When Perfect Meets Crazy

“My dad is a cop. The sheriff at that. I’ve been on the receiving end of that gaze a lot over the years. Sometimes, when I stop by at the station, there’s a criminal in cuffs looking like he’d love to get me alone in a dark alley. I recognize that gaze. I know it. I’d recognize it anywhere. You deserve credit though.” I laughed. It was bitter and full of self-loathing. “You had me fooled for a minute there.”

The look of utter confusion on his face had me faltering for a second. His eyes were wide and guileless in a way that one just couldn’t fake without being an Oscar winner.

I frowned.

The main reason I let him stalk me up close and personal -other than the fact that I didn't have much of a choice seeing as he would have just done it from afar- was because he wore his emotions on his face. The trait led me to believe that he wasn’t truly a rotten criminal.

The creepy gaze, however, was malicious in a way that would put even an ex-marine on guard. No rookie criminal could pull it off. It was malicious in a way that screamed hardened trigger-happy criminal. In a way that the eyes staring back at me at the moment just did not seem capable of.

“It wasn’t you,” I whispered.

The words were out of my mouth before my brain even finished processing the thought but the way he instantly averted his gaze, clenching, then unclenching his fist made it obvious I was spot on. Oh, thank God. Relief engulfed me like sinking into a warm bath after a long day. I could breathe again.

“How could I have missed this?” I mused quietly, my eyes widening as the pieces all came together.

I could smack myself. I deserved to be smacked. How had I missed it? How had I not even considered it at all? It had been staring me in the face the whole time for fuck’s sake.

“It all makes sense now. Taking a day or two out of the week to catch up on all your real life responsibilities?” I shook my head. “Given your intellectual capacity, it doesn’t make sense. It’s not even plausible. You’re an idiot. You can’t possibly fit all that work into two days. You are not smart enough to be that efficient.”

“Seriously?” he cut in, a disgruntled frown on his face.

“Challenged. Whatever. You know what I mean,” I amended inattentively.

It wasn’t him but judging from his reaction, it was clearly someone he knew. Someone he knew well enough to know which days said person was watching me.

“A partner.” The word left my lips in a whisper. “You have a partner.”

It was all coming together.

“Whoever he is, he’s the brain behind this operation.” I nodded a little too eagerly. “It makes sense. You couldn’t have possibly figured all this out on your own. You’re an idiot which means he’s the smart one. And he’s... not fond of the fact that I know about you.”

The last part didn’t come out as smoothly as I intended but admitting someone somewhere wanted to do bodily harm to your person wasn’t exactly easy when the threat was very much real. This partner could be an actual murderer for all I knew.

have to

scowl. I frowned, mentally replaying my statement to

mouthed. “You mean about your inferior

his lips,

to,” I agreed. “I want to. It’s second nature

on me and I had been carrying the can-I-really-trust-this-guy chip on my shoulders since the night he broke into my room. It was draining. It felt good to finally know for sure. Unfortunately, while I had come for answers, this just brought up more questions. Who was this partner? What was their relationship? How did

another trick. Needless to say, I was never going to roll my eyes or sneer at my dad ever again for bragging about his

so you know, another thing you’re bad at, besides keeping secrets, thinking on your feet and keeping your mouth shut, is

I hadn’t anticipated.

cast my mind back to the day we met. To everything that had happened at the arena. There had to be a clue I had overlooked. From the idiot who spat in my hair to the people I had been following who I miraculously lost

I frowned.

no sense how they were there and then suddenly, weren’t. I shouldn’t have lost sight of them that

brows furrowed, the beginnings of a headache stirring

wasn’t supposed to know about. One stalker was more than enough but something about

I might have missed during our unfortunate first encounter. From how his mask slid off his face that day, revealing a shocked expression. To how he had directed me out on autopilot. How I ran away trying to make up for the time I had lost while looking for a way out. How he unexpectedly appeared behind me, yelling for me to stop. How I luckily lost him in the

My eyes narrowed.

you know who I was before that day at

his

details way too fast. All he had to go on was a mental image of what I looked like and I knew for a fact that he didn’t tail me back home. I lost him in the crowd, I was sure of that. It should’ve taken him at least a week to track me down. Heck, he shouldn’t have been able to track me down at all. His criminal contacts should not have turned up anything. It wasn’t my crowd. No one could’ve known anyone who could’ve pointed in my direction. Not even my drug contact would’ve thought of me. Not in a

cop should’ve been able to find me. Or at least, someone going through the legal process. The person would have had to work with a sketch artist, have my profile drawn, then run me against the national database if they had contacts in the force or publicized the picture on news channels and missing person posters if they didn’t. That was the only

for him but petty criminals generally wouldn’t think along those lines. They were law

eyes as I eyed him up. Could

my details fast. Very fast,” I stated.

The movement was jerky,

He could?

It was preposterous even. The odds were unbelievably low, practically non-existent but he actually could be what I was

my details,” I began, deciding to test out the theory. It was worth a shot. “I mean that same day, barely a few hours later, I’d say you had someone who has access to that information get

It was a shot in the dark. Less than one-in-a-million probability of being true but as he froze, every inch of