by Liz Jasper
The footsteps I thought I’d heard on my walk the other night and the person I thought I’d seen in the alley took on sinister new meaning. So did Gavin’s repeated appearances in my life. I thought back to his story and reconsidered all the gaping holes and absurd rationales that I had cowardly ignored. What had I been thinking, not calling the police after a complete stranger had spent the night uninvited in my apartment? Even if I had initially believed his story about being an overly conscientious taxi driver, it hadn’t been more than a half hour before the real taxi service had debunked it. Having the flu was no excuse for stupidity.
I spent the night sleeping with one eye open, one hand wrapped around an old baseball bat. By morning, my fear had been replaced with resolve. No more huddling inside, no more freaking out over “what if”. I was going to check Gavin’s story. Today.
I didn’t have a convenient friend who could run plates for me. I had to do it the good old-fashioned way. As soon as school was out, I was going to the police.
Chapter Six
* * *
I handed the completed forms to the uniformed desk sergeant. He accepted them absently, his focus clearly on other things.
“Look,” I began, and then stopped. I forced myself to switch to a more respectful salutation. “Excuse me, Officer, ah, Brady?”
“Yes, miss?”
It was a start. “Officer, I’m very concerned about this man. I believe he is stalking me.”
His response was cut short by another officer who came by to ask him a question. The station was busy, but this was ridiculous. I stared intently at his head, willing him to pay attention to me. Eventually, he turned back. “Yes, miss?”
“The stalker?” I said to jog his memory.
“I have the papers you filled out right here, miss. I assure an officer will get right on it, the moment one is free. But I must tell you, miss, we’re very busy. Since a crime hasn’t been committed, I’m afraid I have to inform you your alleged stalker is low on our priority list.”
“Can’t you at least run his plates? Make sure he isn’t a psycho? He drives a blue Jetta. It has a bike rack on it. Yakima.”
The officer’s pale blue eyes focused on me for the first time. I must have looked as desperate as I felt for he took pity on me. “You say you wrote down the license plate number?”
“1CJI110,” I said, reciting from memory. “I wrote it on the form.”
“Hold on please, miss. Just one moment.”
He left and had a quick talk with another officer, who came forward and looked at me curiously. “Hi, Miss…”
“Gartner. Jo Gartner.”
“Miss Gartner. Follow me, please.” He took me to a small, windowless office and gestured at the utilitarian chair in front of a messy desk. “Someone will be right with you,” he said. He disappeared back into the bowels of the Police Department.
I gave myself points for having had the initiative to get the license plate number. It just goes to show what a little ingenuity and persistence can do for you—it had gotten me from the bottom of the waiting list to the top.
Ten minutes passed. Then fifteen. As the clock ticked past the twenty minute mark, I began to wonder if they’d stowed me there just to get me out of the way. Just as I’d drummed up the courage to go find the officer who’d put me there, the door opened to admit the back half of a plain-clothed officer. It was a rather nice back half, as things go, but that didn’t keep me from becoming impatient as his conversation with whomever was in the hallway lagged on.
No sooner had the last words fallen from his mouth than he was moving again. He had gotten half the distance to his desk in two great strides before he realized he wasn’t alone.
He stopped dead and stared at me. His face blanched slightly under his tan, bringing his bent nose into stark relief.
I stared back. “You!” I sputtered. I stood, collected my purse and headed for the door.
This roused him back into motion. “Jo? What the hell are you doing— Hold on.” He grabbed my arm and escorted me back to the hard little chair. Then he shut the door and stood squarely in front of it.
“What are you doing here?” he demanded.
I glared at him, outraged. He was taking that tone with me?
“Well, Officer, er…” Drat it, I couldn’t remember his last name. “Gavin, if that is your occupation and your name—”
“Detective Gavin Raines,” he supplied politely. An unsaid At your service, ma’am hung in the air. My temper ratcheted up a couple notches.
“Detective—” I corrected waspishly. “I am here to report that a man pretending to be a taxi driver is stalking me. He broke into my house and spent the night uninvited on my couch. He drives a blue Jetta with a bike rack and I have seen it parked near my house the past few nights. The good news is I am now able to positively identify him for the desk sergeant and will take no more of your time.” I stood up again but didn’t get very far with my grand exit because Gavin was still blocking the door like a sentry.
I planted myself two feet in front of him, and if a glare could have burned a path through him, mine would have. “I’ll probably get a medal, since it appears he’s also masquerading as a police officer and a graduate student. You might even pick him up on false ID charges. A minor infraction, I know, but you know how the police are these days, honesty above all, and—”
His composure finally broke. “Sit down!”
He closed his eyes and leaned back against the door. “Sit, Jo, please.”
I sat.
“Ah, hell,” he said, rubbing his temples. “How did you— Brady’s got desk duty, doesn’t he? Probably recognized the plates right off. The next time his wife kicks him out, he can stay in a hotel.” He fixed me with those unusual grey eyes. “Let me explain.”
I crossed my arms and leaned back defiantly in my chair. “It better be good.”
He spoke quickly, all trace of the bashful graduate student gone. “Four people, two women and two men, have been abducted and murdered in the past two months, all of them last seen in downtown restaurants. We believe the abductions are related, part of a,” he hesitated slightly, “gang initiation. We had a tip some members of this gang might be at the club the night you were there. When I saw you come in from the porch, visibly upset, clearly having been in some sort of skirmish, I wondered if you had narrowly escaped becoming the next victim. I checked the porch area to see who you’d been with, but it was empty, and I was concerned he might be waiting for you out front, intending to follow you home.
“When I went back inside, you had left the dance area. Fortunately, I found you back with your colleagues, overheard you telling them you were going to take a taxi. I had my car pulled around and took you home instead. You know the rest.” He shrugged.
I mulled this over quietly. “How did you get the UCLA card?” It wasn’t the question I thought I’d ask.
“My alma mater. I banked on your not noticing the date sticker was missing, and you didn’t. I saw all the science textbooks on your shelves and figured you’d relax if I told you I was a grad student. I chose something far enough outside your field that you wouldn’t ask questions.” He gave a quick smile. “The ‘dissertation’ was based on an article I read in a magazine at the doctor’s office.”
I didn’t return the smile. “How very clever of you.” I got to my feet. “Now, if you’re quite through mocking me, I have papers to grade.”
This time he slowly stepped aside. I was halfway through the door before I realized he wasn’t going to let me pass. As I stood, trapped, he reached out a hand and slowly pushed back my hair to reveal the bandage strip on my neck. His grey eyes burned into mine. “You should be more careful,” he said.
I pushed him aside and left the way I had come, my sensible low heels making angry clicking noises on the linoleum.
I sat in my car in the police station parking lot, practicing yoga breathing until I was calm enough to drive. As my temper cooled, I reviewed what he’d told m
e. Not much, I realized. He’d carefully left out any and all useful information. But then, he hadn’t asked me anything of importance, either. Not a single question about Will. Surely, since Will had somehow managed to leave the back area before Gavin arrived, the detective would have wanted a description at least. The more I thought about the past ten minutes, the less they made sense.
I began to get angry again, this time at myself. Why did I keep letting the man spin me gossamer tales? I should have stayed there and made him tell me more. I had a hundred questions I hadn’t gotten a chance to ask because he’d gotten me riled up and I’d dutifully stormed out like a fool. But as badly as I wanted answers, I wasn’t about to go back in there. He’d won this round, but I wasn’t done with Detective Gavin Raines. Not by a long shot.
Despite my resolve to keep a cool head, I was disappointed when I got back from my run that evening and saw no signs of Gavin or his Jetta. I was still angry enough to hanker for another run-in with the detective. After a long hot shower and a quick dinner, I sat staring at a stack of ungraded papers for twenty minutes without making a single mark before I gave in and went back out to look for the Jetta. I walked around the block twice before I accepted that Gavin wasn’t coming.
Why? Why would he stop staking out my place now? Nothing that man did made any sense! I headed back up the stairs to my apartment, but instead of going in I sat on the top step to mull things over. As I sat staring out to the street, a gold Ford Escort drove by, slowing slightly as it passed. I recognized the car because I’d parked next to it at the police station.
Gavin might not be following me anymore, but one of his minions was. Probably Officer Brady, if I read Gavin right. After another slow turn around the block, the car parked a little way down the street. No one got out. It was so obvious a stakeout it was almost an insult. I wondered if it was deliberate.
I sketched a wave to the officer and went back inside, sat down at my desk, pushed my students’ papers aside and began to plan. Really plan. This was war. If they were still watching me, they must think I was withholding information. That or I was still on the murderer’s list. And yet all Gavin had done was tell me to be careful.
I didn’t think much of the police work on this case. They hadn’t exactly done a stellar job with the other four victims, had they? Gavin had as good as admitted the last girl had been abducted right under his nose.
I needed to protect myself. And if the detective wasn’t going to level with me, give me the information I needed to arm myself, I would just have to go get it. The stalkee was becoming the stalker.
Chapter Seven
* * *
The next evening I waited until the sun went down before heading back to the police station. The darkness fit my mood and my purpose. As it was about the same time I’d gone the day before, I expected Gavin would still be at work, and I was right. After a little hunting, I found his Jetta in the back lot reserved for officers. I parked on a side street, gathered my “to grade” folder in case I had a long wait and ducked into the coffee shop across from the station.
The coffee shop was one of those old mom-and-pop joints that looked as if it had been around forever and probably had. Under its load of framed, signed portraits of grinning customers, the walls were a comforting color of coffee whitened with cream. Padded booths covered in well-worn avocado-green vinyl lined the perimeter. The rest of the place was crammed with an irregular assortment of heavily varnished tables, bumped out of alignment by the legs and hips of customers trying to squeeze by. A heady smell of coffee, grilled onions and bacon filled the air. The place was busier than I would have expected.
As I hovered uncertainly a few feet inside the door, a passing waitress told me the drill—table service and dinner at the booths, coffee orders at the counter. Ignoring the rumbling of my stomach, I opted for the latter and scanned the menu board while a crusty old proprietor waited, his pencil stub hovering impatiently over a small, plain white pad of paper. Normally I would have ordered a latte—they were on the menu—but it would have taken more courage than I possessed to bring up foam preferences with that man. I ordered a plain black coffee.
He slapped a thick white mug on the counter, told me refills were a quarter and moved on to the person who had queued behind me while I dallied. I was headed toward the window to scout for a table when I felt a tap on my elbow.
I turned to see a familiar blond head. “Bob?” This was the last place I expected to find anyone from ritzy Bayshore, even another teacher.
“Hey, Jo,” he said, greeting me with a friendly smile. “Looks like my secret’s out.” He gestured toward the thick stack of papers he’d been grading. “I come here to grade. It’s the only coffee shop I know of that the students don’t go to.”
Poor Bob. I wouldn’t be surprised if some of the more assertive female students followed him home. I gave him a sympathetic pat on his burly shoulder. “Your secret’s safe with me,” I assured him. “Is this place always this busy on weeknights?”
“Only on Blue Plate Special Tuesdays. Entrees are half-off before six. Otherwise it’s dead as a doornail.”
Before he could ask me what I was doing there, a short, athletic-looking woman in her early thirties hailed Bob from the doorway and headed toward us.
Bob performed the introductions. “Rachel, this is Jo, our eighth-grade science teacher. Rachel used to be my assistant soccer coach, but she’s head coach over at Polytech now.” He gave her an exaggeratedly martyred look and then clapped her good-naturedly on the back. “It was a huge loss for Bayshore, but I’m not surprised someone snapped her up, she’s a great coach! We all miss her terribly.”
Rachel’s plain face glowed from the praise but she modestly shook her head. After she and I exchanged the usual pleasantries, she pointed to her watch and said to Bob, “We should get going, the game starts in half an hour and there might be traffic.”
“Is it that late already?” Bob quickly stacked the papers he’d been working on and stowed them in a soft canvas case. “We’re going to check out the competition,” he told me. “Silton Prep has a good soccer team this year, Bayshore will probably face them in the division finals. Wanna come?”
God, no. “Thanks, but I’m swamped. Lab reports.” I held up my bag, glad I had thought to bring some along. “I’ll take your table, though.”
When they left I did a quick survey of the parking lot to make sure Gavin hadn’t slipped away while I was chatting, and then settled down to do some work. I got through a scant handful of the lab reports I needed to grade that night before an eye strain headache kicked in. I really needed to go see an ophthalmologist about some glasses. Even if, as I still chose to believe, my “sun allergy” was only a temporary condition, papers waited for no man. The thought of all the finals I would have to grade once the semester ended made me decidedly queasy. I turned away from my papers with a sigh and stared out the window. Gavin was getting into his car.
Drat it! I shoved the labs back into my bag and ran to my car, but by the time I made the light, he was gone.
The rest of my week of stalking went much the same way—that is, badly. On the second night I tried hanging out in my parked car instead of in the coffee shop, but after a police cruiser circled the block twice, slowing each time it passed, I gave up on that plan and went back to the coffee shop. The third night, I managed to catch up with Gavin, only to lose him again after two blocks.
The coffee shop, meanwhile, was quickly on its way to becoming a Bayshore hangout. A few days after seeing Bob there, I ran into Kendra, literally. I was rushing out a little before six, intending to get to my car before Gavin got to his, and collided with her in the doorway.
“Kendra! Hi. Sorry I almost mowed you down there,” I said, steadying myself on a newspaper rack. “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine.” She had changed from her usual teaching uniform of neatly pressed khaki pants and cotton shirt into dark sweatpants that flattered her lean physique. She probably had come straig
ht from working out or coaching. As usual, she made me feel like the worst couch potato. “Where’s the fire?”
Through the glass door behind her, I saw Gavin’s blue Jetta exit the parking lot. “What? Oh. I don’t think I put enough money in the meter,” I lied.
She checked her watch. “You should be fine. You can park for free after six, you know.”
“I know, but I’ve still got a couple minutes to six by my watch. I’d better check that meter in case the meter maids are trying to get in a few last tickets before the shift ends. You can have my table if you want.” I pointed over to where I’d been sitting, and rushed out, leaving Kendra standing a little bemusedly in my wake.
Gavin was long gone.
The following Monday, I arrived at five-forty-five and made loops around the block. I almost missed seeing Gavin. He was leaving early.
I pulled into a bus zone until he passed me, let a few cars get between us, and then pulled out after him, feeling like a P.I. from the movies. Until I lost him. I cursed my incompetence until I realized where he was going—my apartment. It was merely his night for a stakeout. I stopped driving like a lunatic and just headed home.
Gavin wasn’t there. After some more cursing and a few ever widening loops around town, I found him—or rather, his car parked near the local sports bar. I wasn’t sure if he was there for business or pleasure, but there was only one way to find out. I parked and went in.
He wasn’t at the bar or in the pool table area, which meant he was either in the men’s room or had gone out to the back deck. The bartender was already giving me odd looks—apparently I was as bad at lurking inconspicuously as I was at tailing—so I decided to try the back deck first.
It was a weeknight—no cover charge—and cold. They hadn’t hired a bouncer to man the back door so there was no one to notice or care as I opened the door just wide enough to slip through.