The Guardian(29)
Author: Nicholas Sparks

She went to her gear bag and threw on a shirt. It was as she was pulling on her shorts and glancing toward the beach that her eyes registered something wrong. Even a closer look wasn’t enough to make it obvious right away. Shielding her eyes from the sun, she scanned the boats, then the water’s edge, then the people on the shore.

It was there. Somewhere, it was there.

And whatever it was, it didn’t fit.

Frowning, Julie looked closer still, then finally realized what had snagged her attention. And she was right. It didn’t fit, not on a hot day at the beach.

She lowered her hand, puzzled.

Someone wearing jeans and a dark blue shirt was standing near the dunes, holding . . . what? Binoculars? A telescope? She couldn’t tell, but whatever it was, it was definitely focused on the boat.

On her.

Julie felt suddenly heavy as the man lowered whatever it was he was holding, and for an instant, she almost convinced herself that she was mistaken. But then, as if knowing exactly what she was thinking, the person waved, his arm moving slowly back and forth like the pendulum of a grandfather clock. I’m here, he seemed to be saying, I’m always here.

Richard.

She felt the blood drain from her face, and she inhaled sharply, stifling part but not all of the sound with the back of her hand.

But when she blinked, Richard was gone. She moved to the bow and leaned forward. Nothing. No sign of him anywhere. It was as if he’d never been there at all.

Mike had heard her and reached her side a moment later.

“What is it?” he asked.

Julie was still staring toward the beach. Mike’s eyes followed hers, and after finding no sign of Richard, no sign of anything unusual, Julie curled beneath his arm. “I don’t know,” she said.

It had to be an illusion, she thought. It couldn’t have been real. No one could move that fast.

No one.

The Guardian

Mike brought Julie home and was still in the driveway unloading her things when she went inside. Singer followed her, and when she put her purse on the kitchen counter, he balanced on his two back legs to greet her. She was trying to fend off his lapping tongue when she noticed the answering machine blinking with a single message.

She pushed Singer away and his feet met the floor; he padded toward the living room and out the door, probably to visit with Mike. In the kitchen, the refrigerator was humming. A fly was flailing against the window, buzzing in anger. She heard none of it. Nor could she hear Mike or Singer, or even the sounds of her own breathing. Instead, in the kitchen, the only thing she noticed was the machine. The blinking was ominous, hypnotic.

Play me, it seemed to be saying. Play me. . . .

For an instant, the floor seemed unsteady, and Julie found herself on the boat again, looking toward the beach. He’d waved at her, she thought. He’d been watching her, and now he’d called to tell her about it.

She shook her head. No, that wasn’t it. He wasn’t there. He was never there. It had been a mirage. Her eyes had been playing tricks, a product of one too many beers and a case of the jitters.

In the kitchen, the machine kept blinking.

C’mon, Julie thought, get a hold of yourself. Anyone could have left a message, so what’s the big deal? That’s the reason I have the machine in the first place, so just head over there and press the button. As soon as I do, I’ll find out Mabel or another friend has called, or it’s someone calling for an appointment, or someone wanting me to subscribe to one magazine or another, or to support the local United Way. Just press the button and see how ridiculous this is.

Yet moving to the phone was almost impossible. Her stomach was knotted up; her legs were stiff. She reached the machine and brought her hand up, then hesitated, her finger resting on the button.

Play me. . . .

She closed her eyes, thinking, I can do this.

Breathing hard, she couldn’t deny that as brave and logical as she’d tried to be, as much as she’d tried to convince herself that she was blowing this out of proportion, fear was getting the best of her. Please, she thought, let there be no messages filled with nothing. Let me hear a voice. Any voice but his.

With a trembling hand, she pressed the button.

At first there was nothing but silence, and she found herself holding her breath. Then, faintly, came the sound of someone whispering, a whisper impossible to identify, and she leaned closer to the machine to make out the voice. She listened, concentrating hard, and just as she was reaching for the delete button to erase it, she recognized the message itself. Her eyes grew wide as she heard the chorus of a song, a tune she knew by heart.

A tune from her evening in Beaufort with Mike two weeks ago.

“Bye, bye, Miss American Pie . . .”

Twenty-six

The Guardian

Julie’s cries brought Mike running inside.

She stood beside the machine, her face white as she hit the delete button over and over.

“What happened?” Mike demanded. “Are you okay?”

Julie barely heard the words. She was trembling as images raced through her mind, one right after the next, leaving her nauseated. Richard had been at the beach today-she was sure of that now. It was Richard who’d been making the calls-there wasn’t the slightest doubt about it. And Richard, she suddenly knew, hadn’t stopped at just those things. He’d also been watching them in Beaufort. He’d stayed out of sight while she and Mike had dinner, he’d seen them take the walk in the park, and he’d been close by, close enough to know the song that Mike had sung for her. For all she knew, he’d been the one who’d bought their drinks afterward. He’d also called the night Mike stayed over. And she knew with sinking certainty that he’d been watching her in the cemetery.

He’d been everywhere.

This can’t be happening, she thought as her throat constricted, but it was. Everything seemed suddenly, terribly wrong. The kitchen was too bright, the curtains were open, the windows looked over the wooded lots where anyone could hide. Where he could hide. Shadows stretched into darkness, and as clouds began to roll overhead, the world took on a grayness, like an old horror movie filmed in black and white. If he’d been watching her today, if he’d been watching her always, he was probably watching her now.

In the yard, Singer lifted his nose and barked.

Julie jumped, feeling her heart begin to hammer, and she turned into Mike, burying her face in his chest just as the tears started to come.

People like that don’t stop, Emma had said.

“Julie? C’mon . . . tell me what happened,” Mike pleaded. “What’s going on?”

Her voice was cracked and faint when she finally answered. “I’m scared,” she said.

The Guardian

Julie was still shaking when she got in the car with Mike a few minutes later. A nap was out of the question now, of course; there wasn’t a chance she was going to sleep. And there wasn’t the remotest possibility that she was going to stay at her house alone while Mike went to the Clipper. Mike had offered to back out of the show, but she didn’t want him to, sure that they would just sit around home rehashing the fear all night long. No need to relive the suffocating terror.

No, what she needed was an escape. A night on the town, some loud music, and a few more beers and she’d be good as new. Back to the same old me, she thought.

As if that’s going to be possible, the little voice inside her said skeptically.

Julie frowned. Okay, so it probably wasn’t going to work, but obsessing about it certainly wouldn’t work. And she was not going to stay home. And she was not going to think about it, she told herself, other than to figure out just what she was going to do from here on.

She’d always believed that people come in two varieties: those who look out the windshield and those who stare in the rearview mirror. She’d always been the windshield type: Gotta focus on the future, not the past, because that’s the only part that’s still up for grabs. Mom throws me out? Gotta get some food and find a place to sleep. Husband dies? Gotta keep working, or I’ll end up going crazy. Got some guy stalking me? Gotta figure out a way to stop it.

In the car with Mike, she steeled herself. Julie Barenson, she thought, a take-charge kind of gal.

The puffing up worked for a moment before her shoulders sagged. Yeah, right, she thought. It wasn’t going to be that easy this time, because this little scenario wasn’t finished yet, and the future’s kind of hard to concentrate on when the past isn’t quite done. Right now, she was stuck in the present, and it wasn’t a good feeling at all. Despite the brave act she was putting on, she was scared, even more scared than when she’d been living on the streets. There, she’d been able to find a way to stay invisible-survival by hiding, she’d called it, which was pretty much the opposite of what was happening with Richard. The problem now was that she was too visible, and she couldn’t do a thing about it.

When Mike parked on the street in front of his place, she found herself looking over her shoulder and straining to hear anything out of the ordinary. The darkened spaces between the houses didn’t do much for her nerves; nor did the rustling, which turned out to be a stray cat poking through the garbage.

