“Uh... yeah.”
He laughed with a deep bellow. “Okay. See you on Friday.”
I hung up and shoved at the open luggage. It fell on the floor and spilled its contents.
I paced the living room like a caged animal searching for the weakest link in the fence. After twenty minutes, I hadn't found any way to get out of what I'd agreed to with Matthew and Richard. And I wasn't sure I wanted to find it even if it did exist. Instead, I returned to the suitcases and struggled to accept what my life would become.
Only I had no concept of what that was.
I stopped at a clearance table in front of Desert Island Books, a bookstore boasting “the best collection of books to be stranded anywhere with.” I stared into the reflection of the store window and scanned the crowd behind me. The busy plaza was host to an odd mix of people. Tourists sporting bag after bag of souvenirs from shops like City Skyline Gifts. Teenage boys with the dangerous combination of no money to spend and time to kill. And the occasional suburbanite family shopping for anything they couldn't get outside the city limits, like a basket of twenty-eight gourmet cheeses that no one in their right mind would eat.
None of them were whom I needed to see. I picked up the nearest book in a practiced shopper's move. Who'd spend $9.95 on a self-help book titled Live Today Like it's Your Last anyway? Maybe not the best book to read when you're stranded alone on a deserted island. Shouldn't there be something like How to Survive on a Deserted Island?
I dropped the book, picked up another, and scanned the crowd in the window's reflection again. A man sitting alone on a bench reading a newspaper caught my eye. He lowered the paper and glanced around the plaza, his gaze sweeping over my back along with everyone else. He raised the paper again, hiding more of his face than before.
Bingo.
I set the book down and hefted my laptop bag higher on my shoulder. I'd gotten pretty good at dodging them. It wouldn't take long. Except... my stalker was smiling, his paper folded on his lap, his arms out. A young boy ran toward him.
“Daddy!”
He scooped the small boy into his arms and gripped him in a bear hug. A woman trailed behind the boy, an infant cradled in her arms.
What were the chances my father hired an entire family to stalk me? Did I want to know?
I turned and watched them walk by. The family made their way to the end of the plaza and into an all-you-can-eat seafood joint. My gaze lingered on the boy's small hand tucked inside his father's.
I almost missed the man I needed to see. Thankfully, Tony's Seafood kept the large glass windows clean. There, under the neon sign indicating Tony's had the freshest fish in the city, was Fowler's reflection. He was leaning against the doorway to a souvenir shop behind me. He sported dark sunglasses and watched my back as intently as I watched him in the restaurant's window.
I'd left my apartment an hour earlier with the two suitcases in hand and my laptop bag over my shoulder. I'd already dropped off everything else I owned to Walter's the night before. As I stepped out of my place, I gave one last glance at the apartment. It looked identical to the day I'd moved in— minus one cheap folding chair. How had I spent over eight months in a place and not left any sign I'd been there? If I dropped off the planet, would anyone notice? Would anyone know I'd ever been alive? I shook my head and closed the door behind me. When did I get so maudlin?
I'd spent most of the week trying to figure out if I could take my surveillance cameras. And if I didn't, how long I'd even last at Richard's before my father's men or another reporter found me. I settled on ditching the cameras and taking a chance for once. A short-term plan. And despite that I usually did everything in those terms, it surprised me I didn't like thinking of Matthew and Richard as temporary. I'd taken one hell of a chance to start down a new path, and I wanted to give it a little time before I bailed. I also wanted to take every precaution I could manage.
I glanced at the table of books again as I pulled out my cell phone. Usually I'd weave in and out of stores to shake my tail, but I was running late. I still needed to get my bags from the hotel where I'd paid the cab driver to drop them off. And Fowler seemed a cut above my father's other men. Time for something more sophisticated. No sense taking a chance right off the bat.
All you had to mention to get someone stopped was a possible explosive hidden under a jacket and a public place like the Erie Street Market. I gave Fowler's description and hung up. I grabbed another book. Love After 50: Learning to Love Yourself, Extra Baggage and All. What kind of baggage did people living on a deserted island have? Jesus, were there this many screwed up people in the world? When did we stop making decisions without the advice of complete strangers? And when the hell did love gain such a rosy picture? Life after love sucked more than life before it. I should write that book. How long before it'd find its way onto the 70 percent off table?
Quick footsteps sounded farther down the plaza. I tossed the book onto the clearance table and faced him. Fowler didn't duck behind a nearby shopper or sales rack like so many of my father's other men did. He
