by Camy Tang
“We know,” Monica said. “Thanks.”
Detective Carter wasn’t at the police station when they went to drop off the DVD, but Monica left a note for him with an officer who promised to make sure he looked at it when he returned. Shaun had also made an MP3 file of the conversation with the stalker and left that for the detective.
“I guess it’s kind of silly of me to think my case is his only priority,” Monica said as they were driving back to the Grants’ home.
Shaun glanced in the rearview mirror and stilled.
The old Honda Accord a few cars behind them had been behind them on the way to the police station.
It could be coincidence. The driver had gone somewhere near the police station, then left around the same time they did, on this street which was a major one into and out of downtown.
Or maybe it wasn’t the same Accord. The one he’d seen had been the same color—grayish silver from age and sun fading, well-worn and very dusty. This one seemed the same, but he couldn’t be entirely sure. Old Honda Accords weren’t common, but they weren’t rare, either.
Monica picked up on his concern. “What is it?”
“I’m not sure.” He didn’t want to alarm her, but… “Take four left turns.”
“Are we being followed?” She gave a quick glance in her rearview mirror.
“I don’t know. Let’s find out.”
For once he was almost glad he wasn’t driving, because he was able to keep his eye on the Accord and try to get a license plate number or a look at the driver. All he saw was a shadowy figure who wore sunglasses.
“Drive normally,” he told Monica. “Not too fast. If there is someone tailing us, you don’t want to let him know we’re on to him.”
She tapped her fingers on the steering wheel, but her face was calm. “I want to draw him out.”
“No heroics. Remember what your aunt told you.”
Monica took a left turn onto a side street. “I’ve known he had to be tailing my car for the past few weeks, or else he couldn’t have known where I’d be. But this is the first time we might actually see him there.”
“I’ll look. You keep your eyes on the road.”
She took another left turn. “Can you see him?”
Shaun shook his head. “When you turned, he hadn’t yet made the first left turn.”
“Maybe we’re not being followed.”
Somehow, he doubted that.
She took two more left turns, but the Accord didn’t appear behind them. They were finally back on the main road and he scanned the cars behind them. No Accord. Maybe they hadn’t been followed. Maybe it was all in his head.
No, he had to keep his head in the game. He couldn’t afford to slip up with this guy.
Then, as they were nearing the edge of town, he saw it, gleaming dully in the overcast light, several cars behind them.
He turned back around in his seat and looked at where they were. They’d been safer in the middle of the town, but now they were heading out into open countryside. It was too deserted. “Can you get back to town?”
“Is he there?” Her voice had a wobbly edge to it.
“We don’t want to get to a lonely stretch of road. Can you turn around somewhere?” There were vineyards on either side of the road and narrow strips of grass for the shoulder.
“We’re not out of town yet, so there are still lots of cars. I’d have to pull over and wait for a break in traffic to pull a U-turn.”
No, he didn’t want them to be stopped on the side of the road and unable to turn. “Where else can you turn?”
“A mile or two up ahead is a stoplight. I can slow down as I get there and try to gun through before it turns red. If he’s far enough behind us, he’ll be stuck at the stoplight.”
“But we’d be getting farther out into the countryside. We need to get back to town.”
“If that doesn’t work, I can turn right at Olson’s Crossing. It’s a road that loops around Farmer Olson’s property and shoots you back out onto the main road again. We can head back to town then.”
“Okay, let’s do it.”
As she drove, he had a fleeting thought that here was the perfect opportunity to catch this man, to lure him out, to find out once and for all who he was. But his desire to capture the stalker warred with his desire to protect Monica only for a second—Monica came first.
“Here we go.” She slowed the car down as they started to approach a stoplight ahead. It regulated a three-way intersection.
“Don’t get us stuck at the light,” Shaun said.
“Trust me.”
In a strange way, he did. But trust her driving? That was another matter.
Cars behind her started to honk. She ignored them and kept a slow pace as she approached the light.
Green turned yellow.
She slowed down even more.
Her lips were moving, and Shaun realized she was counting.
“Six,” she said. Then gunned the engine.
Her car shot through the intersection just as the light turned red. The car next in line behind her didn’t have time to accelerate and coast through the intersection with her, and was stuck at the light.
With the Accord three cars behind.
She let out a long breath and leaned back in her seat. Her hands were shaking slightly.
“How did you do that?” Shaun asked.
“In high school, my friends and I would play pranks on each other. We’d purposely try to leave each other at the light. I got good at counting and knowing when to accelerate.”
They rode in silence for a while, then she said, “We should have tried to get a better look at him.”
“No,” Shaun said firmly. “He’s angry. We don’t know what he’d do.”
Then he looked back and saw the Accord. Accelerating fast.
“He’s found us,” Shaun said. “He must have passed the other cars in front of him. Your car is faster. You can lose him.”
“But in a few yards, the road becomes winding,” Monica said. “We’ll be on equal footing.”
“Is there anywhere to turn?” High banks edged the road now, along with some pine trees.
“No, but the winding part only lasts a mile or two, then becomes straight. I can outrun him.”
If they got there.
She took the first curve too fast, and her tires squealed.
“Don’t crash,” he said.
“Let me do the driving,” she said. “You see if you can see his face.”
The Accord’s dirty windshield masked the driver’s features. All Saun could see was the dark shadows on the man’s sunglasses. There was no license plate on the front of the car.
As she took turn after turn, Shaun realized that she did know her car better than he did, and she pushed the car to its limit on each curve. She took them at alarming speeds, but she never lost control of the car. The Accord began to drop back.
They shot out into a long stretch of open road, but then she started to slow down.
“What are you doing?” Shaun demanded.
“I know what I’m doing.” She kept glancing in the rearview mirror.
The Accord appeared behind them and Shaun heard the old engine grind and roar as the man sped up after them.
“He’s gaining on us.”
“Good,” she said.
Closer. Closer. Still Monica slowed down her car.
“He’s going to hit us!” Shaun said.
“No, he’s not!” Monica sharply pulled the car to one side of the road and hit the brakes.
She’d been going slow enough that the car didn’t veer out of control, but the Accord scraped the side with a shriek of metal as it shot past them. Shaun felt the steel vibrations in his teeth.
He also remembered to look at the rear license plate number: 2PSK0 something.
Monica then turned the car around in a tight U-turn on the narrow road and shot back the way they’d come.
“I can lose him again in the winding part,�
�� she said.
Shaun turned and saw only the taillights behind them. “I don’t think he’s going to try to follow us. He’s driving away.”
She executed the winding stretch of road at a slightly slower speed, and they kept their eyes open behind them for the Accord, but it never appeared again.
“I owe you an apology,” Shaun said.
“For what?”
“You definitely can drive defensively. Maybe even better than me.”
She gave him a dry sidelong look. “It also helped that I once dated a race car driver.”
EIGHT
A few days later, Monica tried not to look around as she and Shaun walked down the street toward Lorianne’s Café. “Are we being followed?”
“I don’t know.”
Her entire back tingled, and she could almost feel the stalker’s eyes on her.
“Slow down,” Shaun said. “If you walk too quickly, you’ll look nervous.”
They had to look normal. They couldn’t do anything to make the stalker think anything was wrong. Not just yet.
They entered the restaurant, and Lorianne met them with a serious expression rather than her typical hug for Monica. “I hope you know what you’re doing.”
Monica hoped so, too.
They followed Lorianne, who sat them at a table in the middle of the dining area—not too close to the window, but not too far in the back where someone spying on the restaurant from outside couldn’t see Monica and Shaun sitting down.
“All right, here I go.” Monica got up, leaving her purse, and headed to the women’s restroom.
Her sister Naomi met her just inside the door. “For the record, I think this is too dangerous.”
“For you or for me?” Monica shed the bright white coat she’d worn and helped Naomi to put it on.
“For you, of course,” Naomi said.
“All we need is for you and Shaun’s brother Brady to pose as us for a few minutes. Just long enough for us to sneak out the back and lose him.”
“We don’t look that much alike.” Naomi pulled out a dark wig from a tote bag she’d brought with her, and Monica helped her adjust it on her head.
“You don’t need to look exactly like me, just close enough that someone couldn’t tell from a distance.”
“What if he comes inside the restaurant?”
“Shaun thinks he probably will. But by the time he manages to get a look at you and realizes it’s not me, we’ll be gone and he won’t have a clue where we went.” Monica helped her shove her light brown hair up under the dark tresses of the wig. “Keep your eyes open. You might get a look at him.”
Naomi tugged at the wig. “Aunt Becca said you’ve been getting more pictures.”
Monica nodded. “Every day. He sends photos he took a few days earlier.” After following them a few days ago, it appeared he’d continued to follow them in the days since. She shivered a little. She could almost feel the heat of his anger as she flouted his command for her to stop work on the clinic.
“Okay, you look close enough.” She looked at the two of them in the bathroom mirror. Monica and Naomi had always looked the most alike of the three sisters, although Naomi had a rounder face and hazel eyes, and Monica had darker hair and clear amber eyes.
Naomi exited the women’s restroom, which wasn’t visible from the windows or doors at the front of the restaurant, and went to sit in Monica’s chair. Monica slipped out of the restroom and headed through the kitchens to sneak out the back of the restaurant. Everyone was busy and no one paid her much attention, but she scrutinized each face. Would the stalker have already snuck into the restaurant posed as one of the staff? Or would she meet him at the back door on her way out?
The thought made her hesitate before the back door, but then she felt a tall presence behind her and whirled around.
It was Shaun. “Let’s go.” He pushed the door open.
The alley in the back of the restaurant was empty, and they headed down to a side street where Shaun’s brother Brady had parked his SUV. At this moment, Brady was having lunch with Naomi in Shaun’s place.
“Did you get as much of an earful as I did?” Shaun asked her.
“They’re just worried about us.”
“I still don’t think this is a great idea.” They reached the SUV, parked on a deserted side street, and Shaun unlocked the doors.
“We’re not doing anything reckless.” Monica got into the passenger seat.
“We’re playing cloak and dagger with our siblings.”
“Do you really want the stalker to follow us as we visit the private investigator he hired to get my phone number?” Monica demanded. “I’m sure my stalker would be thrilled to let us talk to John Butler.”
“Detective Carter got nothing from Butler.” Shaun started the engine and looked over his shoulder before pulling away from the curb. “What makes you think you can do any better?”
Monica fished the sunglasses she’d stowed in her pocket and slipped them on, in case the stalker caught a glimpse of her driving past him. “I don’t have high expectations. But I have to at least talk to him, maybe make him understand that his client is stalking me. Put a face to the name of that telephone number he acquired.” Maybe appeal to his softer side, to tell them where to find his client.
She had to try.
They drove out of Sonoma and headed into San Francisco, then farther south to Daly City. Detective Carter had reluctantly given Monica the name of the man he’d identified from the surveillance video at the DVD rental store, but she knew the detective had been forced to do it because she had the right to press charges. It didn’t escape her that Detective Carter told her about John Butler only after he’d already spoken to the private investigator.
Shaun and Monica had both immediately realized that Butler’s client must be her stalker.
The section of town that Butler’s office was located in had a dingy gray film over everything—the buildings, the cars, the street, even the sky looked more overcast. They parked on the street in front of a tiny Chinese bakery with iron bars over the front windows, and entered a door to the side of the bakery that had a crooked sign that read, John Butler, Private Investigator.
The door opened into a narrow hallway and a steep flight of concrete stairs. They climbed the stairs to the apartment above the bakery and knocked on a wooden door with faded green paint peeling off it in strips.
Heavy footsteps sounded, then a pause as Butler looked through his peephole. The pause was so long, Monica wondered if maybe he’d been warned she was coming and wouldn’t open the door to them. She raised her hand to knock again, but the door cracked open.
“Can I help you?”
Not very friendly for a man greeting potential customers.
“John Butler?” She tried to put on a warm smile, but it felt sickly on her lips. “My name is—”
“I know who you are.” His beady black eyes narrowed, making his round face appear even larger.
“I just wanted you to meet me,” she said. “I wanted you to see the woman your client is stalking.” She used the word deliberately, to try to shock him into any sort of reaction, but the only reaction she got was a snort of derision.
“Yeah, yeah. You can tell me any story you want, it’ll still be what my client says versus what you say.”
“Don’t you even care that he’s threatened her life?” Shaun growled. “He tried to ram her car a few days ago.”
“He obviously didn’t succeed, which means you’re either a race car driver or he wasn’t trying too hard.” Butler’s thick red lips sneered at them.
“Please,” Monica said. “Won’t you let us come inside? Let me explain—”
“You can talk right where you’re standing,” Butler replied. “And it doesn’t mean I have to listen.”
“This man is trying to kill me,” Monica said. “And he already killed Shaun’s sister. Please just tell us who he is so he won’t hurt any more women.”
His mouth tight
ened for a moment, and he blinked once. Then the sharpness returned to his black eyes and he said, “I couldn’t tell you if I wanted to. He told me his name was John Smith, and he paid in cash.”
Monica bit her lip. Of course he had.
“When was this?” Shaun asked.
“He came to me about three weeks ago. Wanted your address, phone number, all that. I found your San Francisco info first but he wanted your Sonoma address.”
Something squirmed inside her at the thought of this man and the stalker finding out her personal information so easily, in only a few weeks.
“What did he look like?” Shaun asked.
“Average,” Butler said impatiently. “Brown hair, brown eyes, big nose. Eyes close together. Look, are we done? I was up all night doing surveillance.”
Monica pulled out her business card, the one she’d had made for the free children’s clinic, and then realized it had her cell phone number. If she’d met the stalker at the Zoe banquet and talked to him about the clinic, he already had her business card and her cell phone number. The stalker had deliberately wanted Butler to get her home phone number, the one that was harder to find, in order to intimidate her more.
“If you think of anything else, please call me,” she said to Butler.
He grunted, but took her card.
Shaun also gave him his business card, and then Butler closed the door in their faces without even saying goodbye.
The stairs seemed longer and steeper on the way down. All this way for nothing. She’d thought Butler might have been a little kinder toward the end of the brief conversation, but he was still a hard-nosed businessman with questionable morals. He didn’t care enough to want to help her.
On the drive back to Sonoma, she said, “Now it all seems silly—asking Naomi and Brady to switch places with us, driving all this way.”
“We got a description,” Shaun said.
“We got lots of descriptions from all those other people we talked to.”
“But this was a P.I. They’re not bystander eyewitnesses. Their business is paying attention to faces and details. Butler wasn’t very descriptive, but his picture of the stalker matches a couple other people we talked to.”
“Average. Brown hair and eyes, big nose, close-set eyes.”