Stalking Steven Read online

  Just look at Jaime Mendoza’s ex-wife.

  “Any new calls?”

  Rachel shook her head. “We’ve only just started, Gina. It takes time to build a business.”

  Of course it did. But in the meantime, I had two employees and no income.

  Actually, Rachel wasn’t so much employee as partner. And she had a severance packet that she could live on for a couple of months, until we—hopefully—got some money coming in. But Zachary had quit his job at the Apex—the building where David’s penthouse was—and he was working for Fidelity Investigations full time. And he had to eat and put gas in his car. Unless we got some actual paying clients through the door in the next couple of weeks, I’d be paying Zachary’s salary out of my savings account.

  “Is Zach here?”

  “He’s working on the website,” Rachel said, with a glance toward the rear of the building, where the offices were. “Search engine optimization, he said.”

  Excellent. “I need him to do something for me. Steven left the university and drove to a house in Crieve Hall. He spent almost two hours inside, and then he drove home.”

  Rachel nodded.

  “I want a look at whoever lives there. So I want Zachary to deliver a pizza.”

  “Pizza?”

  “It’s a classic ploy. Private Investigating for Dummies says so. You knock on the door with a pizza and say you have a delivery. They tell you they didn’t order a pizza. You double check the address. They insist they didn’t order the pizza. You offer to give them the pizza anyway, since your boss will be angry if you bring it back. They open the door and take the pizza, since nobody turns down a free pizza, and...”

  I broke off. “You know, never mind. That’s for process servers. But I bet it would work for us, too.”

  “Can’t hurt to try,” Rachel agreed.

  “Can’t hurt to try what?” Zachary asked. He must have heard us talking, and come in from his own office. Now he was lounging in the doorway, looking from one to the other of us.

  He’s adorable, in a very young, freckled way. Barely taller than me—I’m five-nine—and as bright-eyed and bushy-tailed as the proverbial squirrel. I think he was as excited about working for a PI firm as I was. Maybe more so, since he didn’t have any of the financial worries.

  I told him where Steven had gone this afternoon. “We need someone to get a look at who lives there. You’re our best bet. You can deliver a pizza.”

  Nobody would believe that I, at my age, was a pizza delivery person. And Rachel was even older than I was.

  Zachary flushed excitedly, from the neck of his blue T-shirt all the way up to the roots of his carroty hair. “You mean I get to go undercover?”

  Rachel opened her mouth, probably to tell him not to get carried away, and I got in first.

  “Yes! Exactly. You’d go undercover as a pizza delivery person. I’d need you to bribe someone at the pizza place to let you borrow a uniform shirt or hat and one of those lighted signs they put on their roofs. And then I need you to go to the house and see if you can get someone to open the door. Most people will open the door for a free pizza.”

  Zachary nodded. “I’ve read the book.”

  “Then you know what to do.”

  “Now?”

  “Finish up what you were doing first. And give me a chance to go to the bathroom. I’ve been in the car a long time.”

  “You’re coming, too?” It sounded like he wasn’t entirely sure whether he was excited or the opposite about going out in the field with the boss.

  “Just in the car,” I said. “If you get them to open the door, I want to see what they look like. And try to get a photograph. You can’t do that if you’re holding the pizza. But you’ll be on your own at the door. And inside the pizza parlor.”

  He nodded. “I’ll go shut down the computer.”

  “I’m going to the bathroom.” I headed down the hallway while he went back into his own office.

  * * *

  By the time I came back out to the lobby, Zachary had finished what he had to do, and was waiting for me, twitchy with excitement. Rachel was there, as well, twitchy with worry. “Do you want me to wait until you come back? Just in case?”

  “In case of what?” Zachary wanted to know. “We’re just delivering a pizza!”

  I was less impatient—and less cocksure. “I don’t think that’s necessary, Rachel. It’s almost five anyway. And Zachary’s right. Even if somebody in the house is having an affair with Steven Morton, nobody’s going to come after Zachary with a shotgun. He’s just a kid delivering a pizza.”

