Animals

Day 6 Part 1

Friday, May 15th

I sighed defeatedly, sitting in my spot at the bar, and ordered a whiskey and water. An entire week had gone by and all I got was confusion. Mitch was better than I thought he was. Something about him just didn't quite add up. He was good at covering his tracks.

My cheek rested in my palm, squishing my lips together in a pout. For whatever reason, my eyes focused on the pictures Artie hung on the wall. Quite a few of them had me in them, ranging over the years. There were three taken a little over three weeks ago that I was featured in. I smiled at the memory of the fun night, but then I saw something concerning.

"Hey, Artie, can I see those new pictures?" Artie untacked the three and handed them to me, and I mumbled my thanks to him, squinting at them as my heart started to race. Mitch was in every one of them, his eyes trained on me. I realized I'd seen him everywhere before I got the job a week ago. He was just a face in the crowd then, but he was always there. The store, the streets, he was there, but he never did anything to bring attention to himself. He blended.

Without a word, I ran from the bar, quickly swerving out of the lot without a care as to who I might've cut off. I couldn't think about anything other than getting to where I was going. Not even about the fact that I left without paying. I'd just pay Artie back next time. I parked in a corner spot where my car would be partially hidden and walked into the doors of Holiday Inn. It was time for me to find out who I was really dealing with.

"Hi," I smiled at the woman at the front desk. "I'm Anna. My boyfriend gave me a keycard, but I lost it. Is there a way I can get a new one? The room is 314 under Irving."

"One second." Her long, fake nails clacked on the keyboard. I held my breath, hoping with everything I had that Mitch had decided to use that name for the reservation. The receptionist smiled at me. "I'll get your key." She turned to make a new key and I couldn't help but think about how easy that had been. I was never going to think anything in my hotel room was safe again. This is why I didn't trust anyone because it was so easy to screw up someone's life with just a little information. All I said was Mitch's alias and I was granted access to his hotel room without question. "Here you go."

"Thank you." I took the card and bounded up the stairs. I didn't feel like waiting for the elevator. Stopping at his door, I glanced down both ends of the hall, finding them to be clear. The gun I kept in the back of my pants transferred to my side in one hand as I knocked on the door. "Housekeeping."

Two quiet minutes passed, no shuffling, no movement inside, so I put away my gun and slid the key through the door. It blinked green and I mentally thanked the woman for being so easy to cheat. I closed the door quickly.

It was a good room, a little messy, clothes strewn about, but it really wasn't that unusual for a man. But something else I saw went so far out of the realm of unusual. There was an entire wall with photo after photo of my face on it. My jaw dropped as I moved to it, reaching out to make sure what I was seeing was real as my heart pounded in my throat. I didn't even remember walking in some of these places yet there I was.

Pictures of me in the grocery store, at the bar, in a pool, in the butcher's shop, walking down a street talking on the phone all crowded the wall. A few were of me in the coffee shop meeting Gary for the first time. It was taken from across the street where Mitch must have been waiting, watching. I saw myself at the library, even in my own house. In one, I was cooking, in another I was working on a case at my kitchen table, and in another I was sleeping. He'd been at, probably even in my house and I was none the wiser.

There were quite a few pictures of Gary as well, but not nearly as many. The focus had very clearly been on me. On the desk directly beneath the photos, there was a cassette tape player and a few cassettes stacked beside it. I frowned at it, thinking that if this guy was going to stalk me, he could at least do it in this century. A tape was already loaded inside, so I pressed play out of curiosity.