Shaking and out of breath, she turned toward the ballroom. It was dead quiet under the swirling disco light. Everyone looked at her with what seemed like concern or pity. At any other time, Sheila would have been utterly humiliated, but not now.
She glanced down at the phone in her trembling hand. She had a clear shot of her stalker and his girlfriend. With their mouths open, they looked slightly startled.
She had something she could show Dylan later tonight.
Sheila straightened her headset. “It’s okay,” she heard herself say. “We had a little problem. But I think it’s going to be okay.”
CHAPTER NINE
Friday—6:44 P.M.
The pretty young brunette at the Pro Club’s front desk was folding white towels and neatly stacking them on the countertop. It was part of the towel service they provided for the members.
Dylan managed a smile for her. He’d already worked out, showered, and dressed. With his gym bag in tow, he headed toward the door. “Thank you,” he said.
“Have a nice night!” the girl called in a perky voice.
He pushed the door open and headed down the stairs toward the building’s lobby. His “nice night” would be pizza and Netflix at home with Steve and Gabe.
Dylan had secretly been planning for something quite different this evening. He’d hoped to bump into Brooke again. She’d said she would be working out tonight.
He wasn’t sure where it would have gone from there. He’d thought maybe he could persuade her to wrap up early and go for a walk with him—or maybe grab a drink someplace. It wouldn’t have mattered what they did. He’d wanted to see her, even if it meant just talking while on the elliptical machines again. Hell, he would have settled for that. He hadn’t expected to get laid—not tonight, at least. She clearly wasn’t the type. That was obvious from their last conversation. Telling him about her son dying of leukemia was hardly the kind of thing a woman talked about when she was ready to jump in the sack with a guy. What she seemed to feel for him was a lot more serious.
Or maybe he was projecting because he felt that way about her. It was strange that it could happen like that to him so fast. The last time around, he’d gotten such mixed signals from her. Dylan really needed to know where he stood with her. Did he even have a chance?
He certainly wasn’t going to find out tonight. He’d spent most of the last ninety minutes wandering around the club’s two floors of machines and weights, looking for Brooke. He had had one false alarm—a slender blonde with her hair in a ponytail who looked exactly like Brooke from behind. And every time he’d passed a mirror, he checked out his hair to make sure he looked his best for her. But it was all in vain.
Wasn’t meant to be, he thought, heading outside. He really hated that expression.
Dylan could feel fall in the night air as he walked down the block to where he’d parked his car. He pulled out his phone to order the pizza for the boys and him. He was scrolling down the phone screen for the number when he heard someone say, “Well, hello.”
Dylan glanced up to see her standing in front of him on the sidewalk. She carried a gym bag and wore a long black cardigan and jeans. Her blond hair was loose and wavy, framing her lovely face. She wasn’t wearing her glasses. Maybe she had some makeup on, but he couldn’t tell for sure. He just knew she looked even prettier than he remembered from Wednesday night.
“Hi,” Dylan said, happily dazed.
“Looks like we’re just missing each other,” she said.
Dylan gave a hesitant smile. He wondered if he should lie and pretend he’d just arrived at the club. He could say he’d started back to check on something in his car. Then they could work out together. He didn’t mind going back and working out again. But then, his gym clothes were already sweat-soaked and wrinkled.
“Are you okay?” she asked.
He laughed. “Yeah. I was kind of hoping I’d see you in there.”
“Well, I’m usually here earlier in the evening. But my husband had a last-minute work dinner thing tonight, and I was late heading out. It’s a long story.” She smiled. “You know, I thought about you last night.”
“Yeah?” He liked hearing that.
She nodded. “There was something about the railroads on the History Channel, and I remembered you said that your older son was into trains. Do you know the program I’m talking about? Did he see it?”
Dylan shook his head. “I don’t think so. Maybe we’ll catch it On Demand.” When she said she’d thought about him last night, he’d been hoping for something else entirely.
“Well, anyway,” she said. “It was nice running into you again, Dylan.” She started to move past him.
“Hey, would you have dinner with me?” he heard himself ask.
She stopped, turned, and stared at him.
“Just dinner,” he explained. “My wife is working at a dance tonight. So I’m supposed to have pizza with my two boys in front of the sequel to a sequel of some Marvel Comics superhero movie—and they couldn’t care less if I’m there or not.”
Dylan could see she was about to say no, so he kept talking: “You said your husband had a work thing. When’s he getting back?”
She shrugged and let out a little laugh. “Eleven, but—”
“Well, then you’ll be eating alone—alone and late, if you’re working out first. What were you going to have anyway?”
“For dinner?” She rolled her eyes. “Weight Watchers’ lasagna.”
“You don’t look like you need Weight Watchers.”
“Good to know those meals are paying off,” she said. “I’m not in the program. But I eat the microwave dinners sometimes.”
“You sure I can’t talk you into letting me take you out to dinner? I’d have you home by nine.”
She sighed. “I’m afraid I better pass.”
Dylan kept the pleasant look on his face. He’d already been a lot pushier with her than he wanted to be. He nodded politely. “I understand. Listen, have a good workout. I hope we run into each other again.”
Her smile waned. Dylan wondered if she was sorry he’d given up when he did. She stood there for another few moments.
“You know what?” she finally said. “I would love to go someplace for dinner with you. Can we?”
Dylan felt elated. “Well, yes, of course. Good.” He moved toward his car—a few feet away. “I’m right here.”
In his mind, he started checking off the precautions. He was getting ridiculously ahead of things, but after the restaurant, on his way back from dropping her off, he’d have to remember to drive home with all the windows down. He didn’t want Sheila smelling her perfume in the car again.
He had to cover his tracks with the boys and come up with some excuse for why he wouldn’t be back home for another hour or two. Then it occurred to him. What if something happened to them while he was off having dinner with this woman? What if Sheila was right about someone watching her and watching the house?
Dylan reminded himself that he’d walked all around the house in the wee hours of Thursday morning and hadn’t found any evidence of an attempted break-in. Sheila had just been on edge that night . . . and a little hammered, too.
He’d be back before nine o’clock. The boys would be fine.
He opened the passenger door for Brooke. “Why don’t you get in while I order the pizza for my kids?”
She climbed into the front seat, and Dylan shut the door. He phoned the pizza place and paid for it with his credit card, including a tip for the delivery person. Then he stepped farther away from the car as he called home.
He didn’t want Brooke to hear him lying to his sons.
*
“I want to watch this one,” Gabe announced, waving the DVD of Y Tu Mamá También at him. “It says on the back, it’s ‘unafraid of sexuality.’ And on the front, it says, ‘Wildly erotic.’ What’s erotic?”
“Erotic is another word for sexy,” Steve answered, studying the back of a DVD of Boogie Nights.
/> They sat on the floor of their parents’ bedroom, an open blue plastic storage bin about the size of a laundry basket between them. In the bin, beneath a pile of sweaters, their dad had stashed about thirty DVDs—all of the movies rated R or unrated, which usually meant super dirty. The bin was kept in the back of their parents’ bedroom closet—until just a few minutes ago, when Steve and Gabe had dragged it out to the bedroom. They’d left the closet door open, and the light was on, spilling just enough light into the darkened bedroom for Steve and his ten-year-old brother to examine the adult DVDs their parents had tried to hide from them.
Gabe was a head shorter than Steve, with a solid, athletic build, unruly golden-brown hair, and big green eyes. “Oh, he’s going to be a real heartbreaker when he grows up,” one of his mom’s friends had said about Gabe recently. Steve figured he’d lucked out as far as kid brothers were concerned, because Gabe looked up to him and was annoying and obnoxious only about fifteen percent of the time. Steve didn’t really mind babysitting or hanging out with him—except for that fifteen percent of the time.
They had planned on watching a movie with their dad tonight, but Steve had gotten a call from him about ten minutes ago. His father had forgotten that he was supposed to meet with a trainer at the gym, so he wouldn’t be home until nine o’clock. He said he would grab something to eat on the way home. But he’d ordered a large sausage pizza for them, and it was supposed to arrive around seven-thirty. “Is everything there okay?” his dad had asked.
After what had happened the other night, Steve didn’t want to be alone in the house with just Gabe while it was dark. But he figured he should grow a pair and tough it out until nine. He didn’t say anything to his father except that he and Gabe were probably going to watch Black Panther again on Netflix. That was okay with his dad. “Just nothing rated R,” he said. Steve thought that was kind of a silly thing to say, since every TV and computer in the house had parental controls.
As soon as Steve hung up, he checked all the doors to make sure they were locked. Then he explained the situation to his little brother. Gabe’s eyes widened. “We’re here alone until nine? Can we watch a dirty movie?”
“Y’know, at your age,” Steve replied, “watching a movie with sex and nudity could warp your mind. So, hell, yeah! But I’ll kill you if you tell Mom and Dad.”
Steve didn’t know who his parents thought they were fooling with the hidden treasure trove of forbidden movies. He and Hannah had known about it for about three years now. They’d seen about half the movies in that bin. He’d watched Basic Instinct at least five times—or parts of it. He hadn’t been aware that Gabe knew about the dirty movie collection, but apparently Hannah had spilled the beans to him a while back.
“I want to watch this ‘Yo-Yo Mama’ one,” he said, handing the DVD case to Steve.
He glanced at the back of the case and returned it to him. “Subtitles. Do you want subtitles running across the naked bodies? I don’t think so. And don’t get these out of order. Dad might have them stacked in there a certain way. If he sees it’s all screwed up, he’ll know we were looking at them.”
They finally decided on Body Heat, which delivered the goods right away with a glimpse of a naked woman getting out of bed with a guy right after the main titles. The boys watched it on the big-screen TV in the basement rec room. An awestruck Gabe made Steve replay the brief nude scene three times. Steve felt like he was corrupting him.
The next ten minutes of the movie featured just courtroom and lawyer’s office stuff, and a long scene in a restaurant with people talking about how hot it was out. Steve decreed that if it didn’t get better in five minutes, they’d fast-forward for nudity. Meanwhile, Gabe played a game on Steve’s phone and Steve started browsing through his dad’s high school yearbook, which had been gathering dust on the rec room bookshelf.
The yearbook was from his father’s senior year. He had about a dozen page numbers after his name in the index. The yearbook editor must have been in love with him or something because, besides all his sports team and extracurricular activities photos, there were several candid shots of his dad—and not a gawky one in the lot. For Steve, it was hard to believe his dad was only two years older than him in these pictures. He seemed so mature, handsome, and confident. Plus, it looked like practically the whole damn school had signed his yearbook.
Steve wasn’t very popular, but he’d never really cared about that until this year. Suddenly it mattered to him that he had nothing better to do on a Friday night than watch an R-rated movie with his kid brother.
Steve’s best friend since fourth grade had been Adam Bartleson. He was a pint-sized, good-looking kid with an olive complexion. He was also funny as hell. He had lived only three blocks away, and he and Steve had been inseparable. Looking back, they had done the dorkiest things together, but they’d always had fun. Then Adam moved away in July: Carlisle, Pennsylvania. Steve was miserable most of the summer. Going to the beach or to Dick’s Drive-In, exploring the city on his bike, and even playing video games just weren’t the same without his friend. Apparently, Adam wasn’t having the same problem. He’d already made a new best friend in Pennsylvania—Brad Something. After a few weeks, Steve’s and Adam’s texting and Skype sessions had fallen off drastically. In his last correspondence, Adam wrote that he and Brad had smoked some weed and gotten high. Steve was flabbergasted. His friend had had absolutely no interest in anything like that before he moved—and marijuana was legal in Washington State, although not for kids, of course. But Steve and Adam had been practically the only ones at school who hadn’t messed around with it. It was like his friend had moved away and completely changed on him.
So Steve spent the summer hanging out with his parents, watching TV, and reading about serial killers. Lots of fun. Steve figured if he wanted to avoid going crazy from boredom and loneliness, he’d better sign up for a sport at school. He picked gymnastics because it meant no one would try to hit him or expect him to catch or throw a ball. The team coach said Steve was starting out pretty late in life, but with his long legs, he might do well on the pommel horse. Plus, no one else from the sophomore class specialized on the horse, so by the time Steve was a senior, he might just be good enough to represent the school in some gymnastics meets.
Right now, he sucked, but he’d been practicing for only three weeks. The coach called him “Keeps Getting Up,” like some kind of honorary Native American name. It was a politically incorrect but painfully accurate moniker, because Steve was always falling and getting back up on the pommel horse. Still, he liked trying to master something. His hands were all blistered and calloused, which was actually kind of cool, even though they hurt. He hadn’t made friends with anyone on the team yet, but everybody was nice enough—at the very least, they seemed to tolerate him.
He’d recently shown his sore, raw-looking hands to his dad. And when Steve mentioned that he’d probably be sitting on the bench for most of the year, his father got a concerned look. “Listen,” he said. “If you don’t want to be on the gymnastics team, that’s okay. I mean, if you like it, great. But I hope you aren’t doing it for me.”
Puzzled, Steve shook his head. “No, actually, I’m kind of having fun.”
To Steve, it came across like his dad was saying, “Don’t bust your ass going out for a sport on my account, because it’s not going to make me like you more.”
Or maybe his dad was just trying to tell him that he loved him either way. And Steve knew that. But his father was so proud of Gabe, the jock of the family. And though she could be a total brat sometimes, Hannah had their dad wrapped around her little finger.
Steve knew his father tried hard to be his friend. But he didn’t have to try at all with Hannah or Gabe. With them, the connection was effortless.
His dad was under the impression Steve was still crazy about railroads from a brief fascination he’d had with old passenger trains for a couple of months back in eighth grade. His dad was still giving him railroad crap—miniatu
re engines and cabooses, commemorative railroad spikes, mugs with railroad logos, and all sorts of memorabilia. The walls to Steve’s small bedroom were covered with old railroad posters. Steve didn’t have the heart to tell his well-meaning dad that he’d lost interest in railroad junk at least two years ago.
Steve remembered the other night, when his dad almost said “like mother, like son.” The truth was, he was a lot more like his mom than he was like the handsome jock in this old yearbook.
“This woman sounds just like Jessica Rabbit,” Gabe commented, squinting at the screen. “Do you think she’s going to take her clothes off?”
Steve set the yearbook aside. “Your guess is as good—”
A series of knocks upstairs silenced him.
“Pizza!” Gabe announced.
“They’re early,” Steve murmured, glancing at his watch. He paused the movie in the middle of a scene with Kathleen Turner showing William Hurt the wind chimes on her balcony. He hurried upstairs to answer the door, and his brother followed him. “Get the Cokes and napkins, will you?” Steve asked as he passed through the kitchen. He headed toward the front hallway and the door.
But only a few feet from the door, he hesitated. Something was weird.
There was a stained-glass window on the upper half of their front door. At night, whenever a car with its headlights on pulled into the driveway, the colors in the stained glass became vivid—far brighter than when just the front porch light was on. Right now, the colored glass was dull and muted.
He wondered why the pizza guy hadn’t used the doorbell or knocked again. It had been at least a minute since the first series of knocks. Steve checked the peephole to the right of the window. He didn’t see anyone out there.
He took a deep breath, then unlocked the door and opened it.
The front porch was empty. And so was the driveway.
The night air gave him a chill. He glanced across the street at the park. At the far end, near the playground, he spotted someone passing under a streetlight along the walking path. Then the shadowy figure disappeared into the darkness. Whoever it was, they were walking away from the house. They were way too far away to have knocked on the front door just a minute ago.
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