Drop Dead Gorgeous (Blair Mallory #2)

Chapter Twelve

I wrote the new items on Wyatt’s list of transgressions as soon as we got home, but I might as well have been using invisible ink for all the attention he paid to it. He didn’t even glance at it, lying there on the counter that divided the living room from the kitchen, instead settling in a chair with the morning newspaper, which obviously he hadn’t had time to read that morning, and asking me if I wanted the paper when he finished. Well, hell, it was my newspaper, wasn’t it? Why would I pay for the thing if I didn’t want to read it? And why was he reading the paper instead of paying attention to his list? Things were not right in my world.

But I was exhausted, and I was sick of that blasted headache. “I’ll read it tomorrow,” I said. “I’m going to take some more ibuprofen, shower, and go to bed.” I was feeling grumpy, too, but most of it wasn’t his fault, so I didn’t want to take it out on him.

“I’ll be up in a minute,” he said.

I sulked in the shower, thinking about my car. There should be a security system you could put on cars that would electrify them, so when some punk scraped a key down the paint it would fry his ass. I amused myself visualizing bulging eyes, Einstein hair, and maybe even wet pants, so people could point and laugh. That would teach the little bastard.

In case you haven’t noticed, I’m not much on turning the other cheek.

After showering I doctored my various scrapes and bruises—none of which needed bandages, so I just put stuff on them to help the healing process. I ran a little experiment on myself, by putting La Mer on one scrape, antibiotic ointment on another, and aloe gel on yet another, just to see which one healed best. I applied vitamin spray to my bruises. Maybe it helped, maybe it didn’t. It was something to do.

I had just turned out the light and crawled into bed—naked, to save Wyatt the trouble of pulling off my clothes—when he came upstairs. I went to sleep while he was showering, roused enough to kiss him good night when he got into bed beside me, and didn’t know anything else until the alarm went off the next morning.

Lynn always opened the gym on Tuesdays, so I didn’t have to be there until one-thirty, though I usually was there before then. Today, however, I had a lot to do before getting to work. First I called the insurance company about my car, then I talked to Luke Arledge, then I made an appointment to get my hair cut—at eleven that very morning, if you can believe it—and finally I went shopping for the fabric for my wedding gown. On the way to the fabric store, I stopped at a place that refinished antiques to ask some questions, and as a bonus found a gorgeous Queen Anne desk that would look great in the office I was creating at Wyatt’s house. All of this was by ten o’clock, so I was hustling.

I felt much, much better; the headache was nothing more than a twinge, and that was when I forgot myself and sort of skipped a little, just because it was a gorgeous sunny day. The weather was much warmer, the cool snap over for the time being, and everyone I talked to was in a good mood.

I had just enough time at the fabric store to look through their silks and satins and know they didn’t have what I wanted. I was in a hurry, because of my appointment at the hair salon, so when I saw a woman who looked familiar I deliberately looked away, just in case I really did know her and would be obliged, if we made eye contact, to make small talk for at least a few minutes. Sometimes being a Southerner is a burden; you can’t just nod and go about your business, you have to ask about family, and usually end the conversation with an invitation to come visit, which would really throw a monkey wrench in my schedule if, God forbid, someone actually took me up on it.

Shay, my hairdresser, was putting the finishing touches on a customer when I arrived, so I took a few minutes to look through some hairstyle books. Because it was one of those days when good things seemed to fall in my lap—it was about time I’d had one of those days!—right away I found a hairstyle I liked.

“This one,” I said to Shay, pointing to the picture, when it was my turn in her chair.

“ Very cute,” she said, studying the lines of the cut. “But before I start cutting, be sure you want to go that short. You’ll be losing five, six inches of hair.”

I pushed my hair back to show her the shaved place in my hairline. “I’m sure.”

“I guess you are. What happened?”

“I took a header in the mall parking lot.” That version saved on explanations. Some other time I might have been in the mood for a lot of drama and sympathy, but right then I was moving on, and wanted to put all that behind me.

She wet my hair with a spray bottle of water, combed my hair back, and started cutting. I had a moment of panic when a half-foot-long strand of blond hair fell on the cape over my lap, but I was strong and didn’t whimper at all. Besides, it was too late to turn back, and there’s no point in wasting a whimper.

By the time Shay finished her magic with the blow dryer and curling iron, I was ecstatic. My new chin-length hairstyle was chic, swingy, and sexy. One side was pushed back and really showed off my earrings, while the other side sort of swooped down to cover the outside half of my eyebrow, which also, of course, meant it covered the stitches and shaved patch. I gave a tentative shake of my head, just in case the headache waited to pounce on me again, but I remained pain free and my hair did a very satisfying swing and bounce before settling back into place.

When you know you look good, the whole world seems a better place.

I called Wyatt as soon as I was back in the car. “I just got my hair cut,” I told him. “It’s short.”

He paused, and I could hear background noise that told me he wasn’t alone. “How short?” he finally asked, his voice both wary and pitched low.

I’ve never known a man who likes short hair on a woman. I think their DNA is damaged by testosterone poisoning. “Short.”

He muttered something that sounded like “shit.”

