Page 7 of Caught By the Kingpin
* * *
This is the last time I’ll buy my father’s groceries, and see my ghost. I choose a greeting card that saysThank Youand prop it open, sticking up out of the shelves. I know he’s watching.
In the next aisle, I browse kitchenware for a few minutes, unable to concentrate on the bowls in soft blues and greens that I usually love. I’m eager to get back to the greeting cards, but I don’t want to scare him off. I sneak looks out of the corner of my eye.
A middle-aged woman with a baby. A young guy in a T-shirt who walks past makes me blink, but no. I don’t think that’s my stalker. Then a tall shadow of a dark suit and a flash of blue eyes. So smooth and fast, by the time my brain has caught up and I’ve turned, he’s gone. I rush to the end of the aisle, and then look down the next, and the next, almost sprinting.
Where is he? Marco. Was that…?
But he’s nowhere to be found. Holding in the scream of frustration is like shutting an overflowing fizzy pop bottle. All the disappointment is there, waiting to spill over the moment I open the cap.
It wasn’t Marco.
Kingpins do not go around leaving presents for girls they met once. Maybe itwasa ghost.
With heavy feet scuffing the smooth floor, I walk back to my trolley.
I almost don’t return to the card section, but go out of duty. Should put the card in its correct slot, right? No need to make more work for the shop assistants.
Where I put the thank-you card, there’s another replacing it. It’s red and white. Simple and baffling.
It’s designed to look like a playing card: the queen of hearts. It reads,And I’m playing for keeps.
I huff in irritation even as delight tingles under my ribs.
But it’s over. Next week I’m putting my plan into action.
When I get back home and I’m unloading the shopping, I tell myself I’m not expecting anything, because how can he top the ring from last week? And maybe I imagined the whole thing. Among the other confectionery, making me doubt whether I bought them myself, is something I’ve never had.
A bag of Hershey’s kisses.
I smuggle them up to my bedroom and suck each one. I relish the chocolate as it melts in my mouth.
And I try not to feel sad that I’ve never had a kiss in real life.
* * *
It’s not just anticipation of escape that makes my head full of buzzing insects all week. There’s a lot of stress about Westminster, which is convenient as my tenseness is even less noticeable. I’m so close to getting out I can almost taste it.
I look at the gifts my stalker-ghost gave me and remind myself someone thought I was worth that risk, before returning the ring to the broken seam of my hoody.
The girl who was given a ring, a book, and kisses is capable of pulling off a bold escape. I’ve got my outfit ready for tomorrow: my hoody and my favourite jeans. Though I’m wearing my hoody to bed as usual since it’s cool tonight. I’m all set to never see any of this life again.
There is one thing I’ll miss. My ghost.
Whoever it is who is stalking me, leaving me gifts and messages, and I suspect, sometimes watching me in the garden. I can’t be certain my stalker is a man, but sometimes I catch a sweep of scent. A moment of ocean salt and fresh air.
Tomorrow.
Tomorrow I will enter the supermarket and walk straight back out to the taxi rank. From there, I’ve got the route mapped out to get to Scotland.
I’m nervous. Excited. I need to sleep, because tomorrow will be big.
4
FELICITY
A warm dry palm stifles my scream as the gunfire yanks me awake.
