“How did you get in, though?” I asked Ben.
The tiniest of smiles appeared on his face. “I picked the lock.” He looked back at Noah. “So. Should we take your ass down to the police station and have them throw you in jail? Bet you didn’t think that’s how your night was going to end.”
“I wasn’t doing anything illegal!” Noah said, looking truly distraught. “I just wanted to leave those for you—I wasn’t going to stay. I knew you’d know who they were from when you saw them.”
“Stalking is a criminal offense, you know,” Kevin said. “You feel like spending a couple years behind bars?”
“I have done nothing wrong!” His voice cracked, and he struggled against Kevin’s grip, but got nowhere, his feet scrambling underneath him. He looked at me, his eyes wide. “Daisy, please. I would never hurt you. You’ve got to know that, don’t you? Have I done anything to harm you?”
“No, but you haven’t listened to me when I’ve repeatedly told you to leave me alone. When I told you that I wasn’t interested. You just seemed to think if you were persistent enough that I’d eventually give in, which isn’t going to fucking happen! So why shouldn’t I let them take you down to the police station? Why shouldn’t you get locked up for a while?”
I could see the realization dawning on him slowly, just how much trouble he could be in for these actions of his that he’d originally thought were so innocuous. It was like spilled ink spreading on a linen cloth, the way his expression changed.
“Hold on one sec,” Ben said to Kevin. “Let me talk to Daisy for a sec.”
He motioned for me to follow him, and we walked a few paces away.
“So,” he said. “This asshole has clearly been following you around. We noticed him a few night ago, but he wasn’t really doing much more than just lurking, making it look like he was waiting for someone.”
“I don’t know if I think he’d actually do anything to hurt me,” I said, “though I do know I have told him dozens—if not more—times to leave me alone, and he just hasn’t gotten the message. And he hasn’t tried to get into my apartment until tonight.”
“That you know of.”
“Right—that I know of.”
“So we could haul his ass down to the station if you wanted. Though if he’s going to deny everything, there’s a good chance he’ll get off with a fine, maybe a little jail time, no more than a year.”
I glanced back over at them. Noah looked like he’d given up; he was just standing there, arms still pinned behind his back, shoulders slumped, head down. I was starting to feel a little bad for him all of the sudden, which was the last thing I wanted to be feeling for him right now, but I couldn’t help it. If he would just promise to leave me alone now, then I’d be okay with that—that’s all I had wanted to begin with.
“Say he ended up having to go to jail,” I said, “and he gets out, and he’s even more pissed than before? What if he comes back and tries to kill me or something?”
“I’d say that’s something that would more likely happen in a movie, but it’s always possible,” Ben said. He leaned toward me. “There have been a few instances in the past where we could’ve taken people down to the police station, but in those cases, too, there probably would’ve ended up being a court hearing, and we’d have to testify, and Ian prefers if we can avoid getting involved with that sort of thing. So we . . . handle things our own way. We could do that now, if you wanted.”
“What does that mean?”
“Well, in this case, it means we kick his ass—not enough to permanently disable him or anything, but enough to make him realize that if he does this sort of thing again, it’s not going to end well for him. And trust me, Daisy—the message will get through. He’s in way over his head now; he doesn’t actually realize what he’s fucking with here. Some guys are hard and can take a beating and just brush it off. Not him. We won’t even need to hurt him that badly.”
I nodded slowly. It felt strange to be the one in the position to be making this sort of decision. There was a part of me that wanted to just say to let him go, so long as he promised that he wouldn’t come around anymore. But I’d told him that before and he hadn’t listened, so it seemed like he did need something a little more . . . memorable.
I followed Ben back over to where Kevin and Noah were standing. “So, Daisy,” Ben said. “You think we should bring him down to the station? And don’t worry—if he tries to deny anything, both Kevin and I will happily testify that he was trying to break into your apartment, and he’ll probably be going away for at a couple years.”
“I’m thinking more like five,” Kevin said. “Especially if Judge Carter hears the case.”
“Kevin knows him,” Ben said to Noah. “Judge Carter. And while it’s true that judges try to be impartial, the judge is going to believe Kevin over you. Trust me. So what do you think, Daisy?”
He was talking loudly, almost in a theatrical voice, and I realized that he wanted to make Noah understand that whatever happened next was solely up to me.
“I’d like nothing more than to see an asshole like this locked up for a good long time,” Kevin said, playing right along. “A guy like you in Suffolk County Jail? You’ll get to know real fast how it feels to be the one getting preyed upon.”
Noah had started to cry, tears silently running down the sides of his face, a sniffle escaping him every now and then.
“I don’t think we’re going to do that,” I said. “I think it’d be better if the two of you took care of it.”
But instead of looking relieved, a look of horror exploded across Noah’s face. He thought that meant they were going to take him out back and kill him or something. He started to open his mouth to say something, but no words came out.
I walked over to him, stopped when I was about an arm’s length away. “Noah,” I said. “They’re not going to kill you. But if you ever come back here again, they will.”
There was a little alleyway between two buildings near the other end of the block, and they brought him down there. I stood there, not sure what I was waiting for, but it seemed as though a very short amount of time passed when they reappeared again, all three of them walking, Noah no longer being restrained. He was lurching a little, and I could see as they got closer that he was going to have quite the black eye tomorrow, but other than that, he didn’t seem too bad off.