Chapter Thirteen

The next few days passed quickly as Natalie spent most of her time catching up with Jessica, Rex or her parents. She had also met with Michael and went over his ideas for the B.E community center and decided to accept Asa's offer. Natalie had met with Asa, Kevin and Kelly early in the week and made it official. Asa and Kevin were happy to hand the project over to the women and get back to their profit-based companies. Kelly and Natalie had been meeting frequently to bounce suggestions off one another and finalize the plans. It was more fun than Natalie had imagined and she really liked working with Kelly.

Natalie had been so busy working and catching up with her family that she hadn't really thought much about the whole stalker thing. But that all changed on Wednesday night as Natalie went through her mail and saw the red envelope with her name typed across it. There was no postage or return address, it just read "'Natalie Balsom Laurence Buchanan Vega."

Shaken, Natalie immediately dropped the envelope and spent the next few minutes staring at it. There was no reason anyone would use her full name, let alone include the name "Laurence." It was from him.

Grabbing a Ziploc back from one of the drawers, Natalie slipped the envelope in it and grabbed her purse.

She knew what she had to do.

John was reading the information Officer Collins had managed to dig up on Natalie for the umpteenth time. He was still amazed at the things he didn't know about Natalie. Things that hadn't been important to the FBI or Flynn, things she had never told him. He learned how she was suspected of pushing her stepfather out a window thanks to her mother's alter, that she was suspected of arson, that Cristian had saved her from being raped by Mitch Laurence. As he read his admiration for Natalie grew. He was in the middle of the police report taken after she almost had her heart cut out Laurence when he heard the knock on the door.

"Come in," he shouted angry for the interruption, but was surprised when Natalie walked in and without waiting for an invitation sat down.

"I got this in the mail." Natalie passed him the oversized Ziploc bag. "I didn't open it."

"How do you know it's from him?" John asked before glancing down at the envelope.

"It has no postage or return address and look at the way it's addressed.

Opening one of his desk drawers, John rummaged around for some latex gloves. Finding none he stood up. "I'll go get some gloves and we'll open this." Once he was out of the office, Natalie took the opportunity to look around. Noticing the Sun's logo, Natalie grabbed a handful of the printouts shocked at what she saw. Quickly shed thumbed through them, and was filled with shame and rage. "Why the hell was he looking at these?"

When John re-entered the room Natalie fixed him with an angry glare. "What the hell is this?"

"I needed to go over them for the case." John sat down.

"You needed to go over them? Why? This is all in the past John, it's over and done with. There's no need to go over it." Her voice was beginning to rise.

"I just need to get a better handle on your life in Llanview, see if anything sticks out. Anything that may have pissed someone off enough to do this."

Natalie sighed. She hated thinking about the messes she had managed to get herself into, as they made her feel stupid and weak for not knowing any better. Lowering her voice she spoke, "In future, if you need to know something about my past could you just ask me, rather then consulting the paper run by the uncle who tried to kill me? There may be a little bias there."

"Fine." Happy to have prevented another argument, John cleared the papers off his desk and slid the gloves on. Carefully he slipped the envelope out from the bag, and began to open it. Natalie watched as he slid out a standard Christmas card. Opening it up he began to read aloud,

Natalie,


"Think of all the fun you've missed
Think of all the fellas that you haven't kissed
Next year you could be oh so good"

Merry Christmas Natalie …

Have you been a good girl this year?

I don't think so, or else you would have told Johnny your little secret.

John's brow furrowed at the last part. "Secret? What secret?"

Natalie tried desperately to hide her shock by telling herself that there was no way this guy knew about that With a surprisingly steady voice she replied, "I have no idea."

John felt around in the envelope and pulled out a picture. Placing it on the desk they studied it. It was from the other night when they had run into each other at Rodis, when John had told her about going out of town.

"How could he have taken a picture without us knowing?"

"It's actually not that hard now that cell phones and MP3 players have cameras built right in them. Rodi's was crowded that night, all he would have had to do was hold up his cell phone like he was checking the time and press the button." John explained angrily, angry that Bo may have been right – he was going to miss something because he was too involved. "Do you remember anyone suspicious? Anyone who was staring at us, you were facing them."

"No."

"Neither do I." John slammed the photo onto the desk.

"This is sick. Why the hell would someone do this?" Natalie took a deep breath, as much as she was trying to hide it, she was shaken up by this.

John turned his attention back to the police reports and newspaper printouts. Gesturing toward him he carefully chose his words. "You've run in to a few messy situations since moving here – is there anyone you could think of that may have held a grudge?" The question had to be asked. Noticing Natalie's angry glare he held up his hands in defense. "Hey, I can just keep reading these." He said it lightly but Natalie's icy expression made if clear she didn't take it that way.

Without warning Natalie reached over and grabbed the stack of articles and began to whip through them. "Jen Rappaport, dead. Ben Davidson, dead. Mitch Laurence, dead. Flynn Laurence, dead. Seth Anderson, gone. Stephen Haver, dead. Paul Cramer, dead. Hayes Barber, dead." Throwing them back down on the desk she looked back up at him. "Does that help?"

"Natalie -"

"No John, don't Natalie me. All of this is over with."

"What about Seth?"

Natalie glanced at him confused, beginning to play with a piece of string hanging from her shirt she spoke softly. "What about him?"

"Would he do something like this?"

"No."

"How can you be so sure?" She answered too quickly, and John could sense this was a touchy topic for her.

"Because Seth is a scam artist, not a stalker." Natalie paused. "As I said before, how do we even know this about me?"

"These were sent to you."

"So? The original pictures were sent to you and obviously he knew you'd see this card or else he, or she, wouldn't have put in some cryptic bullshit about some secret." Natalie leaned back in her chair. "The way I see it this could all be about you. Hayes targeted Evangeline and I because of our relationships with you and Haver targeted me and killed Caitlyn for the same reason." Once the words were out of her mouth she instantly regretted them.

"That's true." John's voice was quiet and laced with pain.

"I'm sorry, John. I shouldn't have…"

"No. You're right. You, Evangeline and Caitlyn were targeted because of me. But we can't assume that this time isn't about you. That there isn't something in your past that could lead us to whoever is threatening you. And it might be Seth."

Natalie stood up and glared down at him. "I'm telling you that it's not Seth and every other person in my past is dead! Including my husband who you didn't have the…the decency to tell me about so I could give him a proper burial. All while you enjoyed me in your bed and told me you loved me."

"I meant it when I said I loved you," John said quietly

Natalie laughed bitterly. "If you'd really loved me, you would've had enough faith in us to tell me the truth. Then I wouldn't have had to found out by a fucking box full of my husbands things." Natalie could feel herself getting worked up even though she knew it was to damned late for a scene. Or maybe it was just overdue.

"Nothing has changed John. Nothing. I still hate you and I will never forgive you for you did. You can rot in hell for all I care. I will come to you if I get contacted again and if we need to discuss anything pertaining to this case, but that's it. Once this sicko is locked up, stay the hell away from me." Without even waiting for him to respond Natalie strode out of the office, not letting her tears fall freely until she was out of the building.