The Follower (34 page)

She felt good, healthy. What was that saying? You had to be comfortable with yourself before you could be comfortable with someone else? Well, that was going to be her new motto.

While she was midway through her spicy maki combo, her mother called.

“Hi, Mom.”

“Where are you?”

“At sushi.”

“Oh, sorry to disturb you. Are you with a friend?”

“No, I’m alone.”

“Alone?” Her mother sounded all judgmental.

“Yep,” Katie said confidently.

“Why didn’t you go with a friend?”

“Mom, stop it. This is New York. It’s no big deal here.”

“I forgot, you’re a big city girl now. So how’re you doing?”

“Okay.”

“Yeah? Did the police make any arrests yet?”

“Not yet…I mean, I didn’t hear anything.”

“Well, as long as you’re okay. I worry about you.”

“There’s nothing to worry about, Mom. I’m fine.”

“So what else is new? Have you been going to work?”

Usually she didn’t like to reveal a lot of personal details about her life to her mother, knowing it would lead to a lot of prying and questioning. But she felt like telling her about Peter, just to see if she knew more about him and his past.

“Yeah, I’ve been going to work, but something strange is happening actually. Well, not really strange but…You remember Peter Wells?”

“Peter Wells, hmm. Why does that name sound familiar?”

“He was friends with Heather?…In high school?”

Silence for a few seconds, then, “Oh, I remember Peter Wells. Very weird boy.”

That word again—
weird
.

“Why do you say that?”

“Well, he was stalking Heather.”

Katie started coughing. The hacking got worse as some wasabi burned the back of her throat.

“Are you okay?” her mother asked.

Katie sipped her water, then said, “Fine, wait,” and coughed again. Then she said hoarsely, “What do you mean, stalking her?”

“You’re too young to remember. You were how old, twelve? He was friends with her and then he wanted to be her boyfriend, but she wasn’t interested. He kept following her around school and town, that kind of thing. If I’m remembering right, Dad even talked to his father about it.”

“He did?”

“It was upsetting Heather. Anyway, Dad told his father that he wanted Peter to stay away from Heather and that was the end of it. Why? What about him?”

Still surprised by this revelation, Katie said, “Oh, I, um, I met him in New York.”

“You met him? Where?”

Her mother suddenly sounded very concerned. Katie was embarrassed to admit she’d gotten so involved with Peter, that she’d actually gone on dates with him. She also knew that if she told her Mom that she thought Peter had been stalking her, and had bought her the apartment and the ring and gone overboard in so many ways, her parents would get all overprotective and insist on coming to the city and make a whole big production out of it.

So, deciding to downplay it, Katie said, “Oh, it’s no big deal. He was just working at the health club where I work out. But he’s not even working there anymore.”

“Stay away from him, Katie.”

“I just told you, he doesn’t even work there anymore.”

“You were talking to him?”

“Of course I was talking to him. I mean, just hello, how’ve you been, that kind of stuff. Don’t worry.”

“Good. Just stay away from him. I’m telling you, that boy’s trouble.”

Katie told her mother she wanted to finish her dinner and would call her later. She was relieved to get off the phone, but she’d lost her appetite. She managed a few more bites, then asked for the check.

On her way home, she called Himoto—just to make sure he’d gotten her previous message—but again she got his voice mail. This time she left a more detailed message, telling him that if he hadn’t solved Andy’s murder yet, there was a guy named Peter Wells she thought he should talk to.

A few minutes later, walking down her block toward her building, Katie felt uncomfortable, looking around a lot for Peter. Then she opened the outer door to her building and entered the vestibule, and full-blown panic set in when she saw the note with KATIE handwritten on it, wedged against the pane of glass of the inner door. She had no idea what Peter’s handwriting looked like, but she was convinced he’d left the note. She wasn’t sure what she should do. Should she open it? Or if it turned out that Peter was somehow involved in Andy’s murder, would the note be evidence? Would she be better off calling the police and not touching it?

She stood there for a minute or so, thinking. Finally, she decided that the police would think she was insane if she called up about a note on her door.

