A Girl Has To Eat Part 2

It took a long time to leave the house because she was paralyzed with fear. She all but ran to her car, checking through the window that the back was empty before rushing inside and locking the door.

‘They’re probably watching. They’re watching me right now.’

Wildly she swiveled her head, trying to spot someone out of place. She was shuddering as she pulled out of the driveway.

She had never driven there before, but the police station felt a lot further away than she thought it was. She rushed inside, clutching the envelopes. Vanna stopped dead at the entryway. The police station looked a lot… well, it didn’t look like what she’d thought. There was a receptionist visible in a dim, off white room. The receptionist didn’t look up.

‘She had to have heard me enter…’

Vanna fidgeted for a moment. She cleared her throat. When that netted no reaction, her voice came out timidly. “Um, excuse me? I want to talk to someone about… I think I’m being stalked.”

The woman looked up, visibly bored. “I’ll get a detective. Please wait a moment.”

Vanna stood awkwardly. The receptionist left the room.

She shifted her weight from foot to foot and looked out the glass door, wondering how close the creep was. She scooted a little further into the police station, feeling cold.

The receptionist never came back, but a middle aged man with a concerned expression and a slightly too small uniform came out. “Hello, I’m Hamaki,” he introduced. “Why don’t you have a seat?”

Belatedly, she noticed the plastic chairs on either side of a little table. She sat.

“Now, can you tell me about what kind of problem you’re having?” His brown eyes were warm, but flicked away to look at the little clipboard he was holding.

She fidgeted, twisting her fingers. “Someone has been watching me,” Vanna started. She swallowed. “I have some things- things that someone put in my mailbox.”

“Do you know who?” Detective Hamaki’s voice was completely calm.

Vanna shook her head. “I have no idea. I’ve never seen anyone, although-“ she faltered. “I have felt watched and yesterday I thought someone called my name. I was creeped out but didn’t think much about it until I realized what this was.” She gestured at the 3 envelopes she had brought.

“These are what was put in your mailbox?” The detective seemed interested. “May I?”

“Of course,” she said. She put her hands in her lap and tried to keep breathing normally. “That was the first one. I got it yesterday but didn’t open it.”

She watched the Detective put on gloves and then give the envelope a brief examination before pulling out the receipt. He looked a bit bemused. “Does this mean something to you?” He asked, looking up at her.

“It’s the receipt for a drink I got before I went in to work two days ago,” she said. “I left it in the convenience store. But the address and time are right- 2 blocks away and 7 minutes before my shift. I really think it’s my receipt.”

Detective Hamaki frowned slightly. “I see. And this is the second one?”

At her nod, he opened it up. His eyebrows slowly went up as he read down the list of times. “Do these times correspond to anything?” He asked.

Vanna bit her lip. “Yes. 1:35 pm was my alarm time, 5:04 was when I went to bed. That’s the time I clocked into work, so I think the one right before it was when I parked. My break time is there, too. Some of these I just guess- I think that must have been when I got home, but I wasn’t watching the time then.” She swallowed.

The detective seemed a little more concerned. When he opened up the third envelope, he slowly looked back at her.

“That photo was from this morning,” she said. Vanna scrunched her toes up so tightly inside her shoe that it hurt. “I was at brunch in Cafe Ocean. The photo was in my mailbox when I got back.”

There was a pause of a few seconds, and then a sigh. The officer leaned back in his chair. “Is it alright if I keep these?” He asked, holding up the envelopes.

She nodded.

“Thank you.” His brow furrowed. “It does seem unusual. Do you have any idea of someone who might be upset with you, or might play a prank on you?”

Her instant reaction was no, but then she wondered… “My friend Bea plays some pranks, but she wouldn’t do this,” Vanna decided. “Even if she didn’t realize it would scare me, how would she even get this information? She can’t go into my work building.”

Saying that out loud made her pause. She looked at the officer. “No one would have known when I went on break if they weren’t in the building,” Vanna said, feeling she’d made a breakthrough.

“Have there been any incidents at work?” Hamaki asked. “Anyone you don’t get on with, any arguments, anything unusual at all?”

“The only unusual thing is that one of the other phone girls is missing,” Vanna said. “She sits next to me but she hasn’t come in for a couple days. The manager called her and her phone has been shut off.”

Hamaki frowned. “Has anyone done a wellness check?”

Vanna shrugged.

He hummed. “Could you give me her name, and I’ll see if we can look into that?”

Nerves crept up in her stomach. “Do you think that something is wrong?” she asked. She took the paper he offered and scribbled down ‘Andrea J. Whittman’.

The detective deflected her question with a mild smile. “I just want to make sure we look into things. Taking a step back- no ex boyfriends or girlfriends? No one you’re seeing now?”

“I’m single,” she said, feeling a little awkward. “Two ex boyfriends, but one is married and in another state. The other…I’m sure he wouldn’t do this. We’re on good terms.”

“If you don’t mind, I’d like both of their names, just to check in.”

Once again, she complied, wondering if this would help anything.

