Chapter Twenty-Eight
The next few weeks passed quickly for both John and Natalie and soon they were into the early days of March. John kept himself busy at the station going over the stalker case for what seemed like the millionth time, as Natalie struggled to write final papers and worked on the completion of the center. After much debate she had decided to go with the name "Angel Square Women and Children's Center" and had already lined up a bunch of doctors, social workers and volunteers to be on hand when it opened at the beginning of May.
Since the Valentines Day card designed to tear them apart there hadn't been any word from the stalker – something neither of them knew whether to take as a good sign or a bad one. They had been anticipating on making him furious enough to slip up, but it was beginning to look like their plan had backfired.
On the first Tuesday of the month, Natalie decided to take a day off and spend it with Rex. Since starting classes again and his dating Adrianna they hadn't had much time to spend together and Natalie was starting to miss her brother. They had started off meeting for lunch at Rodi's and were now pulling into a seedy looking warehouse on the outskirts of town.
In typical Rex fashion he had decided on the spur of the moment to open up a PI business. For weeks he had been lining up contacts, possible locations and was on his way to meet with someone about high tech spying equipment. At first Natalie had been hesitant about accompanying her brother to a place like this, but decided that she would rather be with him then have him go alone.
Just before they entered the small shop, Natalie grabbed Rex's arm and stopped him. "Are you sure this place is safe?" She asked, taking another look around the deserted, run down building.
Rex nodded. "It's cool." Walking ahead of his sister, Rex opened the door to the store and let Natalie enter first. As soon as she did a whole slew of machines went off and an angry looking man instantly appeared beside her.
"What the hell do you think you're doing?" He man asked as he took a hold of one of Natalie's arms and peered down at her, his eye narrowed.
"Whoa, Rick…calm down man, she's my sister." Rex said as made his way further into the store and came between Natalie and the man still holding her arm.
The man fixed his gaze upon Rex. "Well then Balsom maybe I should be asking you what the hell you think you're doing bringing a bugged women into my shop."
Confusion spread across both Rex and Natalie's faces. "Bugged? I'm not bugged." Natalie finally said.
Rick shook his head angrily. "I have this store wired with top of the line equipment. Those sirens go off if anyone sets foot in his door with any type of bug, camera or tracking device. What type of game are you two playing?"
Rex folded his arms across his chest and fixed the man with a typical Rex expression. "Listen man, I came here to pick up those devices we talked about. Do you really think I would wire my sister and bring her in here?"
Rick looked between the two of them for a few seconds and finally let go of Natalie's arm. "Follow me, I'll show you were the signal is coming from." He said gruffly, as he began making his way toward the back of the shop.
Natalie's first instinct was to grab Rex and bolt, but Rex stopped her. "What if you are wired?" he whispered. "With all that stalker stuff going on, what if he did put something on you?"
Natalie felt her blood run cold. Never in a million years had she considered that possibility. Wordlessly, she nodded and followed Rex and the man tot the back of the store. When they got to the back, the man was holding an odd shaped device in his hand. "You really didn't know that you're bugged?" He asked as approached her.
Natalie shook her head and stood still as he began to wave the device over her body like someone at Airport security would. When he got to her wrist the machine started beeping like crazy. Gently, Rick picked up her arm and unclasped her watch, the machine still continuing to beep. "It's the watch – it has some sort of tracking device in it."
"Didn't John give you that watch?" Rex asked, just as shocked as his sister.
Natalie looked up at the man in shock. "It can't be the watch. My boyfriend gave that to me for Valentines Day; it hasn't left my wrist since then…"
Rick laughed bitterly. "Lady, if that's the case then you have one possessive man." Suddenly he turned his attention to Rex, "You ready to get that business taken care of Balsom?"
Rex nodded, and after giving Natalie a reassuring pat on the back, followed the guy to another part of the store leaving Natalie alone to collect her thoughts.
After leaving the store, Natalie spent most of the ride back to Llanview in silence not knowing what to say. She was shocked, confused, humiliated and angry that once again John wasn't keeping her in the loop. The watch sat bunched up in her purse, and it was taking almost all her self control to not just hurl it out the window.
In fact, she was imagining a whole bunch of other places to throw it at when Rex finally broke her out of her thoughts.
"Natty, maybe this isn't such a bad thing…" he said hesitantly, keeping his eyes on the road ahead of them.
Natalie turned in her seat as much as the seatbelt allowed. "Isn't such a bad thing? John put a tracking device on me Rex – and if that wasn't bad enough, he put it in my Valentines Day present. How can that not be a bad thing?"
Deciding that it was best not to try and reason with her, Rex changed the subject. "So, did you want to swing by the Center and show me the progress you've made?"
