The man who had killed Jeff Cashman didn’t much care for his latest assignment. Following someone was tedious work, the kind of work that dumb cops were invented to do. And following Eden Alexander was way beneath him; the only thing worse than leading her boring life was watching her lead that life.
It also made no sense at all. If they wanted to know where Wallace was, the way to go about it was not to wait for this broad to lead them to him. The way to do it was to grab her and start inflicting some pain and fear. His professional estimation was that it would take him less than four minutes to find out whatever she knew. That would be the productive way to do it, and that way he’d also have some fun in the process.
The worst part was when she went to school to teach whatever the hell it was she taught. He didn’t want to follow her on campus; he would look too out of place. So instead he parked near the front gate and waited the five or six hours it usually took for her to come out. And he couldn’t even pass the time by watching good-looking women; the ones passing by were so wrapped in coats and sweaters they looked like dark grey beach balls.
The only positive that he could think of was that he wouldn’t have to do this for more than two weeks. That’s when his employers needed to know where Wallace was hiding, and if she hadn’t led him to Wallace by then, he would simply grab her and extract the information. It gave him something to look forward to.
After that he would make his own move. Instructing him to kill Cashman and the broad in Florida was a mistake his employers would come to regret. It showed him how they treated their partners, and led him to believe they probably had the same fate planned for him.
They thought of themselves as all-powerful, a force that could not be stopped. But no matter now much money and power they had, when it came to both smarts and deadly force, they would soon find out that they were not in his league.
Eden Alexander had never seen the car nor the man behind the wheel before. It was a grey minivan parked at the end of her street, and the man was blond, early thirties, and so large that the inside of the car seemed filled to capacity.
She knew she was being watched, and that he was watching her. It was an instinct she had, and she trusted it completely.
Eden avoided staring at the car or the man, as she went to her own car. She drove to her job at the university, waving to the guard at the gate as he let her in. She did not see the minivan behind her at any point, but she would have bet a week’s pay that it was there.
With an hour before her class, Eden went straight to the faculty room. She was relieved to see Andy Miller, a colleague and friend, having coffee, and she approached him.
“Andy, I need a favor.”
“Shoot.”
“I’d like you to walk out past the main gate. If a grey minivan is near there, I want you to get the license plate number. Don’t make it obvious that you’re looking; don’t write down the number, or anything like that.”
“What’s going on?” he asked.
“I’m sorry, but I can’t say.”
His concern was obvious. “You okay, Eden?”
She smiled. “I’m fine. Really.”
He nodded and stood up. “Okay. Grey minivan, get the plate number. I’m on the case.”
Andy left and was gone about ten minutes, during which time Eden prayed that the minivan was not there, though she was positive that it was.
Andy came back and said “WKT-535.”
“Was there anybody in the car?” she asked.
He nodded. “Big guy … blond hair. I didn’t look too closely at him because I didn’t want to alert him. Is that okay?”
She forced a smile. “Great, Andy. Thanks, I really appreciate it.”
“Is there anything else I can do?”
“No, thanks.”
“And you’re sure there’s nothing wrong?”
“Really, Andy, everything is fine,” she lied. Everything was not fine, and Eden was fighting to avoid panic. That had to be a police officer in that car, and he would only be following her if he thought she might lead him to Tim.
Which meant they were both in big trouble.
He watched the geeky guy pretend not to stare at his license plate, and immediately knew that the woman had made him. She had known she was being followed.
It almost made him laugh out loud; clearly he had been so annoyed at the idea of having to waste time following her that he had been careless. He had let himself be made.
The fleeting, pleasant thought of putting a bullet through the geek’s head flashed by him, but he knew that would only complicate things.
He would instead stop following the woman for a couple of days, no big loss since she wasn’t leading him anywhere. Then he’d start back up, and if he was lucky she’d spot him again. If that happened he’d grab her, and she’d be only too willing to tell him everything she knew.
It would be a hell of a lot more fun that way.
Tim was going crazy.
Just sitting around the house was getting him nowhere, and by now his grown-in facial hair had made him confident he wouldn’t be recognized by a media-alerted citizen. So he was willing to go out; the problem was he had nowhere to go.
Tim decided he would make his first foray into the outside world by going to the library. He wasn’t in need of reading material; he wanted to use the library computer to contact Eden. He had neglected to bring his laptop with him, which was a mistake, but he couldn’t go back and get it now. He also didn’t want to cut into his cash reserve by buying a new one.
Tim didn’t want to call Eden. He had no reason to believe that the police were watching her, but it was certainly a possibility. If they were, it was far more likely that they would tap her phone than his lawyer’s.
Just walking out the door of the house was an uncomfortable experience for Tim. His mind flashed back to some old movie about John Dillinger, and the hail of bullets that gunned him down when he casually walked out of a movie theater. Tim knew the police were not out there waiting for him; if they were they would have long ago barged in. But he still looked around warily, and continued doing so even after he pulled away.
The Lincoln Park library was surprisingly large, and even at this early hour had close to fifteen people in it. He was relieved to discover that he did not have to have a library card to use the computers, all he had to do was sign in. He did so, using a fake name.
Tim had asked Eden to create a hotmail address for him, and he signed on to it. Once he did, he was surprised to see that he had seven e-mails waiting for him. As it turned out, six were spam, and one was from “Kileysfriend,” the address Eden had created for herself.
He opened the e-mail and read:
I’m being followed. I don’t know who it is, but I’m afraid it’s the police. I have the license number of the car. What should I do?
Tim was stunned by the message. He had the sensation of wanting to get up and pace, to relieve some of the pent-up anxiety and perhaps think more clearly. But he couldn’t do anything that might attract attention from the other patrons.
He typed a return e-mail, hoping that she was near a computer to receive it:
Go see Nick. Tell him what you think and give him the plate number. Not over the phone.
He pressed send and waited for a reply, knowing full well it could take a very long time if she were not at home. Less than a minute later, her reply appeared:
I will; I’ll write back after I do and tell you what he said. Are you OK?
He wrote back:
Yes. If you ever get into danger, tell the truth about where I am. This is not your problem.
Her reply:
I’ll be careful.
That wasn’t good enough for him, so he wrote:
I’m worried about you. Please don’t take any unnecessary chances.
Her reply:
Same to you, buddy.
It made Tim smile, something he would have thought impossible under the circumstances. He wished he could be with her, to spend a normal day, but that was something that really was impossible under the circumstances.