One Wish (Thunder Point #7)(41)

“I dream of you every night. B.”

She stared at it, mouth open. Her hands began to shake. She looked over her shoulder left, then right. Her breath came in short gasps. She locked the back door. She wanted to go upstairs and lock her loft, but she was afraid to go outside. She grabbed her cell phone and then spoke aloud, to calm herself. “Stop. Stop. You’re alone here. He’s not here.”

But she checked every nook and cranny, in the cooler, the office, even under the desk. She looked into the alley and saw nothing unusual. She didn’t know who to call. Not her mother, who would only say I told you so. Not Mamie and Ross in Portland—what could they do? She finally speed-dialed Mikhail’s cell phone. She had no idea where he might be; he could be anywhere in the world. She usually got his voice mail and was constructing the message she’d leave him when he answered in Russian.

“Mikhail, he found me! I just got a letter. It says what he used to say, that he dreams of me every night. It’s Bruno! Oh, God.”

“Sons of bitches!” he barked into the phone.

“It’s not addressed to Izzy. It’s addressed to Grace Dillon. Here at the shop. Where I live.”

“But he is in hospital,” Mikhail said. “I will call them now. Then I call you. Stay where you are,” he instructed as though she’d leave the phone if she left the room.

“Thank you. I couldn’t make myself call them.”

The first note had come when she was twelve, just a little girl, but her parents hadn’t shared it with her. At twelve she was already a skater with enormous promise and a winner in her age category. Her parents screened everything that came near her, but she saw one of the notes lying on her father’s desk a year later. She got a little excited at first—someone loved her? Dreamed of her? But her mother said, “Don’t be ridiculous! It’s another nutcase! We reported him to the police.”

She didn’t think another thing about it. Then, not long after her father’s death, after an early morning practice with Mikhail, her new coach, she took off her skates in the arena where she’d been skating and walked toward the exit where the chauffeured town car waited. A man she didn’t know and couldn’t remember ever seeing before stepped out of a dark hallway, grabbed her, put his hand over her mouth and ran down that dark hallway with her. She struggled and fought and he babbled that he was going to take care of her, rescue her from the people who were exploiting her.

He held her in a maintenance closet with a broken lock on the door. She huddled in the corner, sitting on the cold floor, while he paced and babbled about foreign countries using children to spy for them, that the beautiful children should be freed, on and on with nonsense that had no meaning. He hadn’t been armed that she could see, but he was a large man. His hair was thinning on top but long on the sides and back; she found out later that he was twenty-four. She tried to get up and run for the door of that small space but he smacked her right down and threatened her, told her he’d have to hurt her to protect her if she didn’t follow his rules.

It took a little over two hours for the police to open the unlocked door, wrestle him to the ground and remove her. It was much later that she learned he was delusional and had to be hospitalized.

After that incident there were a couple of other stalkers that were handled quickly, efficiently and with restraining orders. Those two later perpetrators were not delusional but appeared to be aficionados of the young female sporting scene and seemed to move on with little argument. Who knew who they bothered after her?

Once Grace understood exactly what had been going on she also understood there were predators out there, people who preyed on pretty young athletes, male and female. They usually began by giving small gifts or flowers and praising their talent, but too soon they’d be seen at every practice and competition, always trying to get closer, to chat it up with the coaches or athletes.

It was very likely a combination of her own close calls and the tearful words from that young skater, Shannon Fields, that caused Grace to fire such rash and destructive accusations at the coach, Hal Nordstrom, suggesting he’d been inappropriate. Poor little Shannon had said to Grace, “You don’t understand! I gave him everything he asked for. Everything, even if it was horrible!” Grace believed, in her gut, that Shannon had been talking about something other than, more than, practice. She had no evidence. But he did have a sleazy, lecherous look in his eye and he did way too much fondling and butt patting.

What did she know about it? She had Mikhail Petrov, that cold, angry, often silent little Russian who never touched her, not in anger, not in praise. Since his compliments came in the harsh, brittle Russian tongue, she had no way of knowing, for years, that he was sentimental on the inside. Looking back, she could see that Mikhail had almost become the man of her small family; both Winnie and Grace had depended on him. He was always present, completely devoted.

Mikhail also had strong opinions about Hal Nordstrom. He used one phrase whenever he referred to that particular coach. “He is piece of shit.”

Winnie had told her to keep her mouth shut and when she hadn’t, Nordstrom sued them for defamation and Winnie had settled with an undisclosed sum. When, a few years later, Nordstrom was arrested for molesting several young skaters, Grace felt vindicated. But did Winnie apologize? Just the opposite. “You could have saved me considerable money if you’d just kept your mouth shut. And he would’ve eventually been found guilty anyway.”