Chapter 13 #2
“Not if we want to stay out of his sights and avoid raising red flags. I have done this before, darlin’.”
She snapped a churlish look at him. “Did you just call me darling? That’s, like, the second time today.”
She would not—could not—tell him she rather liked the way it sounded, coming from him.
They hardly had an endearments sort of relationship, but somehow, coming after his comment on her appearance earlier, it fell softly on her soul, like a cool rain on parched earth.
She’d had little tenderness or empathy or affection in her life for years.
Certainly not from her parents. Or from her one failed, serious relationship during her undergraduate years.
He cut a quick, startled look toward her, as if only then realizing what he’d said. “No offense intended. Sorry. It’s just…something I do. I—”
She waved off his explanation and pointed down the street. “Left. He’s turning left!”
“I see him.”
In her chest, her heart was thumping wildly, and she struggled to stay still in her seat.
The adrenaline pumping through her made her want to shift restlessly or climb up the dashboard.
Cal took the left turn when they reached it and stayed discreetly behind Hamilton until Abby’s stalker pulled in behind a row of shrubs in an otherwise empty lot. Jules frowned. “What’s he doing?”
Cal cruised past the lot without slowing and kept going. “Don’t know, but what do you say we circle around and watch for a while?”
He drove several blocks before making a right and doubling back on a street that paralleled the one where Hamilton had parked.
When they’d circled the block and were approaching the area where they’d seen Hamilton park, Jules noticed what was diagonally across the street from the white truck.
A high school with baseball diamonds, buzzing with activity.
A summer tournament or team practice, she supposed.
“Damn it! I knew it!” She slapped a hand on her lap and grimaced.
“Want to share?” Cal asked.
“Well, with Abby in the health facility, I guessed that maybe Hamilton had shifted his attentions to other girls. Not that he was giving up on Abby, but just…finding new targets for his sick hobby.”
Without her having to point out the obvious, Cal turned to look at the high school where a few teenagers were leaving the fields.
Cal tapped a fist on the steering wheel, his brow furrowed. “And he’s here in time to follow some unsuspecting teenager home from summer practice or a tournament game.”
“That’d be my guess.” She clamped her back teeth so hard, she felt the pressure shoot through her skull. She took off her seat belt and reached for the Jeep door. “We should warn them. If he’s fixated on one of them—”
Cal put a staying hand on her shoulder. “Hold on. You go out there now, he’ll see you, and you’ll not only blow our cover, you might trigger him to do something rash. Not to mention alarming the girls before we have the facts, before we know who he’s got in his sights.”
She considered his points and flopped back against the seat, dividing her attention between the clusters of students leaving the school and the parked truck barely visible through the scraggly hedge.
She tried to guess which of the girls climbing into her parents’ car or wandering in pairs and trios to the parking lot had become Hamilton’s new fixation.
When a tall girl with rich auburn hair scurried into view, her heart jolted.
The red highlights of the girl’s hair reminded her vividly of Abby’s, and she knew…
“That girl.” She pointed out the teen to Cal. “She looks like Abby, from her tall lean frame to her reddish hair.”
Cal said nothing, though he joined her in watching closely as the redhead climbed into a convertible VW Beetle with her friends.
The driver of the Beetle whizzed out of the parking lot and headed past where Chase had parked.
Sure enough, within seconds, Hamilton pulled his white truck onto the road again and followed the Beetle.
“Son of a biscuit,” she grumbled.
Without her needing to say a word, Cal pulled into traffic behind Hamilton, once again staying a fair distance back.
They tracked the Beetle and white truck to a small residential neighborhood where the girl with the bright auburn hair, a softball mitt under her arm, climbed out of the car, waved to her friends and loped toward her front door.
Hamilton cruised past the girl’s house and pulled his truck into the parking lot of an apartment building just down the street. Cal didn’t stop.
Jules grunted her dismay as he sped down the block, and she lost sight of Hamilton. “Please tell me you’re turning around! He’s clearly stalking that girl! We have to—”
She fumbled to finish the sentence.
What could they do? If they gave themselves away too early, before they had solid evidence of Hamilton breaking the law, he’d just get away again, and she’d have blown her cover.
But sitting on her hands while she knew he was, even now, probably hiding in the girl’s bushes and peeking in her window—or something equally pervy—rankled.
Cal looked over at her, his expression inviting her to finish her sentence.
“I don’t know what, but we should do something!”
“What happened to you trusting me?” he asked.
She snorted. “I’ve told you before—”
“Right. Right. You were burned by other folks in law enforcement. I am not other law enforcement.” He wheeled the Jeep into the driveway of a doughnut shop, closed for the day.
As he cut the engine and unbuckled his seat belt, he sent her a playful grin.
“Go ahead. I know you’re dying to make a crack about cops and doughnuts. ”
She had been, but she swallowed the remark and instead asked, “So what’s your plan then?”
“It’s a nice afternoon. Care to go for a walk?”