I knew Eve was feeling the exhilaration, too. When I finally cruised by the front of Très Bonne Cuisine where she was waiting, she jumped into the car before I had a chance to come to a complete stop. Breathless, she pointed directly at my windshield. “That way! She went that way!”
I flicked on my signal and turned back into traffic with far more daring and far less civility than I usually displayed. I claimed my patch of street right between a dark sports car and a light-colored SUV, the driver of which had a few choice words to describe both me and my driving skills. Any other time, I would have been appalled, not to mention upset. But tonight, I didn’t care one bit. I was on a mission, one the SUV driver couldn’t possibly understand. And I wasn’t about to let a little thing like traffic stand in my way.
Up ahead, the traffic light turned from red to green, and I scanned the cars in the line in front of us. “What kind of car?” I asked Eve.
She buckled her seat belt. She was as jazzed as I was, and her eyes sparkled when they met mine. She gulped in a breath, so proud of her part in the hunt, she looked like she would burst. “Green.”
Good thing traffic was moving like molasses. We didn’t jerk (at least not too much) when I slammed on my brakes.
“Green? As in green sports car? Or green minivan? Or green sedan? What make of car is it? What year? Did you get a look at the license plate?”
Eve shrugged, and her smile wilted. “Green. It was green. You know, the same color as that winter coat I bought a couple years ago. The one I never wore because it made me look fat.”
The way I remembered it (and I knew I remembered it correctly), the coat in question never made Eve look anywhere near fat. But there was no use getting into that discussion again. We’d gone a few rounds at the time she bought the damn thing. What mattered now was that I remembered the coat. I knew exactly the color she was talking about. It was green, all right. Dark green. Like a Christmas tree.
Which was great, and actually might have been helpful if the traffic in front of us wasn’t as thick as flies at a church picnic, if it wasn’t just past sunset, and if, between the glow of the streetlights and the glare of the headlights from the cars headed toward us from the other direction, every car in the sea of cars didn’t look the exact same dark color.
I scrambled to come up with a plan B.
“Which lane did she get into?” I asked Eve.
She closed her eyes, thinking hard. “Right,” she said. “No. Left. Definitely left. She pulled away from the curb and angled her way across a couple lanes. Like she was going to turn.”
She imparted this piece of information just as we cruised under the light. I didn’t have time to wonder if it was right or wrong. I didn’t bother with a signal, either. I turned left.
Traffic wasn’t quite as heavy in this direction. I glanced over the cars up ahead. The bright lights of a bar washed over the sidewalk and out into the street; in the glow, I saw a green car.
“There!” I didn’t wait for Eve to confirm my hunch. I stepped on the accelerator, and we took off as fast as a four-year-old Saturn can. When the green car made a right at the next cross street, we did, too.
I hung back a little. Just in case it was Beyla. Just in case she looked in her rearview mirror and saw that we were following.
“What do you think?” I asked Eve.
She leaned forward and squinted to get a better look at the car twenty feet or so in front of us. “It looks like the right one. Maybe. I dunno. It could be. Yeah!” Her expression cleared, and she sat up straight and grinned. “It has one of those magnetic signs. One of those yellow ribbons on the back of the trunk. Beyla’s car had that. I remembered because I thought the yellow looked good against the green. Definitely. Yeah, it’s her.”
“Good. Let’s not lose her again.” I waved toward where I’d tossed my purse on the floor of the front seat. “Open the front zipper pocket,” I told Eve. “There’s a notepad in there, and a pen. Write down the license plate number, and that it’s a green Taurus. I don’t know the year; do you?”
I didn’t know why it mattered, either; I only knew I wanted all my ducks in a row. And I wasn’t talking ducks with orange sauce.
The traffic light up ahead was yellow, but when Beyla cruised through the intersection, I followed. When she turned, I turned. When she headed across the Potomac toward Georgetown, I glanced at Eve.
“What are the chances she’s heading for Arta?”
“The gallery?” Eve was skeptical. I was too busy concentrating on the road and on my quarry up ahead to spare her a look, but I could tell from the tone of her voice. “That doesn’t make any sense. If she’s got the computer disc and she’s trying to keep Yuri from finding it, she wouldn’t be taking it back to where she stole it from in the first place. Besides, just because we’re headed across the river doesn’t mean anything. There are a million other places in this direction.”
It was true; there were. But Beyla was headed to only one of them.
When we turned onto M Street, I knew I was right; that one place was Arta.
OK, so my smile was a little on the smug side when I turned it on Eve. But who could blame me? I was starting to get the hang of this Sherlock Holmes thing. And truth be told, I suspected-or should I say deduced?-that I was getting pretty good at it.
I stepped on the brakes and pulled up next to the curb in an area clearly marked No Parking, Bus Stop, watching as Beyla slowed just before she got to the gallery, then rounded the corner onto the nearest street. Though I couldn’t see her car, I knew from the faint red glow of brake lights that she’d stopped. I knew we had to act fast. If we were going to keep her in our sights, we needed a parking place, too.
Have I mentioned that finding a parking place in the D.C. Metro area is like trying to get out of the seventh circle of hell?
Except this time.
Like a gift from heaven, a spot opened up twenty feet ahead, across the street from and just a little ways past Arta. Before I had a chance to remind myself that I was scared to death by the very thought of parallel parking, I shot ahead, poked the gearshift into reverse, manuevered my car into place, and cut the engine and lights.
“Now what?” Eve whispered.
“I don’t know,” I whispered back. Not that there was a chance Beyla was going to hear us; she was across the street and around the block. But I guess there’s something about a stakeout that demands secrecy. “We’re going to have to check it out.” I paused, the wheels in my head turning a mile a minute.
“I’ll head over to the gallery,” I told Eve. “There’s got to be a back door. Maybe I can see if it’s open, see if she went in that way. Why don’t you-”
“Oh, no!” Eve shook her head so hard and so fast, it mussed her hair. Always conscious of appearances, she smoothed it back into place. “No way are you sending me off on my own. Not in the middle of the night in a strange part of town. I’m sticking with you. You’re in charge, fearless leader! Just tell me what to do-as long as it involves doing whatever I’m doing at the same time you’re doing it.”
There was no use even trying to argue with logic like that.
With a nod that told Eve I was ready, I slung my purse over my shoulder, opened my car door, and pointed across to the gallery. “Let’s take a look. Only we’re going to need to be quick. And quiet.” I mouthed the words and hoped that in the dark, Eve could see enough to know what I was saying.
I didn’t have to worry. Eve stuck to me like a limpet on a rock. Together, we crossed the street and closed in on Arta.
There was a spotlight trained on the burnt orange and turquoise Arta sign. Instinctively, I skirted its glow, keeping to the shadows. Maybe it was instinct, too, that told me to keep my back up against the wall. When we got as far as the front window of the gallery, I signaled Eve to stay put and pivoted to take a look.