Dream Spinner (Dream Team Book 3), Kristen Ashley [reading eggs books txt] 📗

I could see was vast space filled with tree stumps that used to be a forest with confused deer wandering around and fumes from the postal workers’ Jeeps.

Conversely, I again thought I was all kinds of weird that it felt super nice, sitting, sipping wine, food cooking, and watching Axl doing something everyday, like going through his mail.

“What the fuck?”

My mind went from my apocalyptic thoughts about the environment, and my happy thoughts about Axl, and my eyes went from the bin to Axl when he said this.

He dumped the rest of his mail on the counter (what appeared to be coupon papers, which in my opinion, you should be able to opt out of if you didn’t clip coupons).

Then he came to me, envelope out.

Big manila envelope.

Like the one the pictures came in from my stalker.

“Oh my God,” I whispered.

When he got close, I saw, handwritten on the front it said, To HATTIE’S FUCK.

“Oh my God,” I repeated.

Axl ripped it open.

“He knows I’m here,” I said.

“Yep,” Axl replied tersely.

And I didn’t know if a facial expression could be described as terse, but if it could, his was.

“Jesus,” he muttered.

“What?” I asked.

“Note says, ‘I’ll do you too,’ ” he shared, then flipped a picture around.

A naked, tall, muscular man, bent over a table, tied to it, taking it from behind from a man in a black leather, full-head mask.

Same theme, the man getting it did not look like he was enjoying it.

In fact, like the pictures he sent me, everything about it seemed violent, even having no small amount of experience watching scenes like that in action and knowing getting it good could look like it was bad.

The pictures he selected seemed designed to denote pain, not pleasure.

And this was mega creepy beyond the fact that all of this was just super creepy.

“He put this in my mailbox,” Axl said.

I didn’t know what that meant so I looked from the photo to him. “Pardon?”

“He put it in my mailbox, Hattie.” He showed me the envelope again.

No address.

Just the words.

“He didn’t post this to me, he opened my mailbox and put pornographic materials in it,” he stated.

“Is that, uh … actionable?”

“Mailboxes are the remit of the United States Postal Service. They have protections. And those protections are federal. Think a cop wouldn’t be all fired up if you got pissed some landscaper or housekeeping company put some marketing material in your mailbox. This?” He shook the envelope. “Yeah. A cop would get interested. So would the Feds.”

I found this hopeful on one front.

I put that hope into words.

“Maybe we should hand this to the police.”

“We will. I’m telling Eddie and Hank tomorrow. About this and about the threat he mailed to you, which is also actionable, not to mention the rope. It was harassment before. That’s official now. His shit is racking up.”

I felt relief, mostly because I didn’t know who this loser was, or how much more of a headache he’d be to Axl as well as Brett if they caught this creep and that did not go well.

Apparently, you could prosecute someone for using your mailbox inappropriately.

You could also prosecute them for things such as, say, illegal seizure and assault.

I didn’t share this with Axl.

I asked, “Did your guys go in and dust for prints?”

He nodded. “They’re running things, but all they’ve found so far is yours and Cisco’s.”

Hmm.

“And my laptop?”

He shook his head. “It wasn’t hacked and that porn site you subscribe to wasn’t hacked either. We’re running your two exes, but so far what we got is they’re clean.”

Boy, he wasn’t messing around with this.

And although they weren’t getting much, that felt nice in a number of ways. Including, importantly, that even with this creepiness happening, I felt safe.

“What does that picture say to you?” I went on. “Is that an escalation?”

“Yes, in terms of the fact he’s obviously following you, you clearly have a man in your life, as well as constant protection, and he’s not letting shit go. So I’ll be having words with Sly tomorrow too.”

When he caught the look on my face, he continued.

“Chill, baby. Not angry words. I’ve been so caught up in you, I haven’t been vigilant in looking for a tail. It could easily have been me that led him here.”

It was cool he held up his hand like that.

One lesson my father taught me that was worthwhile: you didn’t pass the buck. It was a supreme weakness to blame someone else. It took courage to admit you screwed up and take responsibility.

Of course, he often thought I’d screwed up when I didn’t. But that was beside the point.

“Are there other terms?” I pressed.

He shook his head. “No. He hasn’t gone off message. He just wants to keep tweaking you. Though, there’s a possibility he’s bi. But that’s irrelevant, unless we can get a lock on some kind of description and can start looking for him in earnest. And if he’s bi, that means he might be trolling for action in a number of lanes. And that opens the field of search, which always sucks because it’s a drag on time and resources.”

Well then, bad news, the creeper hadn’t lost interest.

Good news, he was still just a creeper and not a total, whackjob, “it puts the lotion on its skin” creeper.

Mixed bag.

Axl was clearly finished with this topic.

I knew this when he went back to the mail, put the picture and envelope on the counter, dumped the newspaper coupons in his recycle bin, and announced, “Time to make the sauce.”

“Can I help?” I offered.

“Yeah, top up my wine and take us into bummer-free zone. Tell me what we’re doin’ after dinner. You in the middle of bingeing something? Or you wanna stream a movie?”

Hanging with Axl in front of his TV sounded awesome.

Even so, I said, “Pac-Man.”

He turned his head my way. “Tourney?”

“Absolutely.”

He smiled and got out a saucepan.

I topped up his wine.

He made a roux, then he made the sauce. When the rice was done, he served up, we