Honeymoon for Three

by

Alan Cook

SMASHWORDS EDITION

“Obsession and stalking plague Gary Blanchard
and his new bride, Penny, as they travel to various national parks
on their honeymoon… It is a tale well-told, with graphic
descriptions of the sites and an exciting conclusion.”

—Theodore Feit for Spinetingler Magazine

“The book takes you on a journey across
country with a honeymoon couple and an insane and obsessive
stalker. Unusual and scary, this is a tale well worth the read.
American Authors Association gives this book its highest rating of
FIVE STARS!”

—W. H. McDonald, Jr.

“
Honeymoon for Three
, by Alan Cook, is
a delightful tale! Mr. Cook has an amazing talent for creating
suspense and tension in his plot.”

—Debra Gaynor for Reader Views

PUBLISHED BY:

Alan Cook on Smashwords

Honeymoon for Three

Copyright ©
2007 by Alan L. Cook.

All rights reserved. Without limiting the
rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication
may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system,
or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic,
mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the
prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above
publisher of this book.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters,
places, brands, media, and incidents are either the product of the
author's imagination or are used fictitiously. The author
acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of various
products referenced in this work of fiction, which have been used
without permission. The publication/use of these trademarks is not
authorized, associated with, or sponsored by the trademark
owners.

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BOOKS BY ALAN COOK

Run into Trouble

Gary Blanchard Mysteries:

Honeymoon for Three

The Hayloft: a 1950s mystery

California Mystery:

Hotline to Murder

Lillian Morgan mysteries:

Catch a Falling Knife

Thirteen Diamonds

Other fiction:

Walking to Denver

Nonfiction:

Walking the World: Memories and
Adventures

History:

Freedom’s Light: Quotations from History’s
Champions of Freedom

Poetry:

The Saga of Bill the Hermit

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Many thanks to Dawn Dowdle for taking care of
the “ands” and “buts.”

DEDICATION

To Bonny, my bride forever

CHAPTER 1

The ka-ching of the cash register irritated
Alfred as he plunked the canned goods into a brown paper bag. Heavy
items on the bottom—fragile items and perishables on top. He could
bag groceries with his eyes closed. He should be a checker by
now.

Keith had promised to make him a checker
months ago. Then, when an opening occurred in the neighborhood
grocery store in Lomita, California, he promoted Stephanie instead.
Stephanie, the blue-eyed bitch with streaked blond hair who
wouldn’t say two words to him, even when he was bagging at her
counter, as he was now. She was probably sleeping with Keith.
Alfred knew that she laughed at him. Laughed whenever she looked at
his potbelly. Maybe not out loud, but inside. If she ever found out
he had an outie bellybutton, that would only make matters
worse.

However, none of this mattered anymore.
Alfred had a much bigger problem—Penny. She had been acting very
strangely the last few weeks. It was almost as if she were a
different person. He was afraid of losing her. He was sure she was
being unfaithful to him. She was his whole world. Without her, he
would be left with nothing. Desperate times called for desperate
measures.

He finished putting the groceries into the
bags and the bags into the cart. He glanced at his Timex watch. His
shift was over. He looked around the front of the market until he
spotted Keith at the courtesy counter. He walked toward Keith,
taking off his apron as he went. He wouldn’t need the apron
anymore—because he was resigning, effective immediately.

***

The thunder of bowling balls rolling down
the alleys and the staccato crack of pins being toppled provided
background music to the buzz of conversation that emanated from the
bowlers. Occasional shouts of triumph or groans of despair added
syncopation to the other sounds. Penny sat at one of the tables in
the refreshment area, aloof from it all, sipping a soda.

Not that she wasn’t a social person. In
fact, she loved interacting with people, but tonight she was happy
to be momentarily alone with her thoughts. Her thoughts centered on
one person—Gary Blanchard—a tall, good looking young man bowling
for the IBM team.

She had met Gary in person four short months
ago, but that had been long enough for her to know that she wanted
to spend the rest of her life with him. She, who had said she was
never going to have any snot-nosed kids, was now willing to take on
those and anything else that came along for this man who had upset
her chemicals so much that she weighed less than she had since
eighth grade. That was good, because the smashing figure it had
given her had helped her win him.

They were leaving on a trip together in two
days. They both loved to travel, and this would be a great
adventure. When they returned, they would move into a brand new
apartment—together—in Torrance. Life was almost perfect.

Almost. Penny had received two notes—notes
that scared her. And telephone calls—from whom? Somebody who
breathed into the phone but didn’t say anything. Today she had
finished moving out of her apartment in Lomita. She would spend the
last two nights before their trip with Gary in his apartment.
Hopefully, that would stop the notes and the phone calls. She would
have Gary to protect her.

***

Gary made his four-step approach and
released the ball. He watched it roll down the alley, hoping that
it would hook. He had never quite mastered bowling. Part of his
game strategy was a dose of wishful thinking. Tonight, however,
everything had come together. Just as his life had come together.
The ball hooked into the 1-3 pocket, and the chain reaction leveled
all the pins. Two strikes in a row. A good way to end the game and
the season.

