Excerpt of Close to You by Christina Dodd

Kate's phone rang at two a.m.. Barely awake, she fumbled
for the receiver, her heart pounding in her throat.

Was it Mom? Had they gotten Mom, too?

When she picked it up, no one was there. The line was open,
but no one spoke, no one breathed. She hung up. She got up.
Caller ID showed, “Private caller.” She dismissed the call
as a mistake.

She got a drink of water and looked at herself in the
mirror.

She hated this. One call in the middle of the night and all
the fear and anguish of her dad's kidnapping came rushing
back. All the memories paraded through her mind. They were
nightmares come to life and no matter how hard she tried,
nothing could erase them.

She went back to bed and an hour later, she had just
drifted back to sleep when her cell phone rang. She got up
and looked at the phone, but she didn't answer this time.
Again it said, “Private caller.”

Coincidence, probably. A bad coincidence since both numbers
were unlisted and unpublished, but a coincidence
nevertheless.

When her home phone rang again at five a.m., she let the
answering machine pick it up. A low, growly, disguised
voice said, “Leave, bitch.”

And quietly hung up.

That day, to cover the dark circles under her eyes, Kate
wore extra make-up.

Two nights later, she discovered a slap of whitewash on her
car window. In shaky letters, it spelled out, Leave bitch.

Kate stared at the message. Her heart pounded in her
throat. Her temples tightened with fear. She whipped around
to look for onlookers, but none of the people who strolled
past paid her any attention. Yet she had to face the truth.
She had a stalker. She just didn't know what to do about
it.

She hadn't yet had the nerve to call the police. Despite
Brad's assurances about her work, there wasn't a doubt that
every reporter at KTTV would love to see her fail. If she
announced she had a stalker, she'd be regarded as a
grandstander and the laughter that went on behind her back
would turn around to blare in her face. She couldn't bear
to make things worse.

Yet Kate knew the facts. She knew that stalkers loved to
target the “girl” reporters. Stalkers were unstable, and
although hers hadn't done anything violent yet, the
incidents were likely to escalate to serious crimes — to
rape and murder.

More important, she was afraid all the time. She suspected
everyone.

The Hispanic man — he knew how to frighten a woman with a
glance.

Senator Oberlin — something about him had made her
uncomfortable, and he'd conveniently come to her rescue in
the parking lot. Perhaps he'd arranged to have the tire
slashed so he could approach her.

That other reporter, Linda — she was jealous and spiteful.

Brad, Cathy, everyone Kate met, every teenager who toured
the capitol and recognized her as a broadcaster, every man
who looked her over and flirted.

Even now, with the sun barely setting toward the west, she
glanced behind her as she crossed the street behind the
capitol complex. She had never been like this before, and
she knew that, laughter or no laughter, mockery or no
mockery she had to contact the police. Now. No job was
worth dying for.

As she crossed the white line in the middle of the road,
she heard a motor rev, tires screech. A gray car careened
around the corner — straight toward her.

She dove toward the sidewalk. She landed hard. She rolled,
frantic. Panic scraped her mind with sharp claws. Get away!
He's after you!

But the car kept going. It wavered from one side of the
street to another, out of control, almost overturning. Then
it righted and its tires threw up a pall of black smoke as
it raced away.

Kate didn't know if she'd been hit or just landed hard. She
didn't know if she could get a breath. She sprawled on the
sidewalk, her palms skinned, her pants torn at the knee.
She blinked as black specks darkened her vision.

“What the hell…?”

Kate heard that sharp, impatient voice and lifted her head.

Linda knelt beside Kate, her dark eyes flashing with
impatience. “What just happened?”

“Someone tried to hit me.” Crimson splattered the sidewalk
beneath Kate's head. She touched her chin and her fingers
came away covered with blood.

“Don't be dramatic.” Linda pulled out her cell phone. As
she dialed 9-1-1, she said, “Whoever did it was probably
drunk.”

Pain was starting to seep through Kate's shock.

“I couldn't see the driver, the windows were tinted,” Linda
must have connected with the operator, for she said into
the phone, “I need an ambulance on the corner of Fifteenth
Street and San Jacinto. There's been a hit-and-run—“

“No.” Kate shook her head heavily. “No. This was no
accident.”

Slowly Linda pulled the phone away from her ear. “What do
you mean?”

“I've got a stalker.” Kate finally admitted it aloud. “I've
got a stalker.”