Natalie turned back around and faced the road, anger glinting in her blue eyes. "No." she said so calmly that it scared him. "You're dropping me off at the police station."
The rest of the way home Rex had tried to talk her out of dropping in on John, but Natalie remained stubborn. The second Rex stopped the car, Natalie jumped out and stalked furiously through the building, refusing to acknowledge anyone. By the time she reached the main floor of the police department, she was about to lose it. Seeing John talking to one of the officers, she stalked toward them and grabbed his arm. "Can I talk to you?" she asked tersely, not even managing a smile at the other officers.
Worried by her expression, John nodded. "I'll brief you on that case later Roberts," he barely managed to say before Natalie began dragging him toward his office. Once they were inside, she slammed the door and flicked the lock before turning her attention toward him.
"How could you?"
John looked at her, confused by her sudden angry outburst. "Natalie, I don't know what you're talking about…." he began hesitantly.
Natalie laughed bitterly as she grabbed the watch from her purse and held it up. "I must make these things so easy for you… seeing the watch which you so smartly engraved, and being happy about it while you tracked my every movement."
Suddenly understanding her anger, John took a step toward her. "Natalie…"
"Don't you dare even Natalie me. You put a tracking device in my Valentines Day gift…. Do you have any idea how violated that makes me?"
"I was trying to keep you safe."
"You treated me like a common criminal." Natalie yelled, throwing the watch down angrily on his desk. "We had a deal John – no more secrets, no more lies, no more going behind each others backs! Do you remember that?"
Not understanding why she was making such a big deal out of this, John began to get angry. "You're over reacting Natalie… someone needs to keep an eye out for you."
Natalie shook her head in disgust. "Do you have any idea what its like? Being kidnapped? Held hostage? Almost raped? Because I do John. I have spent the last four years of my life being targeted by psychos. Mitch tries to cut out my heart… tries to make my mother choose which daughter she loves more, alienating me even further from my family. Then, my mother's alter tries to make me think I'm crazy, and makes it seem I pushed Ben out the window. And if this isn't enough for me to have to deal with, Flynn kidnaps me and kills my husband, or so I think." Natalie paused, turning away from him.
"Once I finally get over that loss, and begin to move on, Haver comes after me… strapping a bomb to my chest. After that comes Paul, who tries to rape me, and then my husband comes back from the dead only to be reveled as an imposter." By now, Natalie was pacing the room, all of her pent up anger coming to the surface.
"Again, if that wasn't enough, another serial killer targets me. Tries to fry me in a vat of oil, shoots an arrow at my head, kidnaps and dresses me in a cheerleader outfit then attempts to burn me at the stake and finally kidnaps me leaving me in an pit. Now this? God, I thought my childhood was bad enough, always living on the wrong side of town, having to deal with a drunken mother and her abusive boyfriends. Often going days without food and having to rely on cheap scams to make money… things were supposed to change once I found out who I was." She turned and faced him, her eyes flashing.
"But you know, I always managed to get through those situations and for most of them I had you to rely on. But I draw a line here John – I will not let you, or any person for that matter violate me in this way. You gave me a seemingly perfect gift, one that I took pride in, one that I showed off to my sister and mother as 'the sweet thing John did,' and you used it to take away any freedom I have." Taking a deep breath she wiped angrily at the few tears that had begun to fall.
"You know having the stalker watch me, go through my house, follow me – that I can deal with – but having you stoop to that level, well to me that's worse then anything that monster could dream up."
Feeling as if he had been slapped, John opened his mouth to speak but was cut off by Bo entering the room, worry and fear evident on his face. "John, I need you in the conference room right away."
Seeing her uncle's expression Natalie was able to forget her anger as she faced him. "What is it Uncle Bo?" she asked going over to him.
Bo took a shaky breath and met his niece's eyes. "Matthew and Starr were kidnapped from the park this afternoon."
Letting out a gasp, Natalie brought her hand to her mouth. "Oh my god."
"Are you sure? I mean Starr is often reckless and flighty, are you sure she didn't convince Matthew to take off?" John asked as he went into cop mode and pushed away his fight with Natalie.
Bo shook his head grimly. "We have eye witness testimony. Two people in a van jumped out and grabbed them… it looks like it's a ransom. But, John I need you to head this up… I'm too close…" Bo choked out, trying hard to remain in control.
John nodded, but hung back hoping to have a minute in private with Natalie, but that hope was dashed as he watched Natalie follow her uncle out and overheard her say, "Dad's in London this week, I have to go stay with Mom…. Promise me the second you hear anything you will call?" After Bo nodded and moved toward his office, Natalie looked back at John, her eyes once again cold.
"I'll be spending the night at Llanfair."
Without even waiting for a response, Natalie turned on her heel and walked back toward the parking lot. John helplessly watched her go, unsure if he would be able to fix this.