BOMAW 1-3 (24 page)

“It’s me again…Sylvia? Where are you? What’s going on?”
He audibly sighed
. “I can’t see why you’d be out this late. Well, hmmm…I’ll call again in an hour. I hope everything's alright…”

Beep.

Last message:

“Sylvia? God, I hope you’re alright. Ummm, I guess…well, I don’t know why you’re not answering. You didn’t mention going anywhere tonight when I said I’d call. I don’t know…maybe you did. I guess I’ll call you tomorrow then. I’ll be flying home Sunday, just to let you know. But I guess I’ll talk to you tomorrow…goodnight.”

Beep.

Saturday Night:

“What the hell is going on?! Sylvia…if you’re there, pick up! Sylvia? Sylvia? This is starting to scare me…pick up this phone, Sylvia Payne!”

Beep.

An hour later:

“What the hell is going on? Sylvia, damn you! This is bullshit! I know you’re there! Answer this phone! What did I do now? What the hell did I do? Geez! God’a’mighty, you’re going to drive me crazy!”

Beep.

Twenty-five minutes later:

“Will you at least tell me if you’re picking me up from the airport? Can you at least tell me that? Oooooh, there had better be a damn good reason for this, lady! This is it! You and I are going to have it out, once and for all! You can’t keep pulling this—I’m not gonna stand for it!”

Beep.

Sylvia sat by the phone with her face in the palms of her hands. This had all suddenly gotten out of control. Just too far out of control. She had known better all along. She should have just kept to herself and left him alone. Now all of a sudden, she had more attention than she could handle. In the middle of the night, Friday night after the store incident…she could have sworn she heard someone tampering with her door. She had lain in bed for an hour with her heart pounding, her adrenaline racing from a fiery fear that made her feel hot and feverish as she lay listening…but the sound had been so slight, so unclearly discernible, that she hadn’t been sure. Then Saturday morning when she’d gotten up to go check her mail, there had been footprints in the snow on her porch off the kitchen door that she knew were not hers. She’d carefully gone out to check her mail, then rushed right back into her house, heart pounding…it hadn’t quite beat the same in the last few days. Just to be on the safe side, she’d called the Camp Daniels police department and reported what she found. They agreed to keep an eye out, but of course, there was nothing they could do as long as no crime had been committed, as she'd known all along. She was scared. Alone. Both angry with Shawn and wishing with all of her heart that he was home across the street from her. Though she had no intention of ever speaking to him again, she trusted him as her neighbor. If, for some reason, she needed help, she knew he would be right there for her.

Having that thought cross her mind, she wondered why didn’t she trust him enough to hear his side of the story. “Because I don’t want to,” she spoke this out loud to herself. “I just don’t want to. I don’t need this…and this is my wake up call, what’s happening to me now. I should have known better,” she said finally. She’d been so scared, she’d spent the day in La Crosse with her kids. She kept stalling about coming home, so that when it got dark and she really needed to, she chickened out and spent the night at her daughter’s. Now here it was Sunday afternoon. She’d finally come home, only because she knew that Shawn would be home across the street pretty soon.

Having listened to his messages, she sighed and got up from the chair, going into her kitchen. She’d left a little mess from yesterday and was cleaning that up, and while throwing something away, she realized that her garbage was full. Grabbing the bag sides and pulling it up in the can, she shook it to shift the garbage down and tied it up. Heading for the kitchen door, she quickly stepped outside, down the steps and started heading around back to where the garbage bins sat, and noticed footprints in the snow coming from the far side of her garage. Stunned, she stood a moment in the cool air, just looking at them in surprised disbelief. Slowly she walked further to the back, heading for the bins, following with her eyes the progress of the footprints that also went into her backyard. Stopping at the garbage bins, she raised the lid and dropped her bag inside. Lowering it, she stood a moment more, staring down at the prints as fear started to rear its head again. Treading lightly, she began to follow where they were leading her. With a slamming heart, she stood in panic as they stopped beneath her bedroom window, on the ground were two cigarette butts. Turning quickly away, fighting back more panic and gathering tears, Sylvia ran into her house straight for the phone. Snatching it off of the receiver, she dialed the Camp Daniels Police again.

Two officers stood in her backyard staring down at the footprints, one commenting, “Yep, definitely are footprints.”

Sylvia gave him an incredulous look as if to say
well, duh…thank you for that confirmed observation!
“I’m glad you’ve noticed…and can you also note that there are two cigarette butts laying right there? I don’t smoke. But you might also conclude that whoever it was, stayed long enough to finish off two cigarettes,” she assisted with that realization.

“Yes, so it seems,” the other one stated. Looking up from the prints, he looked at her.

“Come on, let’s go in the house, unless there’s something else out here you want us to see?” he asked. Sylvia shook her head and turned away, leading them back to her kitchen door. Once inside, they wrote out a brief report, standing by her kitchen table. Once that was done, the second officer looked her straight in the eyes and said, with much regret, “Ms. Payne, Sylvia…I can understand your fear, and it’s with good reason. Unfortunately, under the circumstances, there’s very little that we can do about it right now. I mean, even if it was one of them from the store the other night, we can’t do anything without proof. If you want, you can file something against the woman for publicly slandering you. As for the rest, our hands are tied to do anything until a crime has been committed. You do know that, don’t you?”

She did know that…the reason she wanted to report what took place in Maggie’s store. She had known when she dialed the number, that all it would be was a written report. Still the same, she wanted them to know and see this now before the wind or snow covered the evidence of an unwelcome presence. As she stood accepting this, the second officer, who was also the one that followed her home two nights ago, couldn’t help but think of the group by the store, especially the blond man. He was a stranger around town. He wasn’t a local that he could easily identify because he knew just about all of Camp Daniels citizens by face. He wasn’t one of them. New in town or not, there were laws against harassing someone simply because they were new. He just couldn’t do it. He looked at the woman before him nervously chewing on her bottom lip and felt a deep compassion for her fear.

