Page 72 of Deathmarch
“I don’t think it was Zane. Zane is a bullshitter. He’ll tell you what you want to hear and make you believe it.” God, that sounded like her father. She cringed. Was that her type? What did that say about her? That she didn’t have a brain? “He’s not a criminal. He’s…” She searched for the right words. “He could sell anyone anything.”
“Which is why he’s a used car salesman.”
She blinked. “You ran a background check on him.”
“Damn right. What else?”
She thought about it. “He’s stubborn. Once he sets his mind on something, nobody can talk him out of what he wants.”
And he’d set his mind on the two of them reconciling. When she’d told him she wasn’t getting back together with him, he refused to accept it. He wanted her, and he wouldn’t take no for an answer.
“When did you break up?”
“Six months ago. He broke up with me, actually. He wanted me to cut back on traveling. Since that’s literally my job, I said no. He told me to empty out my dresser.”
Harper raised an eyebrow as he brought them plates and silverware along with two bottles of water. No napkins, but he kept a roll of paper towels on the table. He handed her a sheet of that.
“Then, a month later, he magnanimously changed his mind. Told me I could come back.”
“And when you didn’t, he switched to stalking.”
“How do you know?”
“Not the first stalker I’ve run into on the job.” He tugged the aluminum foil off the platter. “How bad is it?”
“Mostly online. I have a business. I advertise on social media. I can’t shut down my accounts.” Allie scooped steamed vegetables over to her plate, along with a juicy hamburger, and some french fries.
“You didn’t block him?”
“He just starts new accounts. For the first few months, he was trying to make me see how great he was, what I was missing. Dick pics galore.Remember the good times, babe?” She looked away. “It changed about a month ago. Now I get angry posts. He tells me I’m an idiot, a slut, never going to find anyone as great as him.”
“When did the in-person stalking start?”
“Same as the online stuff. He would track me down, come to a performance, try to talk to me afterwards. All nice at first, bringing flowers, asking me to dinner. Then lately…” She shook her head as she bit off half a french fry. “More menacing. Just following me. Or he’d park outside my door all night at whatever motel where I was staying. I thought I saw a black SUV following me when I was in Maryland, but I could have been just paranoid. Or he lost me in the storm. There hasn’t been anything since, except a hang-up call when I got into the B and B, but I don’t think that was him. He would have said something. Did you track down the license plate?”
“Belongs to a rental. The SUV was rented for the week by a Jason Allen. He was in town visiting his grandparents with his fiancée. Remember John Allen? His wife, Ruth, used to work at the gas station. Anyway, that’s who Jason was visiting. He and his fiancée flew back to Seattle early this morning. I talked to him over the phone. He says someone might have taken the car last night. He hadn’t locked it since it sat in his grandfather’s driveway, and well, this is Broslin. But he thought it smelled like cigarettes in the morning. Does Zane smoke?”
“A cigar, now and then, when he’s out with friends. But I don’t think Zane would steal a car. He works at a dealership. He could grab anything he wants.”
“And if he had dealer plates, we’d know it’s him. How long did you live together?”
“A year.” She groaned. “I know. I’m stupid. I should have seen through him sooner, but I travel almost all the time. I wasn’t at his condo that much. A long weekend here and there was the most we ever spent together.”
“You said you moved out. Where do you keep your stuff?” Harper asked as he finally made himself a plate.
“I don’t have much.” She shrugged, picking up a french fry and dipping it into the ketchup he’d squirted onto the edge of her plate from a little plastic packet. “I have a storage locker in Harrisburg. I travel with enough clothes for a week or two at a time. If I need something important that’s not in the car, I drive up to Harrisburg and get it. But if I need something like a heavier sweater and I’m more than fifty miles away? Thrift shops. Cheaper than gas and tolls.”
“So you really don’t live anywhere?” He stared at her like he couldn’t fully comprehend the concept.
“Do I have to?”
“How do you get mail?”
“I have a PO Box with a mail-forwarding service. But usually I have them hold my mail, and I just pick it up when I’m in town. Honestly, there’s never anything in the mail anymore that can’t wait. I do almost everything online.”
He stared at her with his burger halfway to his mouth. “It’s—”
“Crazy?”
