Chapter 1 - A Death

“Tabby’s dead?” Ellie gasped, and James nodded. He was looking away, hiding the dark bags under his eyes. Ellie stared at him, still amazed – but not upset, oh no.

James rubbed at his temples, and gave a humorless smile to a vacant corner of the room. “It was trespassing,” he said. “No idea what she was trying to do, but she got in the building after hours and the night guard called the cops.” He looked down at one hand, held in a child’s imitation of a pistol, studying it like he was unsure where it could be pointed. “They got there and she got a little loud. I guess the cops got a little trigger happy.”

“Oh my God,” Ellie said, shaking her head in disbelief. “After two years, that’s it, huh?”

“I suppose,” James said quietly.

Ellie sat there for a few moments, and then snorted. “Good riddance.”

What else was there to say? Was Ellie supposed to really mourn one of her best friends’ stalkers of the past fourteen months? Was she supposed to forgive it all now?

Should she forgive Tabby breaking in and moving stuff around in his apartment once? Should she overlook the letters Tabby sent him, all from different drop boxes, with obsessive, romantic undertones? Was it suddenly now excusable how Tabby would ambush him in public, and track his changing addresses, and…

… and why did that whale think she had a chance? Ellie was still confused thinking about it. Tabby was a shameless pig. She had been well over 400lbs, and it had been a blessing: she was so unsubtle that while she was a threat, she was never a serious one. James caught her following him a few times in public from her labored breathing or from her reckless eating. Out of breath, sweating, in clothes way too revealing for a woman of her size, she made such a poor stalker that pity always won over concern when James thought about filing a restraining order. That she was pushy and domineering when not out of breath made her a bit more threatening, but it was more baffling to James that she would tell him things like ‘I know you want me,’ ‘I’ll make you mine,’ ‘one day you’ll’... blah, blah, blah.

James said Tabby had been thinner and more attractive when this all started, but she blew up fast at the start. For her part, Ellie had only ever known Tabby as a sweat-slicked silhouette several times her own size. It was just strange, so much that even now, she had to fight the urge to trot out the standard dark humor they had used with James: what does she even see in you?

James was a quiet guy, works with computers, regular looks, kinda scrawny, kinda boring. Ellie had known him a long time, and he was anathema to relationships. He didn’t care for them, love did not find him – and that was all right with him. He was one of the few male friends Ellie had who she knew would never develop feelings for her, which was refreshing – she was a decent athlete with a lean build, and she had a pretty face, so she relished what she expected was the main platonic male friendship she would have in her life. He wasn’t her type, so the lack of romantic urges was mutual. That such a private guy would get a stalker was so strange…

“Uhm. There was something else,” James murmured, drawing Ellie out of her reverie. He was looking away.

“Really? … hey, what’s that in your hand?”

James held it out to her, tensely gripping it by the corner. Ellie gave him a wary look, but he wasn’t meeting her eyes. She frowned, and took it.

It was a letter, with a heading from a law firm in their town. Her jaw fell open after a few lines, and she looked up at James, speechless. He nodded solemnly, and her eyes flickered between his face and the page.

… sole beneficiary of the estate of Tabby Martens… all contents of the house at… key included, accessible at the beneficiary’s leisure…

“You’re shitting me,” Ellie whispered.

“I wish,” James sighed. “I called the firm and they said it was all in order. I didn’t know you could will away an entire home like that, without the other person – I, I thought you had to have both parties or something, you know?”

Ellie kept rereading it. “James, you get how lucky this is, right? One hell of a consolation for having that freak following you around! This is that old Victorian house at the edge of town, that’s money if you refurbish it.”

James groaned and sank into his chair. “I don’t care,” he moaned, “she’s still forcing her way into my life even now.” He dragged his hands over his face. “Eugh… I get that it’s a good thing… I do. I just feel like I’m being played with. Let me finish, I see you trying to butt in. I know that’s irrational, okay? I know. But I’ve had to put up with her for so long… I just hate it. I can’t appreciate it. It’s…”

James shivered. Ellie glanced at the letter again, and then put it down, letting him breathe. Almost a minute passed, he steeled himself.

“Listen,” he said, “Ellie, I wanted to ask if you can go there and… handle everything for me. That’s why I called you here.”

Ellie held up her hands. “Whoa, that’s a lot of work, I’m not sure I can...”

“Once we sell everything, I’ll give you thirty percent of the profits,” James said. That stopped her.

“... Well, I can at least take a look…”