When the first note shows up at the restaurant where he works -- when he isn't designing costumes for a local theater -- Jim Foster laughs it off. When the notes keep coming, he doesn't find the fact that he might have a secret admirer quite so amusing. Alan North, a lonely, bookish customer at the restaurant, is too shy to even think of talking to Jim -- as much as he wants to. Then the killings begin. Two of Jim's friends are murdered in what appear to be muggings. However, the detective in charge of the cases believes they're more than that, and that Jim is either the killer ... or being stalked by one. When Jim and Alan finally connect, can they help find and stop the stalker, or will Alan end up dead before their budding relationship can become more than friendship?

His Secret Admirer

“That makes it sound like I’m in prison,” Alan joked.


The doctor laughed. “Some people think being in a hospital is prison, as much as we try to convince them otherwise.”


Alan had done as he’d promised Jim, calling work to say he wouldn’t be in. It seemed his boss either hadn’t watched the news, or hadn’t put together that the Mr. North mentioned in the story was him. So, rather than telling him the real reason he was taking another day off, he said he still had the flu, but thought he should be over it by the end of the day.


“I’ll be in tomorrow, come hell or high water.”


“Be flu free is all I ask,” his boss had replied with a brief laugh.


Thankfully, as far as he was concerned, his clothes had survived the attack. As he got dressed, he called for a cab. When the nurse came in with a wheelchair, Alan rolled his eyes, then sat, since he knew it was hospital protocol.


Chapter 32