Free Malevolent by Jana DeLeon Page B

stared at him. “Are you saying someone did it intentionally?”
    Jimmy shifted a bit, looking more than a little uncomfortable. “Given what you’ve told me about the last repair, that seems the most likely explanation.”
    “He wanted me stranded in that parking lot.” Emma felt the blood drain from her face and she sank onto the chair again. “Oh my God.”
    A million scenarios flashed through her mind, each one worse than the next. If Jeremy hadn’t been with her, would he have attacked her then? Or was he simply playing more games with her, like with the scarf?
    “It’s none of my business,” Jimmy said, “but I have to say I don’t like the way this is headed. If someone’s bothering you, I think you should talk to the police.”
    Suddenly, the walls of the tiny room felt as if they were closing in on her. She jumped up from the chair, desperate to get away from there. “What do I owe you?”
    “No charge.”
    “I have to pay you something for your time.”
    Jimmy touched her arm. “You can pay me back by being careful and getting help.”
    Her eyes stung with unshed tears. Everything—David’s death, the break-in, the scarf, the car, and now the concern of a stranger, had her completely undone. “I will,” she said. “And thank you. Thank you so much.”
    “You let me know if you need anything.” He handed her the keys. “It’s parked up front.”
    Emma took the keys and rushed out of the building. She jumped into the car and pulled away, the tires screeching as she rounded the corner. She turned the air on full blast and directed it toward her face. The overwhelming desire to run coursed through her, but the one thing that eluded her was where to run to. The only answer she could come up with was “somewhere safe.”  
    But she didn’t know where that was.

    ###

    Shaye was looking up information on David’s employer when a call came in from Emma. If she hadn’t seen her client’s name in the display, she wouldn’t have known who it was. Emma’s voice, which had been low and smooth, even when she’d been obviously upset, was high-pitched and frantic.
    Shaye gripped her phone. “Slow down so that I can understand you.”
    “He disconnected my battery,” Emma said, slowing her pitch and pacing enough for Shaye to understand. “If the security guard hadn’t walked me to my car last night, I would have been a sitting duck. But that’s not the worst of it. Today when I took the car to be repaired, some kid on a skateboard gave me a scarf that some other guy told him I’d dropped.”
    Shaye frowned, certain that between the car battery and the scarf, she’d missed something important, but she had no idea what. Although she could understand Emma now as far as speech went, she was making no sense. “I don’t understand the scarf part.”
    “I know. Sorry. I had to stop talking for a minute so that I could breathe.”
    Shaye heard Emma intake and blow out several breaths, and her concern ticked up another notch. If Emma had been frightened before, she was terrified now.  
    “I didn’t drop the scarf,” Emma said. “It was one David gave me last Christmas. I threw it out with a bunch of other stuff last week. I didn’t want anything in the house that reminded me of him, so I started going through everything and put it all in a trash bag and threw it out. I know I did. And that scarf was in there. I’m certain it was in there.”
    Shaye felt her back tighten. Emma was rambling, but Shaye couldn’t blame her. She didn’t understand all the particulars, but what she understood so far was that someone had gone through Emma’s trash and recovered the scarf, then had a kid deliver it to her. The things she’d feared most about this case were all coming to fruition. Someone was hell-bent on terrifying Emma, and even worse, he’d had no trouble finding her.  
    Which meant he was following her or had a tracking device on her car.  
    “I understand how scary this is,” Shaye