  Rachel nodded, but was clearly not convinced. “Will you call me and tell me that everything went well?”

  “Of course,” I said. “But I don’t expect any trouble.”

  “Still.” Rachel headed out the door. Zachary followed, and I brought up the rear so I could lock up behind us.

  “Which pizza place would you like to work for?” I asked when Rachel had gotten in her car and was pulling out of the parking lot. “Little Caesar’s? Papa John’s? CiCi’s? Domino’s?”

  “Michelangelo’s,” Zachary said, maybe in hopes that he’d end up eating the pizza after this was over. When it came to eating, Michelangelo’s pizza was far superior to anything else. Twice the price, too, of course, but tasty. “I have a buddy who works there. He’ll let me borrow a shirt and hat.”

  “I’ll meet you there.” I got into my Lexus. Zachary got into his beat-up Honda and led the way.

  At Michelangelo’s, I stayed in the car and let him take the lead. I figured he’d appreciate it, and that I’d probably just be in the way while he sweet-talked the girl behind the counter. He came out five minutes later with a pizza, wearing a black shirt with Michelangelo’s stitched on the chest, and a black baseball cap, ditto.

  “No car light,” he told me. “The real drivers need them.”

  No problem. “The uniform will be enough. Let’s take your car.”

  Mine was five years old and not in perfect shape, but his still looked more like something a pizza delivery guy would drive.

  “Sure,” Zachary said. “Um... it’s sort of messy.”

  “That’s all right. I’m only going to be in it for a few minutes.” And I really wasn’t old enough that he needed to treat me like his honored grandmother. I was only... well, twice his age. Old enough to be his mother, technically. Although not with David. But still. “And I’ve seen it before. You drove me back to the Apex three weeks ago, remember?”

  “Sure,” Zachary said, although he sounded less than sure. “Just don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

  I promised I wouldn’t, and got into the passenger seat, while he gently placed the pizza box on top of a pile of what might be laundry in the back seat. It looked like every piece of clothing Zachary owned.

  He got behind the wheel. “Where’s this place we’re going to?”

  I told him it was in Crieve Hall, and gave him directions for how to get there. Ten minutes later, we took the turn into the driveway on two wheels and came to a shuddering stop. Zachary drove like a twenty-year-old on speed, the perfect camouflage for pretending he was a pizza delivery guy to whom time was money. I was grateful we hadn’t mowed down any pedestrians on the way. And while the pizza box had shimmied on top of the mountain of clothes, it hadn’t slid down the side.

  The street was quiet. Darkness had settled, and there was the flicker of blue screens from inside several of the houses we passed. Windows were lit, and here and there we saw families gathered around dining room tables. At Mrs. Grimshaw’s house next door, the living room light was on, and I could see the outline of the small dog at the window, big bat ears quivering.

  The house where Steven had spent the afternoon was mostly dark. The outside light above the door was on, but nothing else that I could see.

  “Looks empty,” Zachary said.

  I nodded.

  He glanced at me. “Do I get to eat the pizza if they aren’t here?”

&nbs
p; “Sure.” It would adhere directly to my thighs, so I certainly didn’t want it. “Check first, though.”

  “No problem.” He adjusted the Michelangelo’s hat on his head and opened the car door. The interior light stayed off, for which I was grateful. Better if nobody noticed that the pizza delivery guy had a passenger. Someone might think it strange.

  Zachary opened the back door and grabbed the box off the top of the mountain of clothes.

  “Good luck,” I told him.

  He didn’t answer—good boy—just slammed the car door behind him and bounced up the walk to the front door.

  I watched as he knocked and stepped back. And knocked again.

  Just as I thought he would give up and come back to the car, the door opened.

  Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to see much. The door opened on the wrong side. Zachary got an eyeful, but I saw very little. She—I assumed it was a woman—stayed out of sight while Zachary explained his errand, and then offered the pizza box.

