Chapter 65
I THINK I’M BEING FOLLOWED.
This small stretch of service road is fairly empty at this time of day, but a car with a lone driver seems to be keeping a steady distance behind me.
I don’t think it’s Carlos. It’s not the old gray car he drove to the Harrisons’ the first time I saw him.
It’s a nondescript black car with tinted windows, so I can’t see the driver.
Is it the man on the bench? I can’t say for sure.
I decide to assume the worst. The driver is wise enough to stay several car lengths back. I put on my directional to test him, pretending I’m turning left. He does the same. When I turn mine off, he waits a beat, then turns his off as well. We both keep driving.
Coincidence? Well, maybe. I think of some of the other coincidences I’ve been party to lately: Bumping into Carlos in Luis’s lobby. Ben asking me to search his closet—exactly what I’d planned to do behind his back—when he couldn’t find his passport.
A mile or so off this road is a neighborhood full of wonderful old cobblestoned streets and majestic Victorian houses.
Gorgeous, but not a place you would drive through unless you lived there.
So, without signaling this time, I make a sharp left onto Ludlow Lane.
A moment later, the car behind me does the same.
Now what?
I turn right into someone’s driveway and brake quickly, barely missing their wraparound porch.
I keep my foot on the brake as I wait to see if the car behind me will pass.
It does. I watch as he slows down, turns left at the corner, and disappears.
I wait five minutes. Then ten. Still no sign of him, so I decide it’s safe to pull out.
Breathing a sigh of relief, I get back on the service road.
Suddenly, he’s behind me again.
I know the local police station is nearby.
Surely that driver won’t have the balls to follow me into their parking lot—or will he?
No time to wonder. I speed up and head there, preparing what I’m going to say to the police: Hi.
Remember me from the Day of the Snake? Well, I’m not really a nanny.
Actually, I’m an undercover FBI agent, and I think I’m being followed by a man who I think is involved with a Mexican cartel that I think may be laundering money with a local businessman who thinks I work for him.
Yeah. That should go over well.
Plan B: Go to the police but make up some old-lady excuse for being there. I want to report a Peeping Tom? My neighbor is using his leaf blower too early on weekends? I’ll need to sound adamant, befuddled. I’ll insist that a police car follow me home to check things out. And when it does…
I glance in my rearview mirror. The black sedan is still there, a few car lengths back.
I remember all the ways I can try to get away.
I slow down and move to the right lane. He does too.
Then I speed up. So does he. I quickly take the next exit without signaling, throwing him off, then just as quickly get back on the road.
Somehow, there he is again. He must have pulled over and sat there, waiting.
The dogs, bouncing around in the back, are starting to whine.
I know the police station is less than a mile away, but I’m in a race against time and I’m going too fast, and, oh God, it looks like he’s getting close, closer, but it’s hard to tell because now he’s put on his brights and for a second I’m blinded and can’t see anything behind me except for the dogs jumping around, so I turn my head and—yes, he’s there!
He’s practically on top of me, and now there’s no denying that in a second or two—