Maybe it was a prank, she told herself over and over as she pushed open the glass doors of the Graham Building and hurried across the deserted parking lot to her car. She threw her file box, briefcase and purse into the back seat, quickly climbed in behind the wheel and locked the doors, breathless. She looked around her. Hers was the only car left in the lot.
Maybe it was a reporter. Or a protester. That had to be it. A right-to-lifer messing with her. Reporters had somehow found out the direct line to her office and had been calling her for weeks. Hell, they were like cockroaches, waiting for her everywhere now. Outside her office. Outside her apartment. On the beach when she jogged, she’d spotted a few. And now the protesters that yelled nasty things at her on her way into court every morning had obviously found her too. They would say anything, too, she knew. Anything to draw attention to their cause. Anything to get rid of the death penalty, she told herself as she sped out of the parking lot. They’d do anything.
That had to be it. But questions flew at her as she tried to navigate 195 at eighty miles an hour. Why would they call her and not Rick? He was the lead. Maybe they had. Or maybe they knew what she’d found out last week about the Handley murders … She thought for a moment about when David Marquette had said those three words to her in the courtroom back months ago. I saved them. The only words he’d ever said in court and they were to her. It was almost as if he knew what she was thinking at that moment when she looked into his white eyes. It was as if he knew about her past. As if he knew about Andrew.
And how did they know she was still in her office tonight? Court had gotten out hours ago. Was someone watching her car? Her office window? Was someone watching her right now? Ready to jump out of the bushes with his creepy breathing and anti-death-penalty poster and scare her half to death when she opened the car door at the curb? She looked at the cars all around her to see who might have their eyes on her instead of the road. The flesh on the back of her neck prickled and she sped up.
She thought of a funny comment Andrew had made to her once when she was up at Kirby. Just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean someone’s not following you. Now she was paranoid. But now she had a reason. And she was taking no chances. So she got off a couple of exits before Stirling and took the back roads home, careful to keep checking her rear-view mirror to make sure she wasn’t being followed. She didn’t park in her spot, though, instead parking in the complex across the street and ducking through the walkways of the buildings adjacent to her own.
She wanted to call Lat. She wanted to tell him what had happened, what she’d found out. What the protesters knew now. She wanted him to come check her apartment for her. She wanted to hear his voice tell her it would be okay. But she couldn’t. He’d made it clear what their relationship was and she’d have to accept that. And besides, he also knew that Marquette was an unofficial suspect in the North Florida murders and he hadn’t told her, either. He, too, had kept secrets.
She locked her apartment door, turned off all the lights and closed the blinds in every room. She wished she had Moose here with her. He was little, but he was very protective. And he could warn her if someone was out there, watching. Waiting.
It was a protester, she told herself as she locked her bedroom door and slumped down on the floor in the dark with her back against it, both the cordless phone and her cellphone between her legs. That’s all it was.
There was no reason to be afraid.