“Screw that,” she muttered. The last thing she had time for was makeup. Even now, she pinched the bridge of her nose to keep her eyes a little more awake. A child was at stake here, and she jogged down the steps to the end of the mall, her eyes quickly adjusting to the fake lighting. Her phone buzzed.
He is heading toward the Robson Street exit.
She swore, raced back up to the main road instead of walking through the mall. She quickly jogged a couple blocks, heading toward the same exit. She got there just as Simon came up the steps. She stopped for a moment, but he didn’t even seem to care; he walked calmly forward, following some North Star, as if he had some internal guidance. He walked with a purpose, and she had no idea what that purpose was.
At the far side of the street, a homeless man playing a guitar on a corner smiled hopefully at her. She studied him for a moment, then turned her back on him. But still she had that weird chill about being watched. She spun around a couple times unable to shake that feeling. Finally she got tagged. The call was from Missing Persons.
“What the hell is your problem?” Jennifer asked. “Our tail is following him and wondering why you keep looking around.”
“Because, damn it,” she muttered, “it feels like I’m being watched.”
“Well, my tail has about had enough of seeing you,” she said in frustration.
“That’s fine,” she said, “but somebody else is out here in this game.”
“Like who?”
“I don’t know yet,” Kate said. “I’m going off the grid. Your tail knows I’m out here,” she said. “I’m not disappearing. I’m just going a different route.” And, with that, she hung up.
She walked around, took a corner, and cut through the alleyway, then headed up on the far side, so she was ahead of Simon. Mostly because she knew the angle he was walking, and he was heading toward the park entrance. He wasn’t likely to go all the way around the bridge, up to the top and across. That was miles yet. But a lot was going on down here, and she wouldn’t doubt that he had a specific purpose in mind. But that didn’t mean that the missing child Leonard had anything to do with it. She just hoped this wasn’t a wild goose chase. Not when a child was at stake.
Sure enough, she caught sight of him again.
His phone rang, and she watched as he answered it. But he didn’t gaze left or right, he just kept going straight forward. Something that really bothered her was that, every time he walked up to a crosswalk, the opposing traffic was stopped with a red light, so he could walk across without changing his stride. She watched him a couple times and thought it was a coincidence, but now she realized it was anything but. She wondered if he had some mechanical device in hand that altered the traffic lights. She frowned and then quickly sent her contact a message.The damn lights keep doing him favors.
So? He’s lucky.
Or has a device to control it.She got a question mark back. With a heavy sigh she frowned; of course they would think she was crazy. But something was eerie about him to always cross on a perfectly timed green light without breaking his stride. As she came up to the intersection that he’d sailed right through, the light changed. She frowned, but, since there was no traffic, she darted across. She could almost see him laughing at her from up ahead.
Then he called back and said, “You might as well come walk with me.”
“Hell.” She headed out and joined him. She also knew that whoever was following him from Missing Persons would be pissed.
“Why are you out here after me?” he asked smoothly.
“I’m not,” she said, “but I sure as hell would like to know how you end up crossing in perfect sync with the lights all the time.”
“Just lucky,” he said.
She shook her head. “Lucky is fifty percent of the time. Maybe even sixty,” she said. “With a hundred percent of the time, no luck is involved.”
“So what now? You’re accusing me of interfering with the traffic lights?” he asked.
“Maybe,” she said, “if I could ever figure out what the hell you’re doing.”
He chuckled. “You’re such an untrusting soul.”
“I don’t trust anyone out here,” she said. “Even you.”
“Good,” he said calmly. “I don’t trust myself either.” She stared. He shrugged and said, “When you live your life, you learn whether you can trust anyone out there or only trust yourself.”
“I know I can trust myself.”
“Good for you,” he said, but his tone deepened. “What I do know is I can trust everyone out there to do whatever it is they want, knowing it’ll be in their personal best interests. If you don’t expect anything more than that, you never get taken. Now trusting yourself? That’s a whole different story.”
She stopped in her tracks, thinking everything he said was completely backward. When she turned and looked up again, he’d disappeared from sight. She walked forward to find him leaning against a wall inside a doorway. She just stood and glared at him.
“Have a good evening, Detective.” And the door opened for him, and he stepped in.