Page 87 of Z For Butterfly Man
“Zacarías killed Aaron on purpose, RJ. I know that now.”
“As a favor to you.” I don’t need her to explain. The pattern is clear. My work in SVB has taught me how favors like that look. Clean hits disguised as justice. Obsession dressed up as protection. “Because Cáceres is your stalker. Yourrealstalker.”
“He’s different from Aaron. Aaron wasn’t stalking me because he was obsessed. It was a method of intimidation, of showing power. I was weak prey he was playing with until captured. I was a piece of meat he wanted to tap first. But Zacarías… He’s cut out of one of my books. The kind of obsession that would do anything to get the girl. At first, I thought I was going crazy. In the past three years, I’ve seen him everywhere, all my events. Henever made himself known to me, never approached me, but I saw him.”
“You never forget a face.”
“Yes. And then, after the hotel, it’s become more than just events. I saw him on the Vineyard.”
“He moved to where you live?”
“It’s more than that, RJ.” She draws from my embrace, opens her purse and takes out a piece of paper in a plastic bag, tucked in like evidence. “He broke into my house two days ago and left this.”
A wave of disgust hits me as I read the note and inspect the sticky liquid marks on it. “Jesus. Reagan, this is very dangerous. You can’t go back in that house. You have to report this.”
“You think I haven’t tried? They don’t believe me, RJ, because of Blake. Can’t you see? It’s his way back into my house after I kicked him out, to control me again, to access my money. He’s telling the police he’s taking care of it, so I’d feel like I don’t have a choice but his protection, and they don’t give a shit.” She does that thing with her fingers over her lips when she’s angry. “After the text Blake sent you, I believe he thinks the stalker isn’t real either. He thinks I’m on to him, and I faked that note to escalate that sick game in a way that will end him.”
I put the pieces together. She has a very valid theory, and the evidence backs it up. “I’ll go with you to the Vineyard, and I’ll talk to the police myself. I’ll pull every string, and we’ll stop them, both of them.”
“Thank you, RJ. Thank you for believing me and for being willing to help me, but with all due respect, I don’t think the police are the answer. I have a better plan that will end this once and for all.”
“What plan?”
“Zacarías changed his name to Tristan Morra. He’s been in the military, which explains the timeline gap before I startednoticing his following me. He was discharged three or four years ago, which again makes sense with the timing. He’s been a security detail ever since and now owns his own security firm in Boston.”
“Boston, a couple of hours away from Martha’s Vineyard.”
“Exactly. What’s the most reasonable move a woman who has anobsessive fanwould make if the police don’t intervene?”
“Hire a bodyguard.”
“And that’s exactly what I’m going to do. I’ll hire his company, put him in front of me as a bodyguard, show him everything Blake has done to me, every bruise, every photograph.”
“Are you crazy? You wanna let him into your house?”
“It’s the only way, RJ.”
“The only way for what?”
She swallows and looks away. “To let him do what a man like that does when someone has hurt the woman he’s decided belongs to him.”
“Oh my God.” I read the sick note again. “That’s why you want me to transfer. You want him to kill Blake.”
“Then you’d capture him, and he’d go away for life.”
I stand up. I need to move. “Are you listening to yourself? Do you have any idea what you’re asking me?”
“To do your job. Put a killer behind bars.”
“You’re asking me to let one man kill another and do nothing to stop it. You’re asking me to enable it, to be complicit.”
“No, RJ. I’m simply asking you to help me survive. I have two dangerous men in my life hovering like vultures, and if I don’t do something about it, I end up dead.”
My mind spins. I’ve already applied to transfer without knowing how grave the situation is, but I’ve done it to protect her, not to kill two men. “Let’s say, for argument’s sake, I agreeto doing this. What happens if I don’t have enough evidence to lock him up?”
“Considering how resourceful and patient a man like Cáceres is, it is very likely you won’t be able to pin it on him. That means his next move will be trying to claim me, and when that doesn’t work…kidnapping me.”
She says it so casually it drives me insane. “And what am I supposed to do then?”
