Armed with a strong cup of coffee the next morning, Georgia went back online to cross-reference SUV owners on FindersKeepers. Some were registered to Chicagoans, but others lived in St. Charles, Peoria, and Carbondale. A smattering of foreign names appeared on the list, mostly Hispanic, but one looked Russian or Eastern European.
Two of the SUV owners had DUIs. Two others had court case numbers, one in Cook County, one in Sangamon. She planned to check them out, although just because someone had a DUI, or even a criminal conviction, that didn’t mean they’d killed someone. Then she reconsidered. The police were undoubtedly doing the same thing as she, and they had access to better data. She should spend her time looking into something they wouldn’t.
She pulled up her own case files. Maybe she’d been too cavalier with Gutierrez yesterday. It was possible that someone involved in one of her cases had been following her. The domestic, the case of the wife who ran away, could be promising. The man tailing Georgia might have been a relative of the runaway wife or husband, and if he was involved with sleazy characters, he might have been targeted by the men in the SUV. In the workers’ comp case, the guy who’d been fired was clearly involved in illegal activities. What if he was seeking revenge for being fingered? Or what if he stiffed his dealer?
She spent most of the day interviewing her clients, prodding them to suggest people who might have been tailing her for some reason. She asked if anyone they knew drove an SUV. She came away with a long list of people to check out, but most seemed dubious, even wacky. For example, a legitimate customer at Designer Discount Den was upset by the invasion of her privacy because of the YouTube video, although how anyone could connect her to the flash rob was unclear. And someone had filed a workplace sexual harassment charge years ago against the pharmaceutical executive.
Still, you never knew.
By the time she finished, it was after four. She drove to her gym, a small converted warehouse with foggy, sweat-soaked windows, a boxing ring, and surprisingly good exercise equipment. She did some cardio, worked out with weights, then did two rounds in the ring. Her spotter, who was also the boxing coach, was a knotted, gray-haired man who looked like Burgess Meredith’s father. He kept telling her she should shadow box in front of a mirror. Concentrate on her footwork and punches. Step, slide, jab. Step, slide, punch. “And don’t forget to dip when you slide, and bob and weave when you’re still. And—oh—remember to stay relaxed at all times,” he added cheerfully.
She decided he was the perfect coach; she was ready to slug him by the time they were done.