temperature and the heating in the car. Sub-zero surveillance: compared to the same temperature the evening before, the roads would feel icier, the snow heavier, the seats of the car, harder. And there was something about it all that felt pointless. It is harder to blend into the darkness when your exhaust is pumping white fumes into the air. But at least she had heating; half-way down the block behind her, Todd Austerval was sitting in a car with none. He was dressed in a massive black Puffa jacket that made it look as if his airbag had blown.
Ren circled the block, saw nothing and pulled back into her original position. She radioed Todd.
‘Hey – let’s swap cars.’
Silence.
‘I’m serious,’ said Ren. ‘This isn’t fair – you freezing your butt off.’
‘Are you for real?’ said Todd.
‘Yes. I’ll walk back to you now.’
‘No way,’ said Todd. ‘I can’t let you do that.’
‘Is it because I’m such a lady?’ said Ren.
Todd snorted.
‘Laughing a little too hard,’ said Ren. ‘Come on, just let me do this.’
‘Look,’ said Todd, ‘we’ve been here three hours and seen nothing. Stay where you are; another ten minutes and we’ll both go.’
‘OK. Then we can go track down your mechanic and kick the crap out of him.’
Todd snorted again. ‘Sure, if you want to. But I’m going home to bed.’
You are so straight. ‘Yeah, I wasn’t actually serious?’ said Ren.
‘It’s hard to tell with you,’ said Todd.
But Ren had drifted out of Todd’s bland world and was watching headlights approach in her rearview mirror. She sank lower in her seat and sat in silence watching the familiar car as it passed. It circled the block three times.
Todd radioed her. ‘Hey, did you see that?’
‘That car circling?’ said Ren. ‘Yeah, I was right up close. He had a map, he was just lost … this place has a lot of streets and avenues with similar names.’
‘OK – you got a better view.’
‘Yep,’ said Ren. A perfect view.
But was Billy Waites tailing me or Caroline Quaintance?
The Brockton Filly was almost closed, the crowd was thin. Ren had given Billy Waites two hours to get back. She came in, smiled at him across the room and sat up at the bar.
‘Hey,’ she said.
‘Hey,’ he said, smiling wide. ‘I didn’t think you’d ever be coming back to see me.’
She laughed as her heart pounded. ‘As if I wouldn’t …’
‘Well, you weren’t too keen on my company this morning. And Salem said you did a drive-by to drop him off.’
‘Did you get through all that breakfast?’
‘I did not,’ said Billy. ‘You should have seen it – there was enough for ten people. I am not exaggerating. I wrapped it all up in some napkins and brought it back for Salem.’
‘Did you check out OK?’
Billy nodded. ‘I wasn’t thinking about that when I took the food. In fact, I dropped some of my stash.’
‘You wouldn’t make a great crim—’ She almost blushed. ‘Oops.’
‘I’ve lost my touch,’ said Billy. ‘The FBI is messin’ with my mojo.’
The Brockton Filly quickly emptied. She saw the creepy guy whose prints she had taken. He almost winked at her as he left. Ugh. She watched Billy make his way around the bar, closing the shutters. Every time she met him, he was wearing a black T-shirt with a graphic on the front and perfectly sized Diesel jeans.
He looked over his shoulder at her. ‘I have three pairs of the same jeans,’ he said. ‘In case you were wondering.’
Ren laughed. ‘Well, what else am I going to be looking at in here?’
‘I’m just an object to you …’
A subject, actually. ‘Yup,’ she said.
He kept going and every now and then he would look over and smile. It felt good. She watched him, afraid to rely on what she was feeling right now. He had to know that checking his phone numbers, checking anything out about him now could lead her colleagues directly her way. He had cut off that channel. Deliberately? He smiled at her again. If she was to be fair, she had cut off that channel too. But she wasn’t feeling fair. She was feeling suspicious. She was sitting with a man linked to a homicide investigation who had been following either her or a young woman who was linked to the homicide victim. And I am the agent in the middle.
‘Can I fix myself a drink?’ said Ren.
‘Sure – go ahead,’ said Billy. ‘I need to bring bottles in from out back.’
By the time she got behind the bar, her heart was beating so hard, it was beginning to turn her stomach. I can’t do this, it’s so wrong. If he knew …’
Her hand never shook on the job. She had held a gun steady on people she feared she would have to shoot. She had done terrible things in terrible situations that should have rendered every usable part of her body useless, but it never happened. She did steady better than most. Until tonight. She had crossed over. One sensible-shoed foot was rooted on the professional side. The other was in the personal zone with a trampy stiletto on the chest of a criminal.
Jesus … and stop fucking shaking.
She stared down at her hand. It calmed a little. She took a breath and navigated quickly through the unfamiliar menu of Billy Waites’ cellphone. Most of the texts were from her, which gave her an unwanted thrill. As she scrolled down, she realized the Inbox was filled entirely with her texts.
I am the stalker.
The Sent box was different; probably the same amount of texts to her, but more to numbers and names she knew she wouldn’t recognize anyway. She started opening them. They were typical men’s texts – direct and written without l8-, w8-, gr8-style abbreviations. These texts said Y or N, or had times or… Looking for coded messages seemed ridiculous. With single-letter responses, the same letters over and over, what was she going to work out? That yes meant no and no meant yes? She almost laughed. As she backed her way out of the menus she had violated, the phone vibrated in her hand with a text message. She jumped and almost fucked herself into dropping it and alerting Billy. He called out from the back room.
‘Shit,