“Sylvia…we have to go. Before we do, make sure you keep your phone at your side at all times. I don’t want to scare you, considering what's going on, I know you already are. Just keep your phone in quick reach. Program into it right now, with us standing here, 911 into the nine. That way, all you have to do is hit it to alert us of an emergency here. We won’t waste a moment getting here. That’s all we can do now.” Sighing, she nodded thankfully; did as she was told with them there, and then escorted them to the door.

*

The pilot made the announcement that they’d be arriving in Madison in about another thirty minutes, running through his usual flight blurb when coming to its end. Shawn sat deep in thought, not paying it much attention, and of course, of late, his mind was on one thing and one thing only…Sylvia. He hadn’t received a phone call back after his several attempts to reach her. Common sense told him she wouldn’t be there at the airport to meet him because she wouldn’t know his arriving flight, so he’d have to rent a car.

He just hoped everything was alright. It
had
been the last time they talked on the phone. Everything had been lighthearted and happy between them. He couldn’t imagine what in the world had happened to make her disregard his phone calls. Especially when he knew that she enjoyed talking to him, just as he did her. Having come to the realization in his mind after leaving Deidre, that he indeed was in love with Sylvia, he saw no reason to hold back from pursuing her. Oh, but just because he knew that he was in love with her, he wasn’t so foolish as to tell her that. He wasn’t about to hand his heart over to someone who might possible tramp all over it. Before he disclosed that feeling, he would have to be sure that she felt the very same thing for him.

Although he felt she did, one could never tell when dealing with a woman like her. Chuckling to himself; he could see, that for the first time in his life…he actually had to work hard and plan a strategy to get a woman. When all of his life, or at least most of it, he’d been stuck with trying to figure out how to let someone down gently, without too much undo hurt. And here he was now, jumping through hoops to get this saucy wench. If truth were to be told, he wouldn’t have her any other way. Even so, at times like now…when she was being difficult, for
God
only knew why…it drove him crazy. One thing was certain, she had better have a good reason for this one. Even though he was jumping through hoops to get her, he decided it was time to put his foot down with this one, to show her he was no wet-behind-the-ears punk to be walked all over by a self-assured latent dominatrix...getting even with him for the past affront to her ancestors. This thought instantly conjured up an image of Sylvia in thigh-high black patent leather boots, complete with whip in hand…and him, face down, handcuffed to the bed, naked as the day he was born. The mental picture made him chuckle with a shake of his head, rubbing his wrist from the imagined handcuffing, making him shiver.

“Not me, you’re not! I ain’t no whippin’ boy,” he said low.

True to his thought, upon landing and exiting the gate, no Sylvia. So be it. He took off for the shuttle bus after collecting his luggage and rented a car for the drive home. Every little bit of the way, his emotions went from building anger, to anticipation of seeing her again…and a good fight. Yes, that was part of the attraction to her. Unlike other women who tried to avoid fighting with him for fear he would break it off, she could give a flying hoot. She would give as good as she got, and nothing built a stronger animal lust in him than a fiery woman…and Sylvia Payne was just that.

*

She was too nervous, for too many reasons to sit and write. Shawn was on his way home, and this thing with someone at her window…

She pushed her chair back from the desk, standing from it she left, going into her kitchen. Maybe she should eat a little something. She stood looking into her refrigerator for five minutes and decided that wasn’t it. She hadn’t showered since yesterday morning, and decided to go shower and freshen up. First, she checked and locked her doors. Leaving the kitchen, she happened to glance down and noticed scuff marks on her white vinyl-tiled floor. Dropping into a squat before them, she traced one with the tips of her fingers in thought, concluding it must be from the police officers. Making a face, she scratched at it with her nail, thinking
, I gotta scrub that up soon as I get out…thank you very much.
Saying out loud, “Darn flatfoots.” She stood and proceeded on to her bedroom, shedding her clothing en route, suddenly stopping in the middle holding her blouse to her chest, thinking about the window. She quickly walked over to it, closing the blinds and the curtains, making sure it too was solidly locked.

Leering lecherously through her cracked open basement door, cold ice blue eyes followed her, observing her progress through the house to her bedroom. Patiently, like a spider perched in the shadow at the edge of its web awaiting the perfect moment to pounce on its prey, he stealthily crept out of his hiding place as she moved on into the bathroom for her shower.

Turning as the spray made tiny pitter pats and rivulets, massaging her body, Sylvia reached for the soap and began lathering down. Across the top of her arms, underneath, down each side, and across her belly. Turning again, she propped a leg up on the side of the tub, reaching down to lather it. From the corner of her eye she caught a fleeting shadow through her shower glass door, freezing her movements as she slowly rose, staring through the misty glass to her bathroom door. Moments later, she exhaled, only then realizing she’d been holding her breath.

“Sylvia, don’t start trippin’! Great, now I’m seeing things.” She shook her head and continued on with her shower, oblivious of her silent observer who stood hidden behind her bathroom door, peering with lustful anticipation through the opening between the hung side and the door facing, eagerly stroking his stirring arousal. Suddenly he heard her turning off the shower. Salivating like a starving wolf presented with an easy kill, he watched her slide back the shower glass door with narrowed weasel-like ice blue eyes, and gulped at the first sight of one long, brown shapely wet leg. With baited breath, he licked his lips in expectation then watched her step from the shower in all of her brown, naked, shimmering glory, tearing his eyes from her voluptuous breasts, down over her flat belly to the thick, black thatch triangle covering where he longed to go.