CLOSE TO YOU: Enhanced (Lost Hearts) by Christina Dodd Read Free Book Online

window.
                  In shaky letters, it spelled out, Leave, bitch .
                  Kate stared at the message. Her heart pounded in her throat. Her temples tightened with fear. She whipped around to check for onlookers, but none of the people who strolled past paid her any attention.
                  Yet she had to face the truth.
                  She had a stalker.
                  She just didn't know what to do about it.
                  She hadn't yet had the nerve to call the police. Despite Brad's assurances about her work—she'd scooped every other station in Austin on two more stories— there wasn't a doubt in her mind that every reporter at KTTV would love to see her fail. If she announced she had a stalker, she'd be regarded as a grandstander, and the laughter that went on behind her back would turn around to blare in her face. She couldn't bear to make things worse.
                  Yet Kate knew the facts. She knew that stalkers loved to target the "girl" reporters. Stalkers were unstable, and although hers hadn't done anything violent yet, the incidents were likely to escalate, possibly to serious crimes—to rape and murder.
                  More important, she was afraid all the time.
                  She suspected everyone.
                  The Hispanic man—he knew how to frighten a woman with a glance.
                  Senator Oberlin—something about him had made her uncomfortable right away, and he'd conveniently come to her rescue in the parking lot. Perhaps he'd arranged to have the tire slashed so he could approach her.
                  Linda—she was jealous and spiteful.
                  Brad, Cathy, everyone Kate met, every teenager who toured the capitol and recognized her as a broadcaster, every man who looked her over and flirted.
                  Even now, with the sun barely setting toward the west, she glanced behind her as she crossed the street behind the capitol complex. She had never been like this before, and she knew that, laughter or no laughter, mockery or no mockery, she had to contact the police. Now.
                  No job was worth dying for.
                  As she crossed the white line in the middle of the road, she heard a motor rev, tires screech. A gray car careened around the corner—straight toward her.
                  She dove toward the sidewalk. She landed hard. She rolled, frantic. Panic scraped her mind with sharp claws. Get away! He's after you!
                  But the car kept going. It wavered from one side of the street to another, out of control, almost overturning. Then it righted, and its tires threw up a pall of black smoke as it raced away.
                  Kate didn't know if she'd been hit or just landed hard. She didn't know if she could catch her breath. She sprawled on the sidewalk, one fingernail broken and bloody, her palms skinned, her pants torn at the knee. She blinked as black specks darkened her vision, and she fought back nausea.
                  "What the hell . . . ?"
                  Kate heard that sharp, impatient voice and lifted her head.
                  Linda knelt beside Kate, her dark eyes flashing with impatience. "What the hell just happened?"
                  "Someone tried to hit me." Crimson splattered the sidewalk beneath Kate's head. She touched her chin, and her fingers came away covered with blood.
                  "Don't be dramatic." Linda pulled out her cell phone. As she dialed 911, she said, "Whoever did it was probably drunk. I didn't get the license plate, but it was a gray Infiniti sedan, a G37, I think."
                  Pain was starting to seep through Kate's shock.
                  "I couldn't see the driver, the windows