And the questions that plagued her-oh, those were doozies for the nerves, weren’t they? What did he want? What was he going to do next? For a moment she imagined herself lying in bed at night with the room black and, when her eyes adjusted to the darkness, realizing he was there, in the room with her. He’d be standing beside the bed, his eyes the only thing visible through the mask, something in his hand as he approached her . . .

Julie shook that last image from her mind. Let’s not get carried away. That’s not going to happen. She was not going to let that happen. Mike wasn’t going to let that happen. No way. Not a chance.

But what to do?

She wished she hadn’t deleted the message. In fact, she wished she hadn’t deleted any of the messages, since they were the only proof she had that something was actually happening. The police might have been able to do something with them.

But they could do something anyway, couldn’t they?

Julie thought about that, coming to the same conclusion she’d shared with Emma. Oh, she could try, of course, but even with the new stalking laws, without proof there was nothing the police could do. She’d end up sitting across from some pudgy, overworked officer who would tap his pencil against the pad, waiting for her to provide concrete evidence.

What did he say on the first messages? Nothing.

Has he ever threatened you? No.

Have you ever seen him following you? No, except at the beach.

But you couldn’t be sure it was him. He was too far away.

If the person was whispering on the last message, how do you know it was Richard? I can’t prove it, but I know it was him.

Long pause. Uh-huh. Well, is there anything else? No. Except that I’ve got a major case of the willies and I’d like to be able to take a shower without imagining Norman Bates on the other side of the curtain.

Another tap of the pencil. Uh-huh.

Even to her, it sounded far-fetched. Thinking it was him didn’t make it him. But it was Richard! She was absolutely sure of it.

Wasn’t she?

The Guardian

At the Clipper, Julie took a seat at the bar alongside a few other men who’d come earlier to watch a baseball game.

Julie ordered a beer and was nursing it slowly as eight o’clock came and went. The television was turned off and the people at the bar left; after the band had checked the amplifiers and tuned their instruments, they went backstage to relax. Mike joined Julie. They made a point of not talking about what had happened, which was, she thought, a lot like talking about it, when it got right down to it. But Julie could see the anger in Mike’s eyes when he finally told her that he was needed on stage.

“I’ll be watching,” he said.

By that point, a few people had wandered up to the bar, others had seated themselves at tables, and still others had congregated in small groups. By nine-thirty, when the music started, even more people had arrived and there was a steady stream coming in the door. People were crowding the bar to order drinks, but Julie ignored them, thankful that the noise and atmosphere were at least partially drowning out the endless questions. Still, she turned reflexively toward the door whenever it opened, afraid of seeing Richard.

Dozens of people entered, but Richard didn’t.

The hours passed in steady rhythm-first ten, then eleven, then midnight-and for the first time since that afternoon, Julie felt herself regaining a bit of control. And like Mike, with that feeling came anger. More than anything, she wanted to give Richard a verbal lashing in public, the kind of high-volume tirade that included pointed forefingers being poked into his chest. Just who do you think you are? she imagined herself screaming at him. Do you honestly think I’m going to put up with this crap for another minute? (Poke.) I’ve put up with too much in my life-I’ve survived too much in my life-to let you get the better of me. I will not, repeat, will not, let you ruin my life. (Poke, poke.) Do you think I’m some patsy? (Poke.) Some wimpy little thing who’s gonna sit on the couch and tremble, just waiting for you to make the next move? Hell, no! (Poke, poke.) It’s time to get on with your life, Mr. Richard Franklin. The best man won, and so sorry, pal, but you weren’t him. As a matter of fact, you’ll never be him. (Poke, poke, poke, followed by cheering as dozens of women spontaneously jumped up, applauding.)

While she was envisioning her revenge, a group of young men wedged in next to her, ordering drinks for themselves and others in their group who couldn’t get close enough. Their order took a few minutes, and when they left, she glanced off to the side.

Halfway down the bar, she saw a familiar figure leaning toward the bartender to order a drink.

Richard.

His image was like a blow to the solar plexus, and all those devastating comebacks were forgotten.

He was here.