She opened the folded piece of paper slowly, her hands trembling.

It was a huge relief to see that the note was from anyone but Peter. She smiled and muttered, “Thank God.”

In her apartment, she sat on the couch and dialed Will’s number. She was still frazzled, trying to recover, when he picked up and said, “Hey, you got my note, huh?”

“Yeah, just now. What’s up?”

“Sorry for that. I didn’t have your number and you weren’t listed.”

“That’s okay. What’s going on?”

“That detective came to talk to me again and I, um, just wanted to talk about some stuff with you. What’re you doing right now?”

“Nothing much.”

“You want to meet for a drink? Someplace neighborhoody. Maybe Fetch on Third?”

The idea of a drink, of de-stressing, was very appealing.

“Yeah, that sounds cool,” she said. “Can you give me, like, a half hour?”

“See you there.”

Katie changed into jeans and a sweater, washed up, and put on a new face of makeup. Then, realizing it was getting late, she rushed out of the apartment to go meet Will.

She hadn’t asked him what he wanted to meet about because she knew it either had to do with Himoto or Andy. She was looking forward to seeing him, though; it would be good to hang out with someone who had been going through some of the same stuff she’d been going through, who would be able to identify.

When she arrived, she didn’t see Will and thought he might not have gotten there yet.

“Hey, Katie.”

Will was sitting at the bar off to the right. She’d forgotten how good-looking he was. He had nice dark skin, which seemed to be his natural tone, not a tan or tanning cream. The bone structure in his face was striking, and so were his muscular arms and shoulders and sincere greenish eyes that kind of matched the scrubs he was wearing. She wasn’t sure of his nationality, but he looked like he had some Greek or Italian in him.

He asked Katie what she was having. She looked at his beer, then said, “Gin and tonic. Sorry, I need something stronger.”

Will ordered the drink, and then Katie told him how stressful the past few days had been for her and Will said it hadn’t exactly been easy for him, either.

“That detective talked to me,” Will said.

“Yeah, he said he was going to.”

“For a
second
time. It really pissed me off. Not that he came to talk to me again—that’s just him doing his job. But his whole attitude. He was acting like I was a suspect or something. I mean, maybe I’m just being paranoid, but that was sure as hell how it seemed.”

“I wouldn’t stress out about it,” Katie said. “I don’t think they really suspect you of doing anything. I think it was just because of what happened in your past.”

He stared at her intensely, then said, “He
told
you?”

“Yeah. I’m sorry, I—”

“Now
that
really annoys the hell out of me. What’s this guy doing, spreading shit everywhere about me, telling the whole fucking city?”

“I’m sure it’s not like that.”

“Yeah, but that’s personal, you know? It’s such bullshit. If he talks to people at work about that, at the hospital, I’ll fucking kill him. Japanese cocksucker.”

The racist comment surprised Katie—it seemed so out of character for him—but she understood why he was so upset.

“You have a right to be angry,” she said.

“Damn right I do.” His face was pink. “It was bad enough that the son of a bitch practically accused me of—” He realized he was talking too loud, looked around, and said, “That was bad enough. But now, knowing he’s badmouthing me. Fuck, I was thinking of calling a lawyer anyway, but now I’m definitely going to.”

The bartender brought Katie’s gin and tonic. Katie reached toward her purse and Will said, “No, I got this,” and paid. Then, after the bartender took the money, Will, seeming calmer, raised his glass and said, “To Andy.”

“To Andy,” Katie said and took a long sip of her drink.

“You know, the funeral’s coming up on Friday,” Will said.

“No, I didn’t know that.”

“Me and a couple of roommates are heading down. You wanna road-trip with us, you’re welcome to.”

Katie liked Will a lot, but driving in a car with a bunch of frat boys to the funeral of a guy who’d date-raped her wasn’t exactly appealing.

“Sorry, I wish I could,” she said, “but it’s been so crazy at work lately.”

“That’s cool,” Will said. “It was hard for me to get the time off at the hospital, but I traded shifts. I’ll probably be gone twenty-four hours, in the car ten, and then go right into a twenty-four-hour shift when I get back. Welcome to my life.”

