his water bottle, wishing his instincts would knock off the high alert already and quit pumping adrenaline through his veins.
Forcing himself to judge the facts, he noted that she wore a lot less makeup than the woman in the picture, plus her hair was a different color and length, and there was no sign of trashy footwear, just plain flat sandals. On the other hand, her lips, face shape, and overall bone structure were a good match, she was the right height, she was wearing a bandanna, which was something Bebe had specifically mentioned, and…
And he had a strong gut feeling, the kind he had learned to trust. After all, an “uncanny knack for seeing the truth” was right there on his resume.
Impatient with that “knack,” as always, Sean went back to hard, cold facts. His mantra was that bones didn’t lie, and those sure looked like the cheekbones and chin line of the woman in the photo.
What else? He couldn’t see much of her body inside the bulky coat, but that itself was suspicious, considering the fact that everyone else around was in shorts and T-shirts or tank tops in the hot weather. Plus she was wearing sunglasses and a scarf and her hair was a phony shade of brown, all of which had “disguise” written all over it. In his opinion, her demeanor was anxious, somewhat furtive, as she huddled there under the tree, deliberately not looking at anyone. She was definitely sending out “pay no attention to me” vibes.
It all added up to someone who had a lot to hide.
But it couldn’t be the right woman, could it? Not only had he not expected to find her in the first five minutes he was in town, he hadn’t expected to find her at all.
And he hadn’t expected her to be so…interesting. Even with the odd clothing, she had this kind of aura, as if she was just more vivid than anybody or anything around her. Call it ESP or just that blasted “uncanny knack” he was supposed to have, but Sean had a strong feeling that if he peeled off the scarf and the sunglasses and the bulky denim coat, he would conclude that she was…
Beautiful. Smart. Intriguing. A knockout.
“Okay, now you’re really going around the bend,” he said under his breath. Must just be some weird kind of investigative eagerness kicking in, making him feel all hot and bothered in inappropriate ways. It had never happened before, but there was a first time for everything.
Taking a long swig of water to cool his jets, Sean pushed himself back to reality, back to the question at hand. Was she the quarry he was supposed to be looking for?
Physically, the details matched. But the fact remained that she was not at all what he had expected from the woman in Bebe’s photo, the one with the frizzy, bleached hair and trashy ’ho shoes. The one who might be playing mattress macarena with his father.
That idea had become even more disgusting now that he’d found her.
Frowning, Sean backed off. Putting a little more distance between them, he looped around the side of the Foreign Language Building to keep an eye on her while he decided what to do. Since he’d had no reasonable expectation of finding her, he had never gotten to the point of planning what he should do if he did. Take a picture and send it back to Bebe for a positive ID? Get fingerprints and try to track down her identity or her rap sheet? Chat her up and see if he could get her to spill what was happening with his father, if anything was happening at all? None of it made any sense.
Meanwhile, as he pondered his next move, she still didn’t appear to have a clue that he was there, which meant she had lousy survival instincts. Or a trusting nature.
He got his answer on that one when a scruffy kid on a bicycle rode up. “Hey!” the kid shouted, jumping off his bike right next to her. Petty thief? Purse-snatcher? Something worse? Sean decided he was close enough to jump in if his law enforcement skills were required, but he hung back for now. She sat up abruptly, looking very, very nervous, sort of like Bambi in the headlights. But then the kid extended his hand, shuffling his feet, trying to act all tragic and woebegone. Asking for a handout, no doubt. She relaxed, smiling up at him. Great smile. Bright, shiny, sincere. There had been no evidence of that in Bebe’s photos, but it was everything you could ask for in a smile.
If he hadn’t been such a cynical man, Sean told himself he might’ve felt all warm and fuzzy after seeing her beaming at the boy.
So she rooted around in a big tote bag, took out a few bucks, and handed them over, after which the boy said thank-you loud enough for the tour group all the way down at the other end of the Quad to hear. Then he leapt back on his bike and zoomed away, leaving Sean to conclude that the girl was either an easy touch or just a sap. Or that had been the best-disguised drug deal in the history of the universe.
Sean cooled his heels, wishing he had a newspaper or something else to give him a little cover, but it didn’t seem to matter, since she didn’t look his way. Again, he was struck by her lousy survival skills. He’d been spying on her for a good half hour, and she was clueless.
As he watched and waited, she removed the bandanna, rubbed a hand—left hand, no rings—over her forehead and then carefully tied the scarf back on again; she stared into space; she pulled out a book and dropped it in her lap without opening it; she leaned against the tree and tipped her head back as if she were dozing; she looked a little flushed and clapped her hand over her mouth and left it there for several seconds; she took off her sunglasses and wiped at her eyes with a tissue which he took to mean she either had allergies or she was crying; and she rooted around her bag and took out a package of saltine crackers, which she proceeded to eat, one by one, until she had demolished the whole package. Then she folded her trash back into the bag quite neatly, stood up, hoisted her bag, and began to walk away.
So of course he followed.
Disguise, crying, hungry enough to snarf lots of crackers, possibly a headache or something else physically wrong leading to the flush and the hand over the mouth… What did it all add up to? Sean contemplated some possibilities. Heat stroke from that silly coat? Mental illness but not taking her meds? Undercover or on the lam? Some kind of damsel in distress, emotional or otherwise?
As he trailed her, he found himself with lots more questions, but not getting any closer to answers. If she was the right woman, and the physical resemblance plus how closely she matched Bebe’s description made him about eighty percent certain she was, then what had she been doing with his father on that park bench in Chicago, and what was she doing down here now? He was surprised to realize just how much he wanted to solve this riddle. Whether she was or wasn’t the “tootsie” his mom wanted him to find, this woman in the long coat and sunglasses, with her crackers and her tissues, she was hiding out in Champaign-Urbana, acting very strangely. And he needed to know why.
Sean stayed about a block behind her as she cut down a quiet campus street and ducked into a coffeehouse. He saw her get a muffin and a carton of milk, slowly consume both at an outdoor table that was remarkably easy to keep under surveillance, and then once again take off walking. It took about ten or eleven blocks of her walking straight ahead, not noticing him skirting around trees behind her, before she walked up to the front door of a small home on a tree-lined side street just off-campus. She put a key in the door and disappeared inside.
No car outside. Nothing in the front yard. No sign that anyone else was in the house.
From the protective cover of a large evergreen outside an apartment building across the street, Sean considered his day’s work. Approximately four hours in Champaign-Urbana, and he’d already located his target, shadowed her, and found out where she was staying. Not bad. Not bad at all.
BY THE THIRD DAY, Sean had her routine down cold.
