I jammed my keys into the ignition and cranked the car. Hunger—the normal human kind—reminded me that, though I’d gorged on tacos at seven, it was now after midnight. What the hell. A late night snack never hurt anyone. There wasn’t a whole lot open at this hour, but the flickering neon of Double D’s Diner promised destressifying pie and hot chocolate, plus the parking lot had only three other cars in it. Score.
The rain still pelted down in torrential sheets. I clutched my dorky raincoat around me, pulled down my hood, and made a dash for the slim awning over the door, then scowled blackly as the rain abruptly eased to a mere drizzle.
“Really?” I snarled up at the sky. “You couldn’t ease up thirty seconds earlier?”
I shook the worst of the water off and entered the diner, hung my raincoat on a peg beside two normal-yellow ones and a bedraggled umbrella, then headed to the counter. The waitress slid a mug of hot chocolate and a plate full of apple pie to me as soon as I sat down.
“You know me too damn well, Lurline,” I said with a laugh.
The rangy, well-worn woman grinned. “I know how you are when you get off work in the middle of the night.” She leaned her elbows on the counter. “Anything good today?” she asked with a gleam in her eye.
“Sorry,” I told her. “Only one today and there was no mess or yuck of any sort. Very ordinary natural death.”
She heaved a disappointed sigh and pushed off the counter. “How’m I supposed to live vay-car-ee-us-lee through you if you don’t got any good stories?”
I laughed. “I’ll make up something good and gory for the next time I come in here.”
“You better!” she announced, then sauntered away to check on another customer.
Grinning, I dug into my pie and allowed the loving embrace of sugar and fat to shield me from my worries. I glanced around idly as I ate. The old, bald guy at the far end of the counter was another regular, and a young couple nestled in a booth, laughing and whispering as they shared a heaping plate of blueberry pancakes.
Through the broad windows of the diner I saw a Jeep pull into the lot and park, angled with the passenger side toward me. But the headlights remained on, and no one made a move to get out for almost a full minute. Finally the driver exited and moved to the back. Though she wore a light jacket with the hood up, I could tell it was a woman by the general build and grace of movement. She opened the hatch, huddling beneath it to stay out of the light drizzle as she rummaged through the contents as if looking for something.
But my heart did a weird little flip when she straightened and pushed the hood back from her face. It was her. The stalker blonde.
She didn’t have a camera in her hands, however, and after a few seconds of frantic thought I decided she probably hadn’t followed me here. First off, I figured she’d be a little more sneaky about it if she had. Plus, the expression on her face was a far cry from the calm focus I saw earlier today. Even from this distance it was tough to mistake the expression of worry and anxiety.
She’d parked on the other side of the diner from my car, so there was a damn good chance she had no idea I was here. Perfect time to find out what the hell’s going on. I dropped a ten on the counter to more than cover my coffee and pie, slung my purse across my chest and headed out, grabbing my obnoxious raincoat on the way. Sure, without it I’d probably have an easier time getting close before she realized it was me, but I really didn’t want to get wet. Yeah, I was a weenie.
I strode toward the Jeep with my hood up and purpose in my step. With the way she was parked I came up on the driver’s side, which was fine with me. Hopefully that would make it easier to stop her if she tried to make a run for it.
She was still doing something in the back, but the sound of crunching gravel beneath my boots alerted her to my approach. She ducked her head around the side of the Jeep, eyes widening in surprise at the sight of me.
“Hey! You! I wanna talk to you!” I snarled.
Alarm flashed across her features, then in a smooth move she stepped from behind the Jeep, pulled a shotgun from the back and brought it up to hip level to point at me.
I jerked to a stop, still about a dozen feet from her. Well shit, I thought in surprise and a bit of annoyance. This escalated quickly. With the way her Jeep was angled, no one inside the diner could see the shotgun. They’d certainly hear the blast, though that wouldn’t do me much good.
“Just back off,” the blond woman said, tension roiling through her voice. Yet even though the barrel of the shotgun didn’t waver, she really didn’t look as if she wanted to shoot me. At all. On the other hand, she also looked scared and freaked and a little desperate, and I knew that sort of emotion-soup could easily overcome any reluctance to pull the trigger. Her left hand steadied the barrel, and my eyes narrowed. She had a splint on that hand that I was pretty damn sure hadn’t been there when I saw her earlier today.
I shook my head slowly. “I’m not gonna back off until you tell me what the hell’s going on, and why you’re following me and taking pictures.”
“Because it was my job,” she said, voice tight and full of desperate intensity. “But I’m not taking any more pics. I’m leaving.” Her grip on the shotgun tightened. “So…back off.”
I remained exactly where I was. “No. Not backing off.” I kept my own voice as calm as I could manage. “What job do you have that includes stalking me?”
She edged toward the driver’s side door. “One I quit,” she said. “And I have to get out of here.”
Watching her carefully, I took a slow step forward. “I’m not afraid of getting shot,” I told her. Which wasn’t entirely true. Getting shot hurt, and I had a feeling getting shot by a shotgun would hurt a lot. But I knew damn well something more was going on. “You haven’t answered my question.”
“Please. I don’t want to shoot you!” she said, desperation thickening her voice now. “I have to go.” Her eyes flicked toward the highway and back to me. Was someone after her?
“Look, are you into something fucked up?” I asked, easing forward another step. Probably a stupid question, now that I thought about it, since she was holding a shotgun on me. “Maybe I can help,” I added. Hell, I knew that I’m so screwed look on her face. I’d seen it on my own a time or two.
A brief spark of hope flickered in her eyes, but then she shook her head and it died. “Yeah, really a twisted mess,” she said. To my relief she lowered the shotgun. “I…won’t shoot you. But, please, I have to go.” Her voice quavered. “The people I worked for, they’ll be coming after me. And you don’t want to be around when that happens.”
Was she concerned for me? Or for what I might see or find out? “First, tell me who you work for,” I said.