Chapter 33 – Stupid Girl

The next day

“You really don't think this color is too bright?”

Adeline looked up from her place on the floor, folding the many blankets she had in front of her.

“No,” she said, looking at the wall of the nursery that Lance insisted needed a third coat of paint. “I think it's perfect.”

She smiled as she watched him cock his head to the side and stare at the wall in front of him intently for a few moments, tapping his finger against his lip.

“How long is your fidgeting phase going to last?” she asked him, smoothing a the blanket folded across her arm. “I'm supposed to be the one nesting, not you.”

“I don't want to blind the baby if the color is too bright,” he said, dipping the roller back into the pan. “I didn't know that being prepared was 'fidgeting'.”

She smiled again and shook her head. His form of “being prepared” was what she called fidgeting – he had spent every morning until just after lunch here at the new house, unpacking or working on anything he could find that needed done. But by now, it had become less of a casual, moving-into-a-new-home thing, and more of a panicked, get-ready-for-baby thing.

She could tell he was nervous. As each week passed and her due date came closer, it became more of a reality that they would actually bring home a baby. She hadn't realized that until just a few weeks before now, she had prepared herself so much for pain and heartbreak, she had never prepared herself for the nerves of the reality of actually having a baby.

“Fidgeting is asking me ten times if the green is too bright, when it clearly hasn't changed color in the half-hour since you last asked,” she said, groaning as she lifted herself up off the floor with the help of a dresser. “Preparing is even thinking about painting the walls before I'm having contractions. You're way ahead of the game here.”

“At least I'm ahead of something,” he said. “I haven't brought over any of the kitchen stuff from the apartment yet, much less moved in the dining room table. Everyone's coming over for Thanksgiving dinner in four days and my family will be here on Thursday morning. I don't know how we'll get this place ready in time.”

“It will all be fine,” she said. “The house is nice and clean thanks to the cleaning crew you hired, you'll get the table moved in and if you move the kitchen stuff over I can unpack a little at a time. Mel's a culinary genius, she could make a three-course meal out of table scraps. I'm sure you're worrying for nothing.”

“Since when have the tables turned so much that you're telling me that I'm worrying for nothing?” he asked, turning to her with a smile on his face.

“Full moon, Freaky Friday...who knows?” she said, returning the smile.

Just then, they both heard the doorbell ring.

“I'll get that,” she said. “You keep painting, Mr. Fidget.”

He narrowed his eyes and scowled at her as she walked out of the room chuckling, heading toward the front door.

She hated moving slower than normal these days, especially moving up and down the stairs, due to the extra weight. When she finally reached the door, she put her hand on the knob and turned it, immediately taken by surprise at who she saw standing behind it.

“Mackenzie,” she said.

“Hey...Addy,” Mackenzie said. “I'm sorry, is this a bad time?”

“Uh...no,” Addy said, shaking her shock off. “We were just doing some things to get the house ready.”

“Ad, who is it?” Lance yelled from upstairs.

“It's Mackenzie,” she yelled back.

The two women stood in front of each for a few moments, both unsure of what to say, when they heard Lance's footsteps reach the top of the stairs.

“Kenz,” he said, stopping for a moment before he started walking down the spiral staircase, his t-shirt and jeans covered in green paint. “Hey.”

“Hey, Lance,” she responded. “I'm sorry if I caught you guys at a bad time or something.”

“No, you're fine, we were just up in the baby's room doing some work.”

Adeline stood frozen as Lance walked up next to her to greet Mackenzie.

“You want to come in?” he asked. “We don't have a coffee machine yet to make coffee but I'm sure Ad can get you something else – right Addy?”

She turned to see Lance looking at her, and suddenly she realized she had been so shell-shocked to see Mackenzie at the door again that she had forgotten her basic manners.

“Yeah,” she said. “Absolutely. Come inside.”

“No coffee, no drink, I really can't stay very long,” Mackenzie said, stepping in and out of the way for Addy to close the door behind her. “I just wanted to stop by because I think I got some of your mail this afternoon.”

Adeline watched intently as Mackenzie handed the yellow envelope to Lance, not even having noticed it before.

“Addy, it's for you,” he said, looking over the front.

“It was just sitting on my porch near the door,” Mackenzie said, looking at Adeline as Lance handed the envelope over to her. “There's no address or anything on it, but I knew it had to be yours. Funny that it ended up at my house.”

Yeah, funny, Adeline thought at she stared at the envelope in her hand. Deep down, she knew it was a lie, and deep down she knew who it was from. It had been too long without contact, and she knew there was no chance that their stalker had given up, gotten bored and dropped off the face of the planet. And she still didn't trust Mackenzie.

Not that she could tell Lance that, because she knew he would only defend her. She had no doubt that he was faithful to her, loved her, and had no residual romantic feelings for his ex-girlfriend – but he didn't want to seem to believe that she was the type of person to commit this kind of crime. She had long given up by now.

She only paused a moment before ripping into the top of the envelope, struggling to break through the tough fibers of the paper and the bubble wrap inside. She reached inside and almost felt nothing – until she touched something cold and delicate. Putting her fingers around it and pulling it out, she was surprised to find a tiny chain necklace.

“Should I be concerned?” Lance asked, a tiny smile on his face. “Do you have a secret admirer?”

“It's Melissa's,” Addy responded, fingering the silver medallion charm, feeling the familiar texture of the St. Christopher necklace that Chris had given her not long ago, in the hopes that it would make her feel more protected.

“It's what?” Lance asked, grabbing for the pendant from her hands. “Why would Mel put her necklace in an envelope, put your name on it, and leave it on Kenzie's front porch?”

“She wouldn't,” Addy responded. “Lance, it's happening again.”

Both of them were silent for a moment.

“How...how would he have gotten this?” Lance finally said.

“Only one way that I know of,” Addy said. “Mel never takes it off, not even to shower or sleep.”

Lance looked up to see Addy looking at him.

“They were in Chris's apartment,” she said.

“No...”

Addy looked up when she heard Mackenzie whisper.

“What?” she asked. “Did you see who left it?”

“No,” Mackenzie said, and Addy noticed she looked up and was slightly more nervous than she had been before. “No, I didn't see who left it. It was just...there. On my porch. Like I said.”

“Kenz, if you know something, please tell us,” Lance said. “Police have been trying to catch this person for months. They have nothing. Anything will help.”

“Like I said, I don't know anything,” she said. “I have to go guys, I'm sorry.”

Addy and Lance both looked on in surprise when Mackenzie exited the door quickly, wringing her hands in nervousness.

“That was weird,” Lance said after she had left.

“Not weird to me,” Addy responded. “Lance, she's the one.”

“What do you mean 'the one'?” he asked.

“She's the one doing it. I know it. This is proof.”

“This is proof of nothing, Addy,” he said. “The only thing that this proves is that Chris needs to install better locks on his door.”

“You think locks are going to stop her?” Addy asked, pointing at the closed door. “God, Lance, how can you be so blind to this? You think it's a coincidence that it just happened to show up on her doorstep? Please, I don't believe it for a second.”

“Do you still think it's a coincidence that you're psychotic ex-husband went missing when all this started happening?” he asked. “He had you stalked once before. The guy is a psycho, Addy.”

“The guy is dead, Lance!” she yelled.

She walked as quickly as she could away from him, moving into the kitchen. It had taken her a while to come to terms with the fact that her ex-husband had killed himself – and he wasn't helping with his insistence that Marc was alive and well.

She was leaning against the island counter when she heard him walk in behind her.

“A dramatic exit doesn't quite work when you're eight months pregnant,” she said.

“I don't know, I got the message loud and clear,” he said.

“I know Marc,” she said. “A lot better than you. He's always been so immersed in Hollywood that everything is a production – life and death included. Life is a big Broadway play and he's the lead character – the spotlight has to be on him all the way up until the end. He would blame you and me...we're the ones who ruined his life. We're the ones who essentially took his life.”

“It's just too much of a coincidence, Ad,” Lance said.

“It's not a coincidence that in a city of eight million people, she's the one who ends up being practically our next-door neighbor?”

“She's just renting a house, Addy,” Lance said. “Knowing Mackenzie, six months and she'll be gone – Paris, Abu Dhabi, Cairo...wherever fame calls her, she'll make an appearance.”

“Funny how fame hasn't seemed to call to her in the past eight months since all of this started, isn't it?” she asked.

“What do you want me to do?” he asked, throwing his hands up. “Ask her? 'Mackenzie, are you the crazy person stalking us?' How well do you think that will go over? Do you think she would even tell me if she was?”

“Go to Abrams,” she said, crossing her arms over her chest.

“I've gone to Abrams,” he said, sound exasperated. “He's checked her out. He says she's clean. There's no unusual activity on her credit cards or her bank accounts, nothing to even assume she's a suspect.”

“So you're just going to do nothing?”

“What do you want me to do?” he asked. “Put a sign on the lawn and sell the house because my ex-girlfriend lives a block away from us?”

She pursed her lips and looked away, but her silence said enough.

“That's crazy, Addy. I'm not going to give up this house so you don't have to live a block away from my ex-girlfriend for a few months,” he said. “I've got more work to do on Liam's room. Let me know when you've given up the jealous high school girlfriend act and you're thinking like my wife again.”

Her jaw dropped as he turned to exit the doorway, and she did the first thing she thought to do – pick up an empty red plastic cup from the counter, leaning her arm back and throwing it at him.

“How's that for high school?” she yelled as the cup missed him and she watched him disappear.

“Hormones, Jesus!” he yelled back.

“Jerk!”

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“You broke into their apartment?!”

Marc was stunned when he calmly opened the door of his hotel room and was met with an angry Mackenzie, shouting and pushing him back with her hands on his chest.

“What the--”

“You have reached a whole new level of psychotic,” she said, angrily closing the door behind her. “This has gone too far. This is over, Marc. I'm not doing this anymore.”

“You're quitting on me?” he asked, a smile coming to his face.

“Yeah, I've come to my senses,” she said. “Give me the money I've earned so far and then you go out and do what you need to – but I'm done. I'm not going to jail or getting killed because you have a jealous streak and a sick way of getting your rocks off.”

“You've come to your senses, huh?” he said, slowly moving towards her with the smile. “She's come to her...she's come to her senses!”

She backed up, but was taken by surprise when he charged and before she knew it, he had her pinned up against his wall.

“What is your problem?” he growled in her face.

“You,” she growled back, despite her fear of him. “I signed up for torturing Lance and Addy and scaring them a little to get a paycheck to give my mom the best round-the-clock care I can afford. I didn't sign up for killing security guards, scaring people with knives in their doors, breaking into apartments and stealing necklaces off people's bodies, and wearing that stupid wig all the time!”

She looked in his eyes and could tell he wasn't pleased with her.

“This has gone too far,” she said softly.

“I'll tell you when it's gone too far,” he said. “One more week, Mackenzie. After Thanksgiving. One more week, and it will all be over. He'll be out of the picture, I'll get what I want...and you'll get what you need.”

He leaned in further, and she could feel his breath on her face.

“And not a minute sooner,” he said.