Triage: A Thriller (Shell Series) (2 page)

And now I was stalking a woman.

Some would say I was an enigma.

But most would say something else altogether.

They would say I was dangerous.

I WATCHED HER STANDING in the rain without the assistance of an umbrella. My hands at the ten and two on the steering wheel in my black Yukon, stereo muted, no sound washing over the interior of the SUV other than the rush of heartbeat in my ears and the methodical whoomp of wiper blades. Meanwhile, she stood there in the rain. Cars funneled by as she impatiently tapped her foot at the crossing and looked both ways, anxious to reach the other side of the thoroughfare. I considered approaching her right there on the street, my left hand grasping her elbow and pulling her deep into the shadows, but something about her paralyzed me. She was one of the most breathtaking women I’d ever seen. Beautiful and stylish. Big boxy sunglasses covered her eyes. Stilettos brought out the definition in her calves. Her jeans looked painted-on and had rich embroidery. The plunging neckline of her white blouse displayed generous cleavage and emphasized the mouthwatering points of her full breasts. She wore a dark jacket over the short-sleeve blouse that she’d probably classify as navy in color. Even under the threat of violence I’d never call the jacket anything but blue. An expensive pocketbook was slung over her shoulder. Its leather looked soft as warm butter. The fingers that opened the pocketbook’s clasp had nails that were painted white along the tip, clear at the base. Expensively done, in a salon no doubt. French manicure. No ring on any one of her ten slender fingers.

I’d been following and watching her for hours. During that time I’d learned nearly everything there was to discover about her appearance. Nearly everything, but not everything. Suddenly what I was ignorant of took shape and form. Big boxy sunglasses.

I needed to see her eyes. Only then would I know how to proceed.

Rain sluiced down the windshield of my Yukon. Illegal five percent tint comfortably concealed me from her view. Not that it mattered to me if I were seen. I preferred the shadows, but oftentimes anonymity wasn’t possible. What was to be done would be done, though, regardless. That’s how it worked when I was involved in a situation. I saw things through to their proper conclusion, whether I found the task at hand pleasant or not.

The roadway finally cleared. She sashayed across as though walking on a felt runner in Paris. A musical soundtrack must have been playing in her head. Her hips, hypnotizing in their movement, like the steady rhythm of a pendulum, caused me great discomfort. An erection bulged in my pants. I yawned open the driver’s-side door to continue tracking her. She moved inside the Farmer’s Market, the store on a corner across from a shuttered Mobil gas station. I stepped across puddles in the broken asphalt to get to her. My steps had the precision of a soldier in formation. A black leather glove soaked up the anxious moisture pooled in my left palm. I carefully wiped my ungloved right palm on the side of my pants. A scattershot heartbeat punched a wide hole in my chest.

Still, a beat later, my gloved left hand touched the metal frame door of the Farmer’s Market. I didn’t hesitate before I stepped inside. I walked over a carpet of corn husks and crushed peas and string beans and onion skins among other things. Wiped rainwater from my eyes with hands I’d been told more than once were built only for mayhem; hands that weren’t gentle enough to touch a woman. I’d defied that notion the first time with a knock-kneed Catholic girl named Tammy, and more recently with a buxom post-grad student, improbably named Haven, that didn’t earn her tuition on a stripper pole. The mirror above a stand of plantains caught my reflection as I considered my long and sordid history with women. The reflection exposed a large man, head shaved nearly bald, in a button-down shirt soaked through with rain. Shirt and pants in a color as black as pitch. The mirror revealed this man’s eyes were concealed behind tinted black Aviator sunglasses and that his face was smooth of smile lines. But the mirror was adept at revealing only so much. There was a great deal more that existed below the surface. Some of it was good. Most of it, typically, not so much so. I had a very slim belief that would ever change.

I searched the Market, found her easily enough by a bin of peaches.

I’d moved beyond the point of no return so I headed in her direction.

Twenty feet away, my mouth was old cardboard in a dry, musty basement. I swallowed what saliva I could call up to correct that. Not very much as it turned out.

Fifteen feet away, I balled my gloved left hand in a fist, then unclasped it, and then fisted it again. My ungloved right hand rested quietly against the side of my leg.

Ten feet away, regret and hopelessness rang in my ears like the sounds of a wind chime.           

Five feet away, I stopped thinking and just continued to move.

I paused at her shoulder and detected coconut, either on her skin or in her clothes or hair. I couldn’t tell which. She was the brown of beef gravy, with smooth and soft skin. It looked incredibly soft to my eyes, at least. Crystals of water from the downpour beaded her silky, black hair. The water crystals were shinier than crushed glass but duller than diamond. The dichotomy of her build had me studying her in wonderment. She was both slender and not slender at the same time. Swelled breasts, pancake-flat stomach, thin waistline, healthy ass and thighs. I moved beside her but didn’t pick up a peach.

She glanced up at me briefly, then made a move to slide past. If I’d stepped a foot to the right she could have eased by without hindrance. I moved a foot to the left instead. That got me more than a brief glance from her. She eyed me for several beats through those big boxy shades. I needed to see her eyes. Only then would I know how to proceed.

“Excuse me,” she said, motioning with her hands for me to step aside.

I didn’t speak in turn, or move.

“I’d just like to scoot by you,” she said. “Could you move aside?”

“I’d like to have a word with you,” I replied, wholly ignoring her plea. My voice had the disembodied tone of the recorded voices you heard on subway cars in New York.

“Uh-uh. No, no, no. You need to just move. Now step aside.” She then glanced at the digital screen on the cell phone in her hand, and frowned at whatever it was she saw.

“Just a word or two and I’ll leave you be,” I persisted. Telling her I also needed to see her eyes would’ve probably frightened her so I left that part out. I could be prudent.

