Frank Bishop
Chapter 03 - Frank Bishop
Ryan stared at the three words on the page for a long moment, feeling the specific, cold vertigo of understanding this wedding weekend had just become considerably more dangerous than either of them had anticipated when they'd chosen this cedar mountain lodge for its rustic charm and privacy.
"When did this arrive," he asked.
"Two weeks ago," Emma said. "Slipped under the door of my apartment. No return address, no postmark, which means he delivered it himself, or paid someone to. I haven't left my apartment alone since."
"Two weeks," Ryan repeated. "You've been carrying this alone for two weeks."
"I didn't know how to tell you," Emma said. "I kept thinking if I could just get through the wedding without him actually showing up, I could deal with it afterward, quietly, without it overshadowing this weekend for you."
Ryan felt a fresh wave of guilt layering over the anger he was already carrying, understanding now exactly why she'd seemed distant and distracted through the past two weeks of final wedding preparations, moments he'd chalked up to ordinary bridal stress rather than genuine, immediate terror.
"I need to know everything about him," Ryan said. "Where he's been, what he's capable of, whether he actually knows where we are this weekend."
"I don't know how he found my apartment," Emma admitted. "I've moved four times since I left home, always paid cash for the first few months of rent everywhere, never used my legal name on anything I didn't absolutely have to. I thought I'd made myself impossible to find."
"People like that don't always need much," Ryan said grimly. "A wedding registry. A social media tag from a friend. It doesn't take a genius, just patience and motivation."
Emma's hands were shaking again, the specific fear of eight years spent building careful, deliberate distance from a man who had apparently, effortlessly, closed that distance in a matter of weeks.
"What does he want," Ryan asked. "Do you have any idea."
"Money, probably," Emma said. "He tried something similar with my mother, years after I left, apparently. Showed up asking for a loan he never intended to pay back, using guilt and old threats to get what he wanted. I heard about it secondhand, through a cousin I still occasionally talk to."
"Has he ever actually approached you directly before this," Ryan asked. "Since you left."
"Once," Emma said. "About four years ago. He found my work address somehow, showed up outside the building, didn't come inside, just stood across the street watching until I called security. I moved apartments within the month and changed jobs three months after that."
Ryan sat with the full shape of what Emma had been carrying, not just the old trauma of her childhood, but an ongoing, active threat she'd been managing alone for years, one that had apparently escalated significantly in the two weeks leading up to their wedding.
"We're calling the police tonight," he said. "And I want my family's security team looped in immediately. My father's had a private security contractor on retainer for years, given some of the business dealings he's involved in. I want eyes on this venue and both our families before tomorrow."
Emma looked at him, something in her chest loosening slightly at the specific, immediate action in his voice, considerably different from the fear she'd expected if she'd ever imagined telling him the full truth.
"You're not upset," she said. "That I hid this from you."
"I'm upset that you had to carry it alone," Ryan said. "I'm not upset at you for surviving the only way you knew how. Those are two very different things, Emma, and I need you to understand I'm on your side completely, starting right now."
May you like
He pulled out his phone, already dialing his father's number, and Emma watched him move with a specific, protective urgency that felt, after years of managing every threat entirely by herself, like something she'd almost forgotten was possible to receive from another person.
Outside, the rain had picked up considerably, drumming steady against the cedar roof, and somewhere beyond the tree line, in the dark, wet mountain night, a man neither of them could see was already considerably closer than either of them yet realized.
