Page 28 of Stalked

Steve nodded and looked at Rosalyn on the way out. “Everything. Okay?”

As soon as Steve and the clerk left, Rosalyn closed the door and stripped off all her clothes.

A bug? Like a transmitting device?

She’d thought maybe her car was being tracked but hadn’t considered some sort of tracking device on her clothing. But as she thought of it more, she cursed herself for being so obtuse. All those times she had thought the Watcher was in her head, he’d really just been on her clothes.

That even explained why sometimes he waited many days between contacting her but sometimes he communicated with her more than once within a few hours.

Because some clothes were bugged and some weren’t.

Most of her clothes had been destroyed last night in the fire, along with her duffel bag. She tore off the rest and put on the new clothes Steve had left her. Everything changed, down to a new pair of socks and athletic shoes, bile caught in her throat the whole time.

She was just coming out of the changing room as an alarm started blaring overhead. Steve was standing, waiting for her. He turned to the clerk.

“What does that alarm mean? Fire?”

The kid shook his head. “No. I don’t think so. I haven’t worked here very long but I don’t remember that one from my training. Tornado, maybe?”

Steve grabbed her hand. “We’ve got to go.”

“I’m ready. All new clothes.”

“Your bag has to go too. It could also easily be tracked.”

She hated to give up the bag—it had been a part of every single move she’d made for nearly a year—but didn’t argue. Steve had another similar one he’d grabbed.

“I want to keep my notebook—is that okay? It has all entries about the Watcher.”

Steve took it and flipped through it. “It looks clean.”

She also took out her money and driver’s license. Everything else—makeup, pens, knickknacks—got thrown in the trash with the pen.

The siren suddenly cut off. “It must have been a drill,” the clerk muttered.

Steve looked at the guy’s name tag. “Hey, Paul, you want to make a hundred dollars?”

Paul stood up. “Am I going to get fired for it?”

“No. I just need you to take the tags off all these clothes and pay for them up at a register. Any change left over is yours to keep.”

Nobody had to ask Paul twice. He took the money and the tags from their clothes and left.

Steve took Rosalyn’s hand and they walked toward the front.

“Should we do something with our old clothes?”

Steve shook his head. “I found two transmitting devices in your clothes. There’s no telling how many more there might be. Hopefully, leaving them in the dressing room will throw your stalker off.”

“And we’re just going to waltz out the front door?”

“Yep.”

“Isn’t that dangerous?”

“I think the siren was an attempt to get us to do something stupid like run out the back door. Instead we’ll just walk out the front like everyone else.”

“And get on a flight to Miami.”

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