  She didn’t step forward to take it.

  Zachary moved closer and tried to make her take it, and got the door slammed in his face for his trouble. The noise made me jump, and Zachary jumped too, backward.

  He stayed on the stoop for a moment—in character. I could hear his voice yelling at the closed door. “Can’t you just take the damn pizza? Now I’m gonna have to eat it myself. I can’t bring it back and tell my boss we got the address wrong. He’s gonna take it out of my salary!”

  The door didn’t reopen, so after a few seconds, Zachary stomped off the stoop and down along the walkway to the car. He opened the back door—“Stay in character,” I told him softly—and tossed the pizza inside, angrily. Then he slammed the door, and got behind the wheel, muttering. The car squealed backward down the driveway and burned rubber up the street.

  “Slow down,” I told him when we were around the corner and out of sight.

  He glanced in the rearview mirror. “Nobody following us?”

  I did the same. “Doesn’t look that way. Did you do something that might make someone follow you?”

  “I don’t think so,” Zachary said, taking off the ball cap and tossing it into the backseat, on top of the pizza box, before running his hand through his hair. “Although she seemed upset.”

  “Why?”

  “No idea.” He slowed down for a second to check traffic, before merging. “I guess maybe she didn’t want to be disturbed. And she didn’t want the pizza.”

  “I noticed. I guess you get pizza for dinner tonight.”

  He shot me a look. “I’ll pay you for it if you want.”

  “That’s OK,” I said. I probably had more money than he did, and anyway, there might come a time soon when I wouldn’t be able to keep up with his salary. The pizza might get me brownie points for later. “So tell me about it.”

  Zachary shrugged. “I knocked. Nobody answered. I knocked again. I was about to leave when She opened the door.”

  The way he pronounced the word, gave it a distinct capital letter.

  “I didn’t get a good look at her,” I said. “What did she look like?”

  “Tall and blond,” Zachary said with a dreamy expression. “Like a goddess. Or a swimsuit model.”

  “The kind of girl a sedate university professor might throw his wife over for?”

  “The kind of girl any man in his right mind would throw his wife under a train for,” Zachary said. He pulled into a parking space outside Michelangelo’s with a squeal of tires, and stopped the car. “She looked like she was maybe twenty-two or -three. And real pretty. If I was her professor and she came on to me, I wouldn’t say no.”

  I nodded. “Tomorrow, maybe you can do some computer research. See if you can find any kind of connection between the house in Crieve Hall and Steven Morton. For all we know he might own it—an investment property—and the girl is a potential tenant.” I reached for my door handle, and hesitated. “And if you wanted, you could hang around the campus for a bit. Undercover. Pretend to be a student. See if you see her again.”

  Zachary nodded.

  “Head over there in the morning. Take a look around. See what you can see. And then come into the office in the afternoon. I’ll take over the surveillance then.”

  “Works for me,” Zachary said. “You sure you don’t want the pizza?”

  “I’m positive. But thanks for asking.” I pushed the door open and got out. “Give Rachel a call and tell her you’re all right. See you tomorrow.”

  “Take care,” Zachary said, and buzzed off.

  I walked the few feet to the door of the Lexus, and hesitated. There was nothing to eat at home. And here I was, standing outside a pizza parlor. Artisanal pizza, no less. Hand-tossed, with gourmet toppings. The smell wrapped around me, yeasty and delicious, permeating my clothes and hair, making my mouth water.

  I hadn’t wanted the lion’s share of a pepperoni pizza sitting in my refrigerator, calling my name. Much safer to let Zachary take it with him. He was twenty; he could eat most of a pizza tonight and not be five pounds heavier tomorrow. At forty, those days were past me. But I wouldn’t mind a slice of pizza for dinner. Maybe something with vegetables on it, to make me feel more virtuous about the grease and cheese and fat.

  Did Michelangelo’s sell pizza by the slice, by any chance?

  They didn’t, as it turned out. But they made individual gourmet pizzas with four slices. That’d only be half the amount of dough and cheese sitting in my fridge, calling my name. I ordered one, with a virtuous amount of mushrooms and red onions, olives and feta, and took it home. And ate it. All of it.

  Hey, at least the leftovers wouldn’t sit in the fridge and tempt me.

  Chapter 3

  As penance for the pizza, I did an extra twenty minutes on the elliptical the next morning.

  David’s building—my building now—had a gym on the first floor, so I had given up my membership to the Green Hills YMCA. I didn’t even have to brave the elements to exercise anymore. I could just take the elevator from the 14th floor to the 1st, do my time, and then take the elevator back to the 14th floor and my own shower again.

  It was nice and convenient, although it took away any excuse I might have had when I didn’t feel like working out.

  Since Zachary was covering Steven Morton, there was no point in my going over to the university. Besides, Diana had told me he usually had lectures and appointments in the mornings. And there was nothing at the office I needed to tend to. I decided to drive over to Crieve Hall instead, and scope out the house next door to Mrs. Grimshaw’s in daylight.

  If the young woman Zachary had met last night was a student, maybe she wouldn’t be home this morning.

  Maybe the house would be empty, so I could take a look around.

  It isn’t a long drive, so it was less than fifteen minutes later that I swung down the street where I’d spent so much time yesterday.

  Things looked as quiet now as they had then. This was a solid middle class neighborhood, and most people had probably gone to work and school already. A woman was jogging down the street with a dog, and in a driveway, another was strapping a toddler into a car seat.

  As soon as I slowed down in front of the house, I realized why the place had looked dark last night. There were heavy curtains covering every window, even the one in the door. Either these people were vampires, or they really liked their privacy.

  There were no cars in the driveway. I thought about getting out and walking around the house, but if the windows were covered, what would be the point? And since Steven wasn’t here anyway, pressing my nose to perfect strangers’ windows seemed a little out of line.

  Tampering with the mail is a federal offense, but I figured no one would really mind if I just took a look. Sure, my heart was knocking a little extra hard against my ribs as I slid out of the car and opened the mailbox... but I did it. And all for nothing. The box was empty.

  According to Private Investigating for Dummies, you can learn a lot about s
omeone from their trash. Diana surely had Steven’s trash covered, since she lived with him. And I wasn’t about to break into the university’s recyclers to try to get at his office trash. But would it be worth my while to peek into the trash can? If nothing else, I might learn the name of the lady of the house. Or the sister or daughter or whoever Steven had been seeing.

  My nose wrinkled involuntarily at the thought of digging through garbage. Toilet paper rolls and used tissues and empty cans and leftover food.

  Maybe I could just take the trash bags back to the office and make Zachary dig through them? Wasn’t that the kind of thing I was paying him for?

  I decided it was.

  The trash cans must be behind the house. It wasn’t trash day, since nobody’s cans had been rolled down to the street. That would have made things much easier. But with the curtains closed anyway, I might be safe in driving up to the parking pad, emptying the trash bags into the trunk of the Lexus, and driving off with them. It would only take a minute.

  I did it. My heart was knocking against my ribs, but I scooted the car up the driveway and behind the house, into an open parking area. It was empty. Unless they had cars parked in the garage, the house appeared to be empty, too.

  The garage doors were solid, with no windows, so there was no way to look in. And like in the front, all the windows were covered with curtains back here, too.

  One tan trash can and one green recycling can were parked by the wall next to the garage door. I opened the recycling can first. It was empty. Most people try to recycle something—cardboard, if nothing else; maybe plastic—but maybe the tenants weren’t that environmentally conscious.

  I took a step sideways and lifted the lid of the trash can instead, wrinkling my nose against the expected odor. It was October, not July, so it wasn’t like the garbage had been cooking in the midsummer heat, but I still expected it to smell.