Garcia wrote something down on his notebook.

‘OK . . . do you know if Ms. Ward was romantically seeing anyone?’

‘Pfff, not even close,’ Tanya replied in a tone that suggested the implication was bordering on the ridiculous. ‘Not with all the . . .’

All of a sudden she paused, holding her breath.

‘Oh, my God.’ Her eyes widened, but they seemed to be focusing on nothing at all again. ‘I never thought of that.’ She blinked once. ‘I had completely forgotten about that.’

Hunter and Garcia eyeballed each other for a split second.

‘Forgot about that, what?’ Garcia asked.

Tanya’s gaze slowly crawled back to the detectives sitting in front of her.

‘Karen’s stalker.’

Thirteen

Though Mr. J (that was how the man preferred to be called) had had the same infuriating melody programmed into his ‘waking-up’ alarm for the past year and a half, that morning it took him more than a moment to shake off the fog of sleep that enclosed him, and for his ears and brain to recognize and decode the sound he was hearing. Fog finally cleared, Mr. J sprang into action, reaching for his cellphone on the bedside table and quickly switching off his alarm.

Carefully, he rolled over and looked at the woman lying in bed next to him. Cassandra, his wife of twenty-one years, was facing the other way, seemingly still fast asleep.

Mr. J breathed out a sigh of relief, glad that he had gotten to the alarm before it had a chance to wake her up. He lay there for a couple of beats, staring at the way Cassandra’s wavy fair hair caressed her naked shoulders. He thought about sliding over towards her and gently kissing the back of her neck – once, twice . . . a thousand times – but he knew that if he woke her up then and in that particular manner, they would both end up late for work . . . and that had already happened twice that week.

When Mr. J had first met Cassandra all those years ago, her temper and impulsiveness were among the many things that had attracted him to her. She was the most understanding and supportive woman he had ever met. Her opinions on whatever subject they discussed were always intelligent and thoughtful. She was stimulating. She was inspiring. She was fun, and not a moment they spent together could ever seem dull. They had gotten married only three months after they’d started dating and, back then, their lust for each other seemed to know no end. They spend most of their time together in bed, and no one was surprised when they announced her pregnancy so soon after the wedding. If it’d been up to Mr. J, he would’ve had more children, at least one more, but Cassandra told him that for the time being, one was enough.

‘Maybe a little later, honey,’ she had said, but that ‘later’ had never materialized. Instead, their relationship took a nosedive.

Every couple, no matter how in love they are or once were, will inevitably reach a rough patch in their relationship, especially when it comes to their lovemaking. In Mr. J and Cassandra’s case, that rough patch began with the birth of their son, Patrick. At first, although still relatively regular, sex had become a lot less fervent, and a lot more calculated and careful. The almost total withdraw came years later, when little Patrick reached his teens. For Mr. J, those had been the worst years of his marriage.

Virtually every time he tried approaching his wife, Cassandra would politely but unequivocally reject his advances. Only occasionally would she allow him to make love to her, and even then the act was quick and felt highly mechanical; yet, on some very rare nights, she would be the one reaching for him, and on those nights it would be just like the old days, better even.

Cassandra would wait for Mr. J to turn off the lights and climb into bed before pulling him towards her. First she would kiss his entire body until she could taste his goose bumps, then she would tease him even more with little passionate bites to his neck and shoulders before taking him into her mouth and bringing him to the verge of explosion, but never quite. She would give him a moment to catch his breath and then make him lie on his back and climb on top of him. She would dig her nails into his chest so wildly that most times she would draw blood, but Mr. J didn’t care. In fact, he loved everything about it. He loved how Cassandra would shiver while she was on top of him. He loved when he heard her pleasured moans, and, most of all, he loved seeing her close her eyes and gasp in such an intoxicating way, it would virtually transport him into another dimension.

Yes, there was no doubt that Cassandra had quieted down considerably after the birth of their son, particularly during his teen years, but now that he had gone off to college, she had started behaving more and more like her early self. The impulsiveness was back. The unpredictability was back and her passion and lust for her husband was back, albeit not with the same intensity as when they first met, which was understandable and, in Mr. J’s eyes, a blessing of sorts. He was now long past his early twenties and, in reality, he wasn’t sure he’d be able to handle Cassandra if her desire for him had reverted back to the way it was all those years ago.

But one thing was for sure: despite all the hurdles their marriage had been through, despite all the little problems they still had, Mr. J had never stopped loving his wife. If there really was such a thing as a soul mate, he had no doubt found his.

Fourteen

Despite Hunter and Garcia’s suspicions based on all the clues they had found inside Karen Ward’s apartment, the word ‘stalker’ still resonated in their ears like a bomb going off inside an echo chamber.

‘Karen Ward was being stalked?’ Garcia asked, sending a skeptical look Hunter’s way.

‘Oh, my God,’ Tanya whispered under her breath, bringing a hand to her mouth. She didn’t seem to have heard Garcia’s question. ‘I can’t believe it. I can’t believe I didn’t even think of it.’

‘Tanya?’ Garcia called, dropping his head a little to his left to try to recatch her eye. It didn’t work. Her stare had refocused on a random spot on the rug.

‘Tanya?’ He tried again.

Nothing.

‘Ms. Kaitlin?’ Firmer this time.

She finally broke away from her mini-trance and looked back at Garcia.

‘Sorry. What was that?’

‘Did Karen Ward ever tell you about her being stalked?’

‘Umm . . . yeah.’ Tanya still looked a little dumbfounded. ‘Yes, of course she told me. We were best friends. I just can’t believe I didn’t even . . .’

‘Could you tell us about it?’ Garcia interrupted her.

Tanya let go of a laden breath. ‘I can tell you what I know.’ She readjusted herself on her seat, this time finally scooting deeper into it and resting her back against the backrest. ‘I think it all started less than a year ago, after Karen got her job with Burke Williams, a very prestigious beauty spa in Santa Monica. You see, Karen was an awesome cosmetologist. Very knowledgeable. Very attentive to detail. Very good at what she did, and a sweet, sweet person. All of her clients loved her, so it was no surprise that she managed to land such a desired job so quickly.’

‘And that was when she moved from Alhambra to Mar Vista,’ Hunter said, remembering the information Garcia had read from his file.

‘Yes, that’s right,’ Tanya replied. ‘Very nice little apartment too.’