He’d be back tomorrow, though. And if things worked out as he suspected, he’d return here often. At least for a while. He’d find out what he needed to know. He always did.
He thought about the woman with the strong and elegant ballerina’s body, the way her hair flipped with each step as she strode with her long legs. So delicate and precise, with a grace one had to be blessed with at birth. He replayed the image over and over in his mind, studying it for meaning and vulnerability.
He was learning. He was stalking.
The next morning he found out where she worked.
He’d been waiting less than half an hour when she appeared outside her building, wearing jeans again (though these weren’t as tight) and a T-shirt with some sort of lettering across the back. He was too far away to read what it said. Her graceful stride lengthened as she headed in the direction of the subway stop where they’d emerged last night. He fell in behind her as he’d done yesterday.
He followed her to an Office Tech, one of the big-box chain stores that retailed office supplies and electronics. It wasn’t far from where she’d been shopping early yesterday evening.
Now he followed her into the store, along the aisles of electronics, seeing nothing in focus but her. Without hesitating she strode toward the rear of the store, occasionally nodding a good morning to some of her fellow employees. Closer to her now, he could read the lettering on the back of her T-shirt: PRACTICE RANDOM ACTS OF KINKINESS.
A joke. She thinks.
Her regal elegance was incongruous and somehow stimulating as she brushed through a swinging door into what must be a storage area. Apparently she didn’t work on the sales floor.
Not quite ready to be disappointed, he decided to hang around for a while. He browsed about, pretending to study notebook computers, printers, various computer supplies. Twice he had to assure salespeople that he didn’t need or want help. There were about half a dozen of them in the spacious store, all of them wearing identical pin-on green buttons with identical fake ink stains on them that, if you looked closely, resembled desktop computers. The Office Tech logo.
Ten minutes, and she hadn’t come out of the storage area. He was becoming impatient. Close behind her, he’d been able to pick up her scent, the harbinger of her fear. Of her excitement.
Almost immediately they know without knowing.
He heard one of the salespeople, an older woman, ask a young clerk if “Terri” had come in yet.
“Few minutes ago,” the clerk said. He was a skinny teenager with a wannabe mustache. “She’s in back moving stock.”
“I figured you’d notice,” the woman said, and they both smiled.
The older woman, apparently a supervisor, walked toward the back of the store.
Going to check on Terri? Make sure she’s working?
A small message board was mounted on the wall next to the door to the storeroom. It was one of those erasable ones of the sort you saw outside hospital rooms. The name “Terri Gaddis” was written on it, along with several other names. The woman used a writing instrument hanging on a string beside the board and put a checkmark next to Terri’s name.
In his mind, the man in the blue baseball cap put a checkmark next to Terri’s name.
Terri Gaddis.
He was about ready to give up for the morning and leave Office Tech when Terri emerged from the storeroom. She was wearing one of the green buttons with the logo ink stain.
So she did work on the sales floor.
It was still early, so there weren’t many shoppers in the gadget-lined aisles. She walked over and stood near a display of notebook computers, all with their screens glowing, and looked beautifully bored.
Well, he enjoyed shopping for computers, talking about them, learning. He enjoyed learning about almost anything. Who knew when any bit of knowledge might prove useful? So he wouldn’t completely tune out what Terri was going to tell him while he was primarily learning about her. Studying her from only a few feet away. Looking into her eyes as he must so he could see in them the commitment they would make to each other on a deeper level than her conscious knowledge. Those who were prey always recognized the predators, always accepted what would surely occur. Often the premeditation in what the courts called premeditated murder took two.
He walked toward her, smiling.
Terri Gaddis didn’t know it, but she was ready for her close-up.
24
“If I’d known it was going to be like this,” Quinn said, “I’d have seen a shrink sooner.”
They were in Zoe’s bedroom, in her king-sized bed. The window treatments were white-stick blinds that were halfway down. Diaphanous white sheer curtains over them admitted soft morning light.
Her apartment was also on Park Avenue, two buildings down from her office. It was on a high floor in a pre-war brick and stone tower that admitted very little sound from outside. Not a large apartment, it was well and eclectically decorated. Zoe’s dresser was a marble-topped French provincial work of art, while a large walnut wardrobe that supplemented her closet was an almost plain period piece. A chair near the bed was upholstered in maroon and had artfully turned wooden arms. The carpet that covered most of the polished hardwood floor was a multicolored Persian with an intricate design and variegated shading. Quinn knew a little about carpets and thought it was authentic. Everything looked expensive and should have appeared mismatched, but somehow it all went together.
“You had a great decorator,” he said.
He thought she’d tell him she’d decorated the place herself, but she said, “It looks all right. You live in a place, you get used to anything.”
She had a point. And he knew she hadn’t grown up in professionally decorated rooms.
“You’ll have to see my place,” he said, figuring she’d laugh. She didn’t disappoint him. “I did it myself,” he said.
“Very good. It’ll reflect you.”
She shifted her weight on the mattress so she could see him better, causing a fold of white sheet to drop and expose her right breast. He couldn’t swear she didn’t do it on purpose. Women moved so easily through the world of convenient chance. He leaned forward and kissed her nipple, feeling her fingers run through the hair on the back of his head, gently at first, then roughly, pulling him closer.
When after a few minutes he leaned back, she said, “I’m glad we took the chance.”
“It’s unanimous.”
He was about to get up when he heard the opening notes of “Don’t Cry for Me Argentina.”
“My cell phone,” he said, sitting up. The sheet fell away as he stood. He was aware of her watching him as he went to his pants folded on the maroon chair and fished the phone out of a pocket. He flipped open the lid, staring at the caller’s number on the tiny screen.
Pearl.
Just what I need.
“Yeah, Pearl.”
“I called your apartment and didn’t get an answer, so I figured you’d already left.”
“On my way in,” he said.
“Oh.” He knew she wouldn’t miss the fact that there were no traffic sounds in the background.
“Stopped for a bagel,” he said.
“Ah.”
Oh and Ah. It didn’t take much for Pearl’s antennae to pick up the slightest reason for suspicion. Or was Quinn simply feeling guilty and reading things into her tone?
Zoe was sitting up in bed, looking at him with one of her eyebrows arched. He shrugged helplessly. Damned Pearl!