Page 4 of Protected By Razor

“And tell them what? That I got a note? That a car was behind me on the way home?”

“That’s a pattern, Darcie. That’s harassment. That’s??—”

“They won’t do anything. You know they won’t do anything until something actually happens.”

“So we just wait for something to happen?”

“I didn’t say that.”

“Then what are you saying?”

I don’t have an answer. I take another sip of wine. My hand is still shaking.

Kate stops pacing. She looks at me. And I watch her face do a thing I’ve seen it do maybe twice in my entire life.

“No,” I say immediately. “Kate. No.”

“I haven’t said anything.”

“I know what you’re going to say.”

“You don’t.”

“Kate. Please.”

She picks up her phone.

I stand up. I put my hand on her wrist. “Kate. I’m serious. Don’t.”

She looks at me for a long second. Her eyes are soft. Her jaw is not.

“Darcie,” she says. “You’re being followed. You’re being threatened. You’ve got a note on your car from someone who knows where you work and knows what you drive, and you don’t want me to call the one person in this city who can actually do something about it?”

“He’s your brother.”

“Yes.”

“He won’t want to be involved. He doesn’t?—” I cut myself off. I don’t know how to finish the sentence. He doesn’t like me? He’s spent ten years looking through me like I’m a window? He once looked at me like he wanted to eat me alive and then never did it again and I’ve spent my entire adult life trying to forget the specific shape of his mouth?

“He’ll want to be involved,” Kate says quietly. “Trust me.”

I let go of her wrist.

She turns away from me and scrolls to his name.

I sit back down on the couch. I pick up my wine. I drink it in one long pull that burns on the way down, and I listen to my best friend call her older brother and tell him that someone is hunting me.

“He’s coming over tomorrow,” she says when she hangs up. “Seven.”

I close my eyes.

Ten years. Ten years of telling myself I imagined it. Ten years of walking into rooms knowing exactly where he was without looking. Ten years of every man I’ve ever dated coming up short against a memory I’m not even sure is real.

And now he’s coming over.

“Darce.” Kate sits down next to me and puts her hand on mine. “It’s going to be okay.”

I nod. I can’t speak.