As he walked back to his teammates, Penny
caught his eye and smiled at him from the refreshment area. That
was the smile that had melted his heart. She had wanted to come
tonight. She had wanted to watch him bowl in the last match for the
IBM team. He couldn’t think of a sport more boring to watch than
bowling, so she must really love him. Which was good, because he
really loved her.

Gary rolled his two bonus balls. It took
both balls for him to knock down ten pins, but he still had the
best game of his life—a 216. When you’re hot, you’re hot. Since
this was the last night of league play, there was some sort of an
awards ceremony taking place in the refreshment area. Very
informal, since this was primarily a social league. He collected
Penny and introduced her to his teammates. With her smile and her
personality, not to mention her looks, she was an immediate
hit.

Gary was surprised when his name was called
for an award. After all, he wasn’t even the best bowler on his own
team. The award was for “highest single game score, including
handicap.” His 216 had done it when added to his handicap. It paid
to have a big handicap. He laughed as he accepted the award, but he
got a good-natured round of applause, and Penny clapped
enthusiastically.

A little later his team gathered for a
drink. Lee, one of the older men in his IBM office—he was in his
forties—said, “Gary, I hear you’re going on a trip. Tell us about
it.”

“Well, we’re going up north. We’re going to
hit some of the national parks. And I guess we’re getting
married.”

Everybody looked surprised and then offered
congratulations. Gary accepted them, grinning. He glanced at Penny.
She was sitting with her mouth open, as if in shock. She shouldn’t
be. They had discussed marriage. For example, whether to get
married at the beginning or the end of the trip. She favored the
beginning—because of what her New England relatives would say. And
she just happened to have a wedding dress that she had purchased on
her summer visit home. A dress her relatives insisted she buy, she
had told Gary, making a face at the memory.

All right, so he hadn’t formally proposed to
her on bended knee. They’d had a meeting of the minds, which was
better.

***

Alfred had a feeling of impending doom. He
had been sitting in his car for hours, on the street outside
Penny’s apartment. He had parked in a spot he knew well and from
where he had a good view of her bedroom window. The light inside
her bedroom had never come on. Where was she? Even if she were out
with that jerk boyfriend of hers, she should be home by now. Didn’t
he have to work tomorrow? Alfred looked at his watch by the glow of
a streetlight. Almost midnight.

Her car wasn’t there, either, parked in the
apartment house lot where it should be. That meant she had driven
somewhere to meet him. It wasn’t typical of her behavior. Ever
since she had returned from her trip home to Fenwick, Connecticut,
she had been acting differently.

What was the guy’s name? Gary something or
other. He wasn’t worthy of holding her hand. Alfred was afraid that
she was falling for him. Girls often fell for the bad guys. Alfred
had actually been glad she had gone home. It meant that she
couldn’t be serious about this Gary person—just as she hadn’t been
serious about the dozens of other guys she had dated during the
year since he had reconnected with her. Now his main source of
information about her was cut off.

Every Sunday morning, Penny and her roommate
used to go to a café on Pacific Coast Highway, eat breakfast, and
talk. Alfred would sit in the booth diagonally across from them, so
that he and Penny had their backs to each other. This cut down the
possibility that she would recognize him. In addition, his beard,
baseball cap, dark glasses, and the loose clothing he wore to hide
his potbelly made him look much different than he had looked when
they had graduated from high school six years before. The chances
of her spotting him were minimal.

His sharp ears could hear every word they
said. He knew Penny was going home for two weeks after she finished
teaching for the year. He knew that her roommate was going home for
keeps. She was giving up the ghost, giving up the California dream,
and returning to the safety of her hometown, somewhere outside of
New York City. Penny and her roommate flew east at the same time.
Only Penny came back. The Sunday morning breakfasts ended.

With the end of the breakfasts, Alfred’s
information flow dried up. That was when the horrible feeling that
he was losing Penny began. This Gary person was winning her.
Alfred’s warnings to Penny hadn’t changed anything. It was time for
action. He could go to the corner of Pacific Coast Highway and call
her number from the phone booth, to see if she were there. He had
done that before. This time, he already knew the answer.

He took his flashlight and laboriously got
out of his 1959 Ford Fairlane, stiff from sitting so long. He
closed the door gently. He didn’t want to wake up any of the
apartment dwellers along the street. He walked to the alley between
Penny’s building and the one next to it.

Penny’s window faced the blank stucco wall
of the other building. A few windows dotted the wall of Penny’s
building, like rectangular eyes, but they were all dark. The only
way he was likely to be seen was if somebody came walking along the
street and glanced between the buildings. Somebody walking at
midnight in Los Angeles was not a scenario he was worried
about.

Penny’s window was above eye level. Alfred
shone his flashlight into the flowerbed that had been planted
alongside the building until he spotted what he was looking for,
hidden behind a large bush. It was a wooden palette, the kind on
which bags of cement, fertilizer, or similar items were typically
stacked.

Alfred had stashed the palette there for
emergencies like this one. He was glad that the building owner
hadn’t found and removed it. He put the flashlight in his pocket
and carefully lifted the palette out of its hiding place. He
carried it to a spot directly beneath Penny’s window and leaned it
against the wall.