” my father said.

I could not believe that the stalker really did this. Why would he give flowers one day and egg my house the next? It was almost like he knew my dad took the flowers to the police.

I went in the house and then the back yard, looking for Gretchen. Her hair was sticking straight up and she seemed nervous. I guess she could hear what was going on in the front yard. I am surprised her barking didn’t alert people. Maybe she didn’t bark.

That was when I saw the huge raw steak in the yard. Thank goodness she didn’t eat it. It might have poison in it. I yelled for my dad to come to the back yard. He ran to me and I told him about the steak. He said he was definitely going to take that to the police.

He got a BBQ fork and picked it up and put it in a baggy. He said it was too late to go to the police tonight so he put it into the vegetable drawer in the refrigerator.

I got the chills really bad, I still didn’t feel well from my  operation, and now all this was happening.

We were so lucky that Gretchen didn’t eat that raw meat. I went and laid down on my bed because I had a headache and my neck hurt. My mom came in and sat by my bed.

“
Honey, do you have any idea who is tormenting us like this?” she asked.

“
I have no idea,” I said.

“
I just wondered if you have seen anyone creepy watching you at school,” she asked.

“
I would have told you,” I said.

“
I know,” she said, “I just keep thinking this person must know us or live nearby or something,” she said.

“
I don’t know anyone who would want to kill my dog,” I said, and then I burst into tears.

“
Aw, honey, your emotions are all messed up,” she said.

“
Mom, do you think you could change my bandage? My neck is hurting,” I said sniffling.

“
Of course,” she said going into nurse mode.

She got some bandages and tape out of the cupboard and she also found some scissors that she sterilized by heating them on the stove, she took off my old bandage, which hurt.

“This looks a little infected,” my mom said.

“
What does that mean?” I asked.

“
Well, the area is really red and the stitches are kind of yellow,” she said.

“
Do I have to go to the doctor?” I asked.

“
I am going to clean it with hydrogen peroxide and then I will put some triple antibiotic cream on it. That should take care of the problem.”

She cleaned my wound and the cream felt good. She then cut the bandage and the tape and then put them on my neck and it felt better. She got me two Tylenol and some water and told me to go to sleep. I decided to leave my phone off.

“Do you think I could change my phone number?” I asked.

“
We could probably change your cell number, but I would hate to change our landline. It is really the only way most people get a hold of me,” she said. “And your dad would have to notify his workplace.”

“
I know it would be a hassle and the stalker has only called me on the landline a couple of times. He is just blowing up my cell by filling up the voicemail box and then, he starts in on the landline,” I said.

“
Okay, we will go to Radio Shack tomorrow and change your cell phone number,” she said.

“
Thank you, Mom and rhank you for changing my dressing also.”

Just then, our landline phone rang and I was too scared to answer it. My mom went out to the kitchen to answer it., she came back in and said it was a hang up, she said the number was unavailable and out of the area.  Terrified, I tried to sleep.

CHAPTER EIGHT

I didn’t go to school again because my neck really was hurting. My mom said we better go to the doctor and have them look at it. We went to the walk-in side of the doctor’s office and my mom put my name on the waiting list. The nurse very loudly asked what the problem was.  My mom very quietly said I had had surgery a couple of days ago and the wound looked infected.

“
Sit down and we will call you in shortly,” the black-haired nurse said. Eve must have had the day off, as I didn’t see her in the doctor’s office. Before I could even sit down, the male nurse called my name and my mom went in with me and he weighed me and I was pleased to see I had lost the five pounds I had gained, I guess I was on the stalker diet again. The nurse took me to my room and my mom followed. He had me sit on the bed and he took my vitals. He then asked me why I was there. I told him I had just had surgery and it hurt. He wrote that down and said the doctor would be right in to see me.

My mom was sitting on the chair beside the bed and we talked briefly, after about five minutes, there was a slight knock on the door and the doctor came in, it was Dr. Sherrill, my surgeon.

“What seems to be the trouble here?” he asked me smiling.

“
My neck hurts where you operated on it,” I said.

“
Let me take a look at it,” he said, washing and drying his hands, and then putting on some gloves.

He carefully took off my bandage and it didn’t sting. His bedside manner was better than my mom’s.

“Yes, it does look puffy and red. I even see a little pus around the incision,” he said.

“
Do I have to have another operation?” I asked, scared of the answer I might get.

“
No, I will just clean it and put some Betadine on it. I am going to give you an antibiotic. That should take care of any infection you have,” he said.

“
It hurts really bad,” I said.

“
I will also prescribe a stronger pain medicine,” he said.

“
Thank you, Doctor Sherrill,” my mom said.

The doctor put some cleaner on the wound. Then he rubbed Betadine all over it, afterward, he put a bandage over it it felt better already.  The doctor shook my hand and handed my mom the prescription and my mom thanked the doctor and we left his office and we said goodbye to the receptionist and left.

We went to CVS and gave the pharmacy tech our prescription and we went and sat down.

“
I wonder how your dad fared, bringing that meat to the police?” my mom asked.

“
I am really getting tired of this whole stalker thing,” I said.

“
We all are, honey,” my mom said.

I didn’t know if I should apologize or not. I kind of felt like it was my fault, but I didn’t know what I had done wrong.

“Mom, I am sorry I am so much trouble lately,” I said.

My mom whispered fiercely, “You? You are no trouble. None of what has been going on is your fault.”