“Oh my God,” Clarke exclaims, sitting forward and spilling the tea on her lap. She grabs a napkin and dabs at it, but demands, “And you think it was him?”
“No,” I decide with a firm shake of my head. “No, just my mind playing tricks. No way he could have tracked me here… not right to this street while I’m in your store.”
“Except,” she prompts, obviously hearing a bit of doubt in my voice.
“Except…” I say on a deep inhale of breath. “He found me before. Had installed a tracking app on my phone, unbeknownst to me. But that’s been wiped by the police forensics team. There’s just no way…”
My voice trails off as I think about my worst fears.
“Except…” Clarke prompts again.
I move my gaze from my teacup to her. “Except… he knows about Kane. Knows he’s my best friend. May have taken an educated guess that I’d come here. I suppose with a bit of money and determination, he could have located where Kane lives. What if he’s been watching Kane’s place and knows I’m here? What if it was him?”
“Let’s go,” Clarke says. Once again, she stands from the chair and sets her teacup down. “Let’s go down there and see for sure.”
“Really?” I ask, rising. It’s a good idea, actually, and there’s strength in numbers. He can’t hurt me on a public street in view of other people.
“Want me to grab my mace?” she asks with a sly grin.
I laugh, shaking my head. “I think you and I can take him in broad daylight. Let’s do it.”
Clarke grabs her keys, then we leave the shop. She flips the “open” sign to “closed” on the front door. I wait for her to lock up, then we start off in the same direction as the man. My gaze goes to the table he’d been at earlier, but he’s gone.
The woman is still there, but he is not.
I peer farther down the street but see no sign of him. “He’s gone.”
Clarke glances down the opposite way, and I do the same.
“Huh,” I mutter.
“Come on,” Clarke says, grabbing my arm and heading down the street.
“Where are we going?” I ask, jogging to keep up with her brisk pace.
“We’re going to go ask that woman who he was.”
“Brilliant,” I murmur, and we hurry down the block. We have to wait for the cross traffic, then sprint across the pedestrian lane. When we approach the woman at her table, I feel foolish for what I’m about to do. She looks up with a hesitant smile as we stop beside her. “Hi.”
“Hi,” she replies, tipping her head curiously.
“Um… there was a man at your table a few moments ago. I thought I recognized him, but now he’s gone. I was wondering if it was Matthew Brighton?”
The girl laughs, shaking her head. “I have no clue,” she admits. “He just came up, mentioned my Apple computer, and said he was thinking of buying one. Wanted to know if he could ask me a few questions.”
I side-eye Clarke, whose expression says she finds this very strange.
“He asked a few questions, then left,” she says. “It was so weird. I thought he was hitting on me, which I didn’t mind because he was cute and all, but then he just abruptly took off.”
Christ. It probably was Matthew. He must have realized I saw him. Maybe even caught me coming out of the store before we could make eye contact. Sat at her table to throw me off.
“Okay, thanks,” I say. Clarke and I head back toward her store in silence while I mull over what this means. I can’t help looking over my shoulder a dozen times before we reach her place and go back in.
It’s slightly alarming that when she shuts the door, she locks it and keeps the “closed” sign flipped.
“It was him,” Clarke says. “That’s what you’re thinking.”
“I can’t help it, but maybe I’m just paranoid.”
“Better safe than sorry,” she replies. “You need to call Kane right now. You can’t go back to his place by yourself.”
“That’s ridiculous,” I mutter. “It could have very well been a man who was interested in Apple computers for all we know. I didn’t even get a good look.”
“But it could be him,” she presses, looking down at my hands sympathetically. “Your hands are shaking. Let’s have something a bit stronger than tea.”
Clarke moves behind her counter, pulling out a bottle of bourbon along with two small plastic cups. She pours us each a stiff amount, then slides one over to me.
In the end, after two shots, she convinces me to call Kane, who is at the arena in the middle of a practice session. I leave him a voice mail, but Clarke refuses to let me go back to his place alone. I won’t let her close up her shop to take me, so I end up staying to help her out. When she opens her store back up, I jump a little every time the door opens.