Alicia said, “We threatened him with restraining orders and everything but … he just ignored the letters and the lawyers said he was never quite across the line of legality.”

“They talked to the FBI about hacking into our computers,” Kayleigh said, “and hired a private computer security firm. But there was never any proof he did it.”

Madigan then asked the key question, “In all those letters was there any threat at all? Under the statute there has to be a credible threat.”

“Isn’t Bobby’s death enough of a threat?” Alicia asked harshly.

“We don’t have proof he did it,” Harutyun said.

“Please. Of course he did.”

Dance continued, “When we’re talking about an arrest for stalking under the statute, Detective Madigan is right; you need a threat against you or a family member. It can be implied, but if that’s the case there has to be a reasonable belief that you’re actually in danger of harm.”

“Not, you know, mental or psychic harm?” Crystal Stanning asked.

“No. Physical.”

Kayleigh was staring at a poster, a cartoon of a police officer and a contrite teenage boy.

SCHOOL PATROL DETAIL: IF IT’S ONLY POT, TALK TO THEM … A LOT.

She turned back and reluctantly said, “No, no threats. It’s just the opposite, really. He was always telling me how he wanted to protect me. How he’d be there for me—just like in that song, ‘Your Shadow.’”

It was then that Dance’s phone sang out with an incoming message. It was from TJ Scanlon. She read quickly then looked up.

“You want to hear a bio of our stalker?”

But the question, of course, needed no answer.

Chapter 20

DENNIS HARUTYUN HELPED Dance log on to her email from a terminal in the corner of the room and she printed out TJ’s document.

Scanning, disappointed.

“There isn’t much, I’m afraid.” Edwin Stanton Sharp had been born in Yakima, a town in eastern Washington state. His father was a traveling salesman, his mother worked in retail. “To judge from her income, she must have had several jobs. This could mean that the boy spent a lot of time alone. Psychologists think stalking begins from attachment issues. He was desperate to spend time with his parents, mother particularly, but she wasn’t available.”

“Now, his grades were very good. But he was held back a year in the seventh grade, which is pretty old for that, and his marks weren’t too bad so that suggests emotional problems in school. But there’s no record of disciplinary action, other than for a few fights on the school yard. No weapons were involved. He also had no extracurricular activities, no sports, no clubs.

“When he was sixteen his parents split up and he went to live with his mother outside of Seattle. He went to the University of Washington for two years. Again, he did fairly well. But for some reason he dropped out just after the start of his third year. No record of why. Again, no interest in other activities. That too is typical—stalking takes a lot of time. He started working at jobs stalkers sometimes gravitate toward: security guard, landscaping, part-time retail sales, offering samples of food at grocery stores, door-to-door selling. They’re good professions for those with voyeuristic or stalking tendencies because you get to see a lot of people and are largely unsupervised. And invisible.”