“You need to just move,” she repeated, firmer.

“It’s not going to kill you to speak with me for a moment,” I said, truly wanting to believe my own words.

“I don’t know that,” she replied.

She left it at that as something unsaid passed between us.

I needed to see her eyes. Only then would I know how to proceed.

I was so focused on that need I didn’t immediately realize she was speaking again.

“…saw you at the CVS before I came here,” she said, her jacket material bunching against the swell of her breasts with each harmonious word. “And then again outside as I crossed the street. Now you’re in here. Why have you been following me? Tell me that.”

Apparently I was more transparent than I thought myself to be. One of the men responsible for Veronica and Ericka’s deaths had told me as much right before I killed him.

I’d have to work on it.

“Take off your shades,” I said, unfazed. “I don’t like speaking to anyone without being able to look at their eyes.”

“What? Are you out of your mind?” An earthquake promptly passed through her. It moved her forward a foot. The aftershocks would have her outside of the Farmer’s Market and back in her vehicle frowning at her cell phone.

But again I stepped in her path. “This doesn’t have to be painful,” I said.

“Painful?” she nearly shouted.

“Figure of speech,” I explained. “This can be a pleasant exchange.”

“You’re about to have yourself a serious problem, sir.”

Sir. Polite. I didn’t deserve that.

I nodded but said, “Please. Take off your shades. I need to see your eyes.”

Her nostrils flared as she barely controlled her anger. “Are you crazy? I can’t believe you’re serious right now.” Each word augmented her ire. “You are absolutely incredible. Take off
your
shades. Let’s see
your
eyes.”

That deadened my batteries.

She moved forward in a blur, into my personal space, and reached up for my face before I could effectively respond. “Come on. Let’s see your eyes, Mr. Stalker.”

My attempt to ward her off was awkward at best. She knocked my black Aviator sunglasses lopsided on my face. Everything wrong came in to focus at once. She frowned, took inventory of it all. My right eye, exposed from behind lopsided Aviators, was marred by a crimson-colored clot and deep tissue bruises the color of ink that had settled in the eyelid and around the base of the eye. The knuckles on my right hand—the ungloved one—seen when I raised it to straighten my Aviators, were swollen to three times their normal size. My size thirteen feet, which were bare except for black slippers made from corduroy, were soaked through, like my shirt, with rainwater. It didn’t take the mind capacity of a Hewlett-Packard to compute the trouble I clearly represented. She glanced from my hand to my eyes to my feet, then all three again in quick succession. “Slippers,” was the only word she could manage.

“I drive in them,” I said.

“And walk around in the pouring rain?”

“Not usually,” I admitted.

“But…”

“I was in a hurry. Didn’t think about switching to my shoes. They’re in my SUV.”

She shuddered, let her gaze fall on my swollen knuckles again. “You need medical attention.”

“I think I’ll tough it out,” I replied. “If worse comes to worse I know where the CVS is.” That’s the very moment when most people would have cracked a smile. I didn’t.

“You’ve been following me for awhile,” she said.

“I have.”

“This is all so scary. I’m a second from yelling out for help.”

“No you’re not.”

“I have Mace spray,” she warned, while tugging at the strap of her pocketbook.

“That could do you some good,” I said, and nodded. “That’s if you can get to it.”

She frowned, probably wondering if I were serious.

Partly.

“If you want your wick lit I’m not the one,” she said.

“I’d just like to see your eyes. Then we’ll take it from there.”

She snapped her fingers across my field of vision. “Hello. What isn’t clicking in your head? You’ve been following me…like some stalker. Now you’re calmly asking to see my eyes? And I’m supposed to just…what? You really do need some medical attention. I’d talk to someone about your mental problems, as well. Just some advice.”

I only heard one thing in her little eruption:
Like some stalker
. Progress had been made. Apparently I’d graduated in her opinion
. Like
a stalker, but not the genuine article.

“I’m fine,” I told her.

“Far from it,” she replied. “No matter what you say.”

I stood mute, with no argument readily available. I’d lived a profligate life.

“This is stupid. Let me get by,” she said.

“No.”

She searched the market, for someone, anyone, to assist her. A quick head count revealed eleven other people besides us in the store. None of them were remotely close to my size. And not one of them seemed even vaguely familiar with violence of any sort. The same couldn’t be said of me. She sighed in defeat, and then looked at me again.

“This is ridiculous.”

“It is,” I agreed.

We stood like that for a few beats.

Then I said, “BagelMasters.”

I’m sure her eyes widened under the big boxy shades.

“I was there,” she said, “just this morning.”

Before the CVS.

I nodded in response.

“You’ve been following me longer than I realized.”

 “There’s something about a woman in distress that pulls me in,” I said.

“I’m sure you’ve caused quite a few women distress.”

It was easier for her to say that than acknowledge what I’d seen at the bagel store.

She’d sat at a table, alone, off in the corner, tapping her foot and bouncing her leg, staring at the parking lot outside. Her eyes were covered with those big boxy sunglasses. She was doing her best to appear normal, to feel normal, too, I would guess. If I were less perceptive, I wouldn’t have spotted her.

I said, “Pretty animated conversation out in the parking lot before you started picking at your bagel. Somebody was really causing you some anguish. Some distress.”

She glanced at her cell phone.

“Let’s talk about it over dinner,” I said.

“Why would I do that?” she wanted to know.

“Look me in the eyes and ask again,” I said. “Without hiding behind those shades.”

“I’m not hiding behind anything,” she whispered.

“It’s easy enough to disprove. Let me see your eyes.”

“You’re manipulative.”

I gave her a slight smile and no words. Manipulative, without a doubt.

Her shoulders sagged and she removed the shades, slowly.