The interview went on, with him asking questions about her daily habits, her coworkers, and things like if she locked her doors at night. At the end, he let out a big sigh, flipped the clipboard over, and put a hand on a set of keys at his belt. “Now, if it’s alright with you, I’d like to have a look around at your place. It seems like someone has been observing you, probably from the outside, and I think it would be best if we had a look to figure out how they’re doing it.”

She nodded quickly. “Yes, please,” Vanna blurted out. She stood when he did. “Um, will we…”

He seemed to understand her meaning and held up a hand to assure her, palm out. “Just wait here, I’ll be back in a minute with my partner. Then we’ll follow you to your place and take a look around.”

It took about five minutes for him to return, by which point she was bored of opening and closing the same two apps on her phone.

His partner turned out to be an even taller and more tired looking man who nodded politely but didn’t say a single word to her. They followed her back to her rental, which she noticed was only about 7 minutes away. It had felt so much longer on the drive to the police station.

As she pondered that, she parked and waited for them to come to her car. She walked them around the outside of the building first, pointing at her second floor windows and realizing for the first time just how easily you could see inside the apartment from the ground. Her curtains were closed. But with the light forgotten on inside, she could see silhouettes of her furniture. She hugged herself tightly.

“Only a few places you could see into the apartment from,” the other detective observed. He tracked a path between her window and the hedge that separated the property from the street. “There would do it. The stoop- well, you can still see in the kitchen from there, and you’d just look like a resident loitering outside. Or he could be on the sidewalk, though you can’t do that too long without getting noticed.”

“Can we have a look inside?” Hamaki asked, gesturing towards the apartment. She was already walking that way, trying to not let her shoulders move all the way up to her ears.

The two men followed and then walked through, not commenting on her unwashed dishes but jiggling every door and commenting on the state of the lock her landlord had left her.

“Better get a new lock on this,” the other detective said. He gave her front door a disapproving expression. “Try a deadbolt.”

“My landlord…” Vanna trailed off, realizing that she actually didn’t care that much if it would make her landlord upset. “Okay. I can do that.”

‘I’m not going to get my deposit back anyway. May as well go for it. I’ll feel safer.’

When they were finished inspecting the property, Hamaki gave her his personal card and a list of admonitions. She nodded her way through the cautions, finding it easy to agree to not leave her windows and curtains open or to go out at night to investigate strange noises.

“Is that all?” She asked, feeling very small.

Detective Hamaki gave her a reassuring smile. “We will do check-ins daily, alright? I’ll give you a call and have someone drive by every day. If you don’t get back into contact with us or we notice something is odd, we will get back in touch with you. How’s that?”

“Yes, thank you.” She closed the door, feeling a little better. She made a cup of tea and wandered around, feeling very conscious of how close she was to her windows.

“Right, they’re still open,” she said to herself. She made a mental note to see if she could afford both a deadbolt and blackout curtains and then began going around to close all the curtains again. She closed them in the bedroom, bathroom, and closed the first two in the living room before she saw something that made her scream.

There was something taped to the window, from the outside. It took a moment to process what she was seeing. She shied away, unwilling to confront what she was seeing.

It was another photo. It showed her leaving the police station, with the two officers in the background.

She scrambled to grab her phone. With shaking fingers she went to dial the detective’s number and then realized she’d left the card in the kitchen. She hesitated, feeling afraid to move, and then forced herself to do it.

He answered on the second ring. “Detective Hamaki.”

“Hi, it’s Vanna again,” she rushed out. “Someone- whoever this is— there’s a photo on the window. On my living room window, from the outside.”

In the background, she heard the other detective ask “what?”

“I’m sorry- there’s a photo on your window?” He confirmed.

“Please come back and look,” she said.

There was a beep and then a calm, “Alright, we’ll be right back.”  

It only took a few minutes, but it was absolutely torture. She hugged herself so hard it was painful, feeling her fingers dig into her arms. When a knock came she flung the door open without checking who it was and then felt an instant fissure of fear.

It was the police, though, so she pushed that aside and pointed. “It’s over here. Look.”

Detective Hamaki’s partner fully straightened for the first time, expression hard. He looked at the photo of the three of them, taken less an an hour ago, and his jaw seemed to clench. “Do you have any family you can stay with?” He asked. “I don’t think it’s a good idea for you to be here by yourself. This person is clearly taunting you.”

“My family— I’d be so far away I couldn’t make it to work,” Vanna said on autopilot. The words sounded stupid when they came out. Work. Work could fuck off. She would have bigger problems than getting in trouble at work if whoever this was decided to escalate.

“Well, that may be. However, I really think you should consider getting out of town, and staying with someone else.” Hamaki agreed. “We can wait here while you pack a bag.”

It was hard to say no to that offer. She hastily grabbed basic hygiene items, a few changes of clothing, her charger, and the Halloween costume she was working on. She stuffed them into an old backpack and then ran through the house unplugging things and checking that the gas was turned off.

The police walked her to her car and looked around into the night. They didn’t seem to see anything, and neither did she. She took off. When the headlights of the police car dropped off at the station and she continued on, she gripped the steering wheel that much tighter.