Chapter 6 - Her Name Was Already There
An officer called back that afternoon while I was feeding Lily. I balanced her on my hip and answered.
"Mrs. Bennett? This is Officer Delgado. I'm following up on the report you filed this morning."
She walked me through the whole afternoon again — the pool, the woman, the manager, the note. Lily grabbed a handful of my collar while I talked, and I let her.
When I finished, Officer Delgado was quiet for a second.
"Mrs. Bennett, the name you gave us — Vanessa Crowley — has come up in our records before."
I stopped moving. "What does that mean?"
"I can't share details of other reports. But your documentation is consistent with a pattern we're already aware of. The note, staying on the property after being removed, going to your car — those are all things we take seriously."
"Has she done this to somebody else?"
A careful pause. "I can tell you that you're not the first person to contact us about her."
I sat down. Lily made a sound of protest and I moved her to my other hip.
"So what happens now?"
"We'll make contact with Ms. Crowley and document this formally. If she contacts you again — in person, by phone, in writing, online — you call us immediately. Understand?"
"Yes."
"And the hotel footage — Mr. Reyes already agreed to preserve it. That helps."
"He's been really good about all of this."
"He called us this morning," she said. "Before you did. He wanted to make sure somebody was looking out for you."
I hadn't known that. I let it sit for a moment.
"Anything else I should do?"
"Write everything down. Dates, times, any contact at all. Keep the note exactly where it is." A short pause. "And try to live your life. I know that's easier said than done."
After we hung up, Caleb came in from the backyard, grass-stained at both knees, holding a football.
"Who was that?"
"A police officer."
He went still. "Why?"
"Because of yesterday. I reported the woman and the note she left on the car."
He set the football on the counter and looked at me the way he sometimes does now — too carefully, too grown-up.
"Is she going to come back?"
"I don't think so. The police are dealing with it."
"But you don't know for sure."
"No," I admitted. "I don't."
He nodded slowly, then picked the football back up. "Okay. I'm going back outside."
"Caleb."
He stopped in the doorway.
"You don't need to worry about this," I said. "That's my job."
He looked at me for a long moment. "I know. But I'm going to anyway."
He went back out. I heard the ball thud against the fence, over and over.
Three days later, Vanessa Crowley called my cell phone.
I had never given her that number. I had never spoken to her outside of that pool deck. I had no idea how she'd gotten it.
May you like
I let it ring. She left a voicemail.
I called Officer Delgado before I listened to it.
