Free Scared Yet? by Jaye Ford

what happened. ‘The man who attacked me wasn’t a vandal.’
    â€˜I’m here cleaning every night, you know. I can walk you back to your car. I do that for the other ladies when they’re leaving late.’
    â€˜Well, thanks, Ray,’ she said although she wondered how much protection he’d be. He had to be almost fifty, wore nicely pressed work shirts and was too genial to do more than smile ingratiatingly. Maybe he thought he could talk an attacker out of hurting someone. Wear them down with information about cleaning schedules and maintenance details. No, that was mean. He knew everyone around the office, probably felt some kind of duty to keep the place safe as well as in good working order. Maybe he was upset about a violent creep hanging around his turf. She sure as hell was and she only worked there. ‘I’ll keep that in mind.’
    With a brief wave, she headed up the ramp, wound her way around the zigzag path to the third level and stopped at the entrance. It was daytime but the place still felt big and eerie. She walked fast across the tarmac, scanning the open space, feeling edgy on her own. There was a woman strapping a toddler into a pram, an elderly couple making slow progress between parking allotments, a man in a suit down the far end. He was too far away for her to checkhis face but the other man was bruise-free. Come on, Liv. An eighty-year-old assailant?
    As she approached her car, she eyed the big concrete column nearby, lifted her gaze and checked the lights overhead. The one above it was smashed, the wire cage around it dented with the force of whatever had been hurled up there. The two either side were also broken, so was the one behind her. Maybe the man in the balaclava was the vandal. Maybe he’d broken the lights so he could hide in the dark. Ray said the damage had been done last week. Had that bastard been hiding up here for a week? Waiting in the dark for a woman? For her?
    Would he come back in the daylight?
    That thought made her move a little quicker. She slid into her car, locked the doors, checked her mirrors. She noticed the flyer tucked under a windscreen wiper as she pushed the key into the ignition. Ray should crack down on the damn leaflet drops in the car park while he was dealing with the vandals. She got out of the car, felt a tingle of apprehension as she stretched across the glass to grab it, ducked quickly back inside.
    It was bigger than the usual flyers and folded in quarters. She opened it and her heart skipped a beat.
    It wasn’t a flyer. Nothing like a flyer. It was a handwritten note.

    Alarm made her head snap up. Was it a joke? Was someone waiting for her to keel over with heart failure? Shechecked the rear-view mirror again. There was a woman walking at the far end, moving away, not looking back. Liv glanced at the huge column to her right where the man in black must have hidden last night.
    No one was out there but the strip of police tape still hanging from it made her hit central locking once more.
    As she read the note again, she heard the throaty whisper of a muffled voice in her head – You’re mine, slut – and something sour crept into her throat.
    The note said Livia. He knew her name now. And he’d been back to her car sometime in the last hour because there’d been nothing under the wiper when she was here with Sheridan. She checked her mirrors one more time, the empty view making her suddenly agitated.
    She was alone. Like last night. Get the hell out, Liv.
    Her fingers shook as she turned the ignition and rammed the stick into reverse. She drove fast around the circular route of the exit ramps, her injured right hand struggling to work the steering wheel. As she entered the street, she winced at the sudden glare and the pain that shot through her bruised left eye. She should pull over, find her sunglasses but she glanced at her mirror and kept driving.
    She didn’t think about where