They sipped their drinks. Katie’s must’ve been strong because she already felt buzzed. They talked about Andy some more, about how sad it was for his family, and then Will asked her about her job. As she explained what she did every day, and how boring it was, and how she still wasn’t sure what she wanted to do with her life, he hung on every word she said, asking a lot of questions. Several times she noticed how good-looking he was and hoped she wasn’t blushing. She wished she’d met him last month and not Andy. If she had dated him, she wouldn’t have set him up with Amanda and she wouldn’t have gotten involved with Andy or Peter and everything would’ve been so different.

They finished their drinks and ordered another round. Will went to the bathroom and Katie noticed that he had a really nice butt. When he returned, he smiled and put an arm around her for a few seconds—but not in a way that grossed her out and made her think that he was pawing at her. He was
so
not like Andy.

“I know Andy liked you a lot,” he said.

Freaked out for a second because she felt like he was reading her mind, she said, “He did?”

“Yeah, he was always talking about you. He really thought you were great.”

“That’s nice to hear,” Katie said, and it did make her feel a little better about things.

“But I have to admit, I was kind of jealous.”

Will seemed to be blushing a little himself, looking down at his beer.

“Jealous?” Katie asked. “What did you have to be jealous of?”

“What do you think? When we went on that double date, I couldn’t stop looking at you. Couldn’t you tell?”

“No. I mean, I know we looked at each other a few times.”

“I guess I did a good job of hiding it. Maybe I shouldn’t’ve gone to med school. Maybe I should’ve been an actor.”

Katie laughed. Then she looked at him and he was looking back at her—but not at her, at her lips—and then they were kissing. He was a great kisser. His tongue was gentle and his lips were soft and she didn’t want to stop.

But then it hit her what they were doing and she pulled back and said, “Wait, we can’t do this.”

“Why can’t we?”

“What do you mean? Because you’re with Amanda.”

“What? Not at all. I mean, we had that one night together, but it never, like, progressed.”

Katie remembered Amanda had said she hadn’t heard from him in a few days, but Katie still thought of them as being together.

“I don’t know, I feel weird,” Katie said.

“It’s not weird at all.”

He kissed her again. It felt just as good. Even better.

She pulled away, then said, “I can’t do this,” and stood up and started putting her coat on.

“You don’t have to go,” he said.

“Sorry, I just need some time to myself right now,” she said. “I mean, after what happened to Andy and other stuff that’s been going on.”

He reached out, held her hand and said, “We don’t have to start anything now. We can take it slow, as slow as you want to. I mean, I didn’t invite you out tonight thinking anything would happen with us. That wasn’t my intention at all.”

Katie was looking away, suddenly distracted. The woman
with the short straight hair standing near the door at the front of the bar—Katie was positive she’d seen her before, outside her office building when she was looking around for Peter. Now, when the woman saw Katie noticing her, she looked away immediately.

“Fuck,” Katie said.

“What is it?” Will asked.

“That woman over there. I think she’s following me.”

“What woman?”

Katie looked over and the woman was gone.

“Shit,” Katie said. “I definitely saw her. I mean, I
know
I saw her.”

“Where did you see her?”

Katie realized Will was still holding her hand, and she yanked hers away.

“Why would she be following me?” Katie said to herself. “What the hell’s going on?”

“Maybe you made a mistake,” Will said.

“I’m not making a mistake,” she said, and she rushed out of the bar. She looked in both directions but didn’t see her anywhere.

Will came out and said, “Hey, is everything okay?”

He seemed concerned, as if she were losing it, and maybe she was. She suddenly felt very drunk.

“I can’t believe this is happening to me.”

“Just relax,” Will said, putting an arm around her. “Everything’s going to be okay.”

She moved away and said, “Stop touching me,” then, thinking that probably sounded too harsh, said, “I really just have to go home now. Thanks for the drink.”

She left, hoping Will didn’t come after her, offering to walk her home. He didn’t.