Desert Lost (9781615952229) by Betty Webb Page A

criminal case. None of them were happy about it, especially the writers. Thanks to you, they had to rewrite an entire season’s worth of scripts.”
    â€œOh. That.”
    â€œYeah. That .”
    Before I could remind him that my actions had halted a long-standing case of child abuse, he continued, “Be that as it may, her stalker’s back.”
    â€œNevitt’s been released?”
    â€œApparently. I don’t know what they did to him in that mental hospital, but something’s changed big time and not for the better. He’s sending her threatening letters now.”
    Dean Orval Nevitt had stalked Angel for years, and despite California’s strengthened laws against stalking, she’d never been able to shake him. While he usually stayed just back of the one-hundred-fifty-foot boundary the courts had ordered, when he went off his meds he would still make his way to her front door. Sometimes he pretended to be a pizza deliveryman, sometimes the mailman. Sometimes he just showed up as himself. Last summer he’d arrived with a dozen long-stemmed roses to celebrate their fifth wedding anniversary. Delusional, yes, but he’d never before threatened to harm her.
    Still, stalkers who appeared relatively harmless sometimes did turn dangerous, especially when thwarted over a long period of time. Such had been the case with Robert John Bardo, the man who shot and killed actress Rebecca Schaeffer because she wouldn’t admit to their in-his-mind-only relationship. Suffering from a similar mental disorder, Nevitt was under the impression that he and Angel had been married in Mexico after her divorce from Warren. All Nevitt wanted, he swore in his several-times-daily letters, was to take up his rightful duties as husband and step-father to the twins.
    I put my fork down. “He needs to be locked up again.”
    â€œThe authorities can’t find him. But Angel swore she saw him at the end of her street this morning, hiding behind a jasmine bush.”
    â€œDid she call the cops?”
    â€œOf course. They came right out and conducted a search. No Nevitt.”
    Unlike me, gym-toned and karate-quick, Angel had a slight, almost too-delicate build. I couldn’t see her fending off anyone, let alone a deranged fan. “Does she still have that big body guard?”
    â€œThe Black Monk? Sure, but he can’t be around all the time. Even bodyguards have lives. Angel received another letter from Nevitt this morning and it has her so worried that she called and asked me to fly back and bring the girls here until the situation is resolved.”
    â€œBut you were just out there! I thought we’d be able to spend some time together.”
    He raised his eyebrows. “That, coming from you?”
    Sounds of the city below rose around us. Car horns. Dogs barking. A child crying. At least the noise from the nearby pool party had subsided, with Green Day’s shrill lead singer replaced by the seductive tones of Barry White.
    â€œMaybe I should go out there, too, see if I can do anything. Hey, we could even fly out together. What time’s your flight?”
    He gave me a look that started out grateful, then clouded over. “I’m just going to pick up the girls then head right back.”
    I noticed that he didn’t give me a flight time.
    ***
    I spent the evening in my unit at Kachina 24-Hour Storage, pushing my worries about Warren to the back of my mind while setting up surveillance equipment. I’d brought a directional mike connected to a recorder, but more importantly, a wireless remote-control camera equipped with a night vision lens so small that it would disappear into the oleanders. I didn’t expect the polygamists to discuss Celeste’s murder in the open air; they weren’t that naive. But there was always the chance that I might capture evidence of a crime—even a lowly misdemeanor—which would provide Scottsdale PD with enough