Penelope got almost no sleep that night. Knowing that she had a stalker had traumatized her. She did try to ring Sylvester but he was asleep when she rang and never answered the phone. She left a message on his answer phone and then tried to get to sleep, but she just couldn't. By the time morning came, she was still awake, only getting about an hour's sleep and still wearing what she was wearing the previous night. She was sitting in the lounge at about 10:00 with a sense of dread completely overwhelming her. She had no idea of what she should do. Her mind was in utter turmoil about the message from last night. She dared not tell the authorities because of the threat that was left on the message. Whoever her stalker was, he was threatening to kill Sylvester; at least she assumed it was Sylvester he was targeting. She had chained her door shut so she can open it a little without being put in danger of whoever was at the door. She went into the kitchen to make herself a drink in an attempt to calm herself down. This proved to be difficult, as she was shaking like a leaf all of the time. She was eventually able to pour herself a glass of water for herself and sit down on the couch. When she began drinking, her main phone rang. This sent a chill down her spine. She couldn't tell who was calling her by looking at the phone, as it was fairly old fashioned. She was far too paranoid to answer the phone; she just sat on the couch and waited for the phone to stop. Eventually, it did stop, causing Penelope to give a sigh of relief. She drank her water and looked back up into space, trying to figure out what to do. This didn't last long, as her mobile phone began to ring. She was very nervous but she plucked up the courage to go into her room to have a look. She gave a huge sigh of relief when she saw Sylvester's number on the screen. Without hesitation, she picked up the mobile phone and answered it.
"Hi Sylvester." Penelope greeted.
"Penelope are you ok? I tried to ring your landline just a moment ago but you didn't answer." Sylvester asked over the phone.
"That was you who tried to ring?"
"Penelope are you ok? You sound worried."
"Sylvester, can you come round here right now please? It's urgent."
"It doesn't sound like you've got good news."
"Sylvester, please can you come round here?"
"I'll be there as soon as I can."
"Thank you, and can you not bring Sylvester Jr? It might be bad for him to know what's happening."
"You're making it sound very bad. I'll be round as soon as I can."
"Thank you Sylvester." Penelope hung up on her end and went back into the living room to wait. She was very tired from not getting any sleep that night. She was very close to falling asleep right now but she was paranoid about falling asleep. She was actually just about to when she heard a knock at her door. This awakened a fear in Penelope's heart but she went to open the door anyway. As long as the door was kept closed with the chain, nobody could force it open. She opened the door as far as the chain would allow and had a look at who was on the other side. She was relieved to see her brother on the other side of the door.
"Are you ok Penelope?" Paul asked.
"Hold on a minute." Penelope replied. She shut the door, undid the chain and opened it again to allow her brother in. He walked in and looked at Penelope, who was showing signs of both fear and tiredness.
"Penelope, you don't look well. Are you ok?"
"No Paul, I'm not ok."
"What's bothering you?"
"I'll tell you later. Sylvester's coming round in a minute and I'll tell you both then."
"Ok, that would make sense."
A few minutes later, the bell outside rang; telling Penelope that someone outside the building was waiting. Penelope immediately knew who this was. She stood up, grabbed her keys and went to open the front door. Paul came with her, worried about his sister. As Penelope had hoped, Sylvester was outside. He was a little taken aback that Penelope was wearing what she was wearing the previous night but shrugged it off.
"Morning Sylvester." Penelope greeted. She also gave him a big hug to try and comfort herself. Sylvester returned the hug and looked at Paul, who was standing just inside the building. After Penelope pulled away from the hug, Sylvester looked at her.
"Morning Penelope, are you ok?" Sylvester asked.
"No I'm not. Something terrible happened last night."
"What happened?" Both Paul and Sylvester asked.
"Come into my room and I'll tell you both." Penelope led Sylvester and Paul into her room and they all sat down on the couch. Penelope was sitting in the middle with her arm around Sylvester to try and comfort herself.
"So…what's happened?" Paul asked.
"After me and Sylvester had finished at the cinema, I decided to walk home for some exercise." Penelope began.
"When did the trouble start?" Sylvester asked.
"When I was walking through an alleyway that I had to pass through to get back here, I constantly got the feeling that somebody was following me. I also kept on hearing things coming from the alleyway but could not see anything."
"What kind of sounds?" Paul asked.
"Clanging, a rustling sound and finally some footsteps. When I heard the footsteps, I ran back here."
"That was probably the wisest move that you could've done."
"It doesn't end there. When I returned to my room, there was a message on my answer phone. The message absolutely terrified me. I couldn't sleep during the night because of that."
"What was the message?" Sylvester asked. Penelope swallowed a hard lump of saliva that had built up in her throat. She stood up and walked over to the phone.
"I can't describe it. I saved the message so you could hear it." Penelope gulped again and pressed the message replay button on the phone and the loudspeaker button so Paul and Sylvester could hear the message. As the message played, Penelope covered her ears, as she didn't want to hear the message again. Sylvester and Paul grew wide-eyed as they listened to the message. They could not believe what they were hearing. They now understood why Penelope was so upset. When the recording finished, Sylvester stood up and gave Penelope a compassionate hug. Paul couldn't believe it either. He had just been trough difficult times and now his sister was going through tough times. He was speechless about the revelation that she had a stalker.
"Penelope, I don't believe this has happened to you." Sylvester said.
"What do I do?" Penelope asked.
"To be honest, I'm not really sure."
"Penelope, why don't you move out so the stalker won't be able to find you here?" Paul suggested.
"What do you mean?" Sylvester asked.
"My ex-wife had this problem before. I allowed her to stay with me until her stalker was found and arrested."
"But I can't leave the business unattended." Penelope protested.
"I'll look after it for you."
"Are you sure that you'll be ok with this?"
"I've run something like this before. Remember the hotel I used to own?" Penelope gave herself another mental slap on the head.
"Of course, I forgot you once owned a hotel. Thank you for your help."
"I'll help you pack Penelope." Sylvester said.
"Thank you Sylvester." Penelope replied.
When Sylvester said he'd help pack, what ended up happening was that he did the packing while Penelope caught up on some sleep. Paul was also helping Sylvester get Penelope's belongings together. There was a single suitcase for Penelope's essential belongings that Sylvester was packing for Penelope. Paul was dividing his time between helping Sylvester and getting belongings of his own from his room and bringing them down into Penelope's room, since he would be in there until Penelope's stalker was captured. Penelope was asleep on her bed. Now that Sylvester and Paul were going to help her, she could sleep easily for a few minutes. She would try and catch up on some more sleep during the night. While Paul was bringing some of his belongings downstairs, he came across a cat that was entering the building. This was a light blue female cat wearing a postman's uniform. She had a bunch of letters in her hand, some in white envelopes and some in brown envelopes. Paul saw the cat and stopped. The post-lady looked at him and came towards him.
"Excuse me, do you know if Penelope is awake?" The post-lady asked.
"She's catching up on some sleep at the moment. Why?" Paul asked.
"Oh, I've got some unusual letters for her and I wasn't sure whether she would want to accept them or not."
"Unusual?"
"They don't contain letters, they contain CD's. We found that out in the sorting office. They've been marked with a CD stamp."
"That is strange."
"Would she want them?"
"I don't know. She had a bad incident last night."
"Really, what happened?"
"I shouldn't really say."
"How do you know of this incident anyway? Are you related to Penelope?"
"I'm her brother. The name's Paul." Paul offered his hand in friendship. The post-lady took his hand and they shook.
"The name's Rachael."
"A pleasure to meet you Rachael." Paul let go of Rachael's hand and looked at the wad of mail in her hand.
"Is all that mail for her?"
"Some of it is for some of the guests, but she'll need to sort through it and deliver it to the respective people."
"But what about the ones with CD's?"
"If I give them to you, if she doesn't want them, she can return them to the sorting office."
"Ok, I'll let her know. Thanks a lot." Paul accepted the mail and Rachael left the building, not looking back once. Paul went back into Penelope's room to place more of his belongings in the room. He firstly had to place the mail that Rachael had given him on the desk. Sylvester didn't pay much notice, as he packing the last of Penelope's belongings. When Sylvester looked up after packing the load that he had, he noticed all the mail on the desk and went over and had a look.
"When did this arrive?" Sylvester asked.
"Just now. I met the post-lady just outside." Paul replied.
"So that's who you were talking to. I heard the conversation in here."
"So you know about the letters containing CD's?"
"Mmm. I don't understand it though."
"That was Rachael wasn't it?"
"Yeah. She is pretty."
"She does turn a few heads but she shows no interest in romance at all."
"Doesn't she?"
"As a matter of fact, I've heard rumours that she's a homosexual."
"A lesbian?"
"It's only a rumour. I don't know for certain."
"Interesting."
"Anyway, that's the last of Penelope' belongings. I think we're ready to go. Just need to wake her up first." Paul and Sylvester went into Penelope's bedroom. She was still asleep but they had to wake her, as Sylvester was ready to leave. Sylvester gently shook her on the shoulder to wake her up. Penelope opened an eye and looked at Sylvester.
"Penelope, your belongings are packed up. We're ready to go now." Sylvester said. Penelope yawned and sat up. She then looked at both Paul and Sylvester.
"Ok. I'll have some more sleep when I'm in the car." Penelope replied.
"Penelope, there was a delivery of post just now, but some of them contain CD's." Paul said.
"CD's? Odd." Penelope got up and went to the desk where the letters were. She felt all the ones that were addressed to her and saw the ones that had been marked with the CD stamp.
"The ones with the CD stamp, those contain the CD's right?" Penelope asked. Paul nodded in response. Penelope had a think for a couple of minutes before deciding on what she should do with the CD's.
"Paul, if I leave the CD's with you, can you check what's on them?" Penelope asked.
"Sure. I'll let you know of what's on them." Paul replied.
"Thanks. Let me just tell you a couple more things." Penelope led Paul to the cabinet that contained all the spare keys. She opened the cupboard and showed Paul all of the keys, pointing to one set in particular.
"Those keys are the master keys for all the rooms in the building. I'll take the keys for this room only. You can use the master keys to get about. Other than that, you'll know what you're doing right?" Penelope asked.
"Sure, I know." Paul replied.
"Ok then. That book has a list of who's in which room right now." Penelope pointed to a green book in the cabinet. Paul nodded in response.
"Penelope, you can leave everything to me."
"Thank you Paul." Penelope gave her brother a tight hug. Paul returned the hug but this didn't last long. Penelope broke away and went over to Sylvester, who was holding the suitcase that contained the belongings Penelope was taking.
"Paul, I'll be in contact. Good luck." Penelope said.
"Enjoy yourself." Paul replied as Sylvester and Penelope left. Paul went to the envelopes that contained the CD's and opened them. None of the CD's were in boxes, but free to slide around in the envelopes. Paul took all of the CD's to the CD player that was in the room. He was now going to find out what was on these CDs'.