Page 31 of Drop Dead Gorgeous

Across the street, the Chevrolet pulled out of its parking space and the driver sedately drove off, not speeding or anything, for all the world as if he or she had finished shopping and was just waiting for a break in traffic before pulling out.

“It just left,” I finished, feeling as deflated as one of Mom’s soufflés. Mom couldn’t make soufflés worth a damn. Lynn came to stand beside me, peering out the window and looking puzzled.

“Did you get the tag number?” Wyatt asked.

“It wasbehindme.” I’m pretty sure no one follows from in front.

He let that pass. Big of him. “What do you mean, it just left?”

“It was parked across the street from Great Bods. It just pulled out and left.”

“This person followed you to Great Bods?”

“No, I did some juking and got away from them…her…him…whoever the hell it was, but when I got here to Great Bods they were waiting across the street.”

Right away I saw the impossibility of that, even if the silence on the other end of the line hadn’t been pointing it out, loud and clear. Again, you can’t follow from the front; that car had been here before I arrived. There was only one way it could have been the same car, and that seemed just as impossible.

“They know me,” I said, stunned. “They know who I am and where I work.”

Lynn said, “Who does?”

Wyatt said, “Did you recognize the driver?”

I closed my eyes, feeling a little dizzy from hearing a different voice in each ear. Wyatt was the cop, so I concentrated on him. “No. He…she—damn it, I couldn’t even tell if it was a man or a woman! Baseball cap, sunglasses. I could tell that much. The windshield was tinted.”

“What about yesterday? Are you sure it was the same person?”

“A woman was driving yesterday. Long hair. She tailgated me.”

“Did you recognize her?”

“No, but…she followed me here.” Relief poured through me at being able to provide a logical explanation for the Chevrolet being here before I was. “That’s how she knew where I work!”

“But you aren’t sure it was the same person.”

He was being thorough, and logical, the way cops had to be. I knew that on an intellectual level. On an emotional level, though, I wanted him to stop asking questions and round up all drivers of white Chevrolets and beat them bloody. Well, except for old people; I could tell the driver wasn’t even middle aged. He shouldn’t beat up young kids, either, because I was certain neither of the drivers I’d seen was a teenager. You can just tell, you know? Teenagers have that unfinished, still-growing thing going on. Big people were out, too, as well as teeny people. Okay, the people I wanted beat bloody were of regular size, ages twenty to maybe fifty. How hard could that be?

Taking my silence for a negative answer, which it wasn’t, Wyatt asked, “Was there another person in the car with the driver?”

I’d been saying “they” and “them” so of course he would ask that, but the only reason I’d been so confused was because yesterday the driver had been a woman and today I couldn’t tell, so there could be two different drivers, but how the hell would I know? “No.”

“And you aren’t certain it was the same driver both times?”

I was. The visceral part of me that had just been scared stupid was absolutely certain, because otherwise I’d have to believe that two days in a row someone in a white Chevrolet had tailgated me. Okay, so that wasn’t much of a stretch. But the most plausible answer wasn’t always the right answer.

Wyatt tried again. “Could you testify in a court of law, under oath, that you’re certain it was the same driver in both cases?”

Well, nail me to the wall, why don’t you? Thoroughly pissed, I said, “No, not if I were under oath.” Then I stubbornly added, “But it was the same driver.”So there.

He sighed and said, “There isn’t anything here I can pursue.”

“I’d already figured that out.”

Impatiently he said, “Next time, get the tag number.”

“I will,” I said politely. “I’m sorry I didn’t think to do it this time.” Yes indeedy, while I was sitting in that turn lane I should have gotten out, calmly walked past the nutcase to the back of the Chevrolet, and jotted down the tag number. The nutcase shouldn’t have had any objection to that, right?

After a long silence he said, “I don’t know if I’ll get to Great Bods tonight in time for you to close.”

---