“I knew you wouldn’t like it,” I said cheerfully, “so I thought I’d give you a blow job to make it up to you. Toodle.”

I hung up, feeling very pleased with myself. If he was able to think of anything besides me for the rest of the day, I’d be surprised.

There was time to pick up something to eat before going to work, so I swung by my favorite barbecue restaurant and got a sandwich to go. Traffic was heavy because the lunch-hour crowd was scrambling to get back to work before one. I was the last in line in a left-hand turn lane waiting for the green arrow when a flash of white filled my rearview mirror.

Automatically I looked in the mirror. A white car was riding my bumper, so close I couldn’t see what kind of car it was. The driver was wearing a baseball cap and sunglasses. A man? I couldn’t be certain. A smallish man, maybe. I let my car roll forward enough to see the emblem on the front of the white car; it was a Chevrolet. The driver immediately pulled the Chevy close again, closer than before.

My stomach knotted. I had to get over this paranoia. I’d almost been hit by a beige Buick, not a white Chevrolet, so where was the logic? Just because I’d twice seen a white Chevrolet behind me yesterday? It wasn’t as if white Chevrolets were rare; if I’d been paying attention, I probably had a white Chevrolet behind me at least once every time I went somewhere. Big deal.

My stomach wouldn’t listen to logic, and it stayed knotted. On the traffic light, the green arrow lit and the line of vehicles began moving forward like a snake, the head moving first, then the next segment, until the entire line was moving. I put some distance between me and the white car, distance that it immediately closed. I looked in the mirror; I could tell that the driver had both hands on the wheel, which made it seem as if he or she was deliberately tailgating me.

I was driving an agile, responsive car with a powerful engine that didn’t redline until it hit about seven thousand rpms. If I couldn’t get away from a tailgating Chevrolet, then I might as well trade this baby in for a Yugo.

Giving a quick check to the traffic around me, I whipped the Mercedes to the right, into the middle lane, taking advantage of a space barely big enough to squeeze into. A horn blared behind me, terrifyingly close, but I swung into the far right lane then shot forward, passing three cars in as many seconds. A glance in the mirror showed the white Chevy trying to swerve into the middle lane, where it almost sideswiped a delivery truck before the driver of the Chevy jerked the car back into the left lane.

Oh my God. If it’s really happening, then it isn’t paranoia. That car was following me!

I braked hard and took the next right, then the next right again. I would have circled the block and got myself behind the white Chevy, but in their wisdom modern street planners almost never put streets in a grid anymore. Instead of a nice ordinary block, I found myself driving on a wide street that curved back and forth, with a lot of cul-de-sacs on it. The cul-de-sacs were filled with various businesses, so it wasn’t even a residential area. Excuse me, but has no one ever told these stupid urban planners that grids are the most efficient means of moving traffic?

After several frustrating minutes, I gave up trying to work my way back to the street I wanted to be on and simply turned around and went back the way I’d come.

This was weird in the extreme. I don’t mean the layout of the city streets, I mean this business with the white Chevrolet. I don’t even know anyone who drives a white Chevrolet! I mean, maybe I do, but I don’t know it. Like Shay, for instance; I have no idea which car in the parking lot at the hair salon is hers. Or my favorite clerk at the local grocery store. See what I mean? Any of them could drive a white Chevy and I wouldn’t know it.

Was there something about me that tipped nutcases over the edge? Some undetectable attractant that sucked them into my orbit? And was there any way to spit them back out and send them on their way? There were other people out there who deserved stalking way more than I did.

Before I pulled back onto the main drag I took a good look around and saw four various models of white Chevrolets. I’m telling you, they were everywhere. None of the drivers paid me the least bit of attention, though, so I pulled into traffic and drove straight to the downtown area where Great Bods was located.

A white Chevrolet was parked at the curb directly across from Great Bods. Someone was sitting in the driver’s seat, watching the driver’s-side mirror. I saw the sunglasses reflected in the mirror and the bottom dropped out of my stomach.

I took the turn on two wheels, tires smoking, but I didn’t go to the back because being alone back there didn’t strike me as smart. Instead I pulled into the public parking area in front and skidded to a stop. Leaping out, I darted for the front door of Great Bods as I pulled my cell phone out of my bag. If that nutcase wanted a piece of me, he or she would have to attack me in front of witnesses, at least, and not in an empty back lot.

Maybe I should have called 911, but I didn’t. I simply did the redial thing and called Wyatt, as I wheeled to stare through the front windows at the white Chevrolet parked across the street.

“Blair?” Lynn said behind me. “What’s wrong?”

“Blair,” Wyatt said in my ear, so my name came at me in stereo.

“Someone’s following me,” I said, my teeth chattering in reaction to all the adrenaline sizzling through me. “A white four-door Chevrolet Malibu…looks like a new model, a 2006 or maybe a 2005. It followed me yesterday, too—”

Across the street, the Chevrolet pulled out of its parking space and the driver sedately drove off, not speeding or anything, for all the world as if he or she had finished shopping and was just waiting for a break in traffic before pulling out.

“It just left,” I finished, feeling as deflated as one of Mom’s soufflés. Mom couldn’t make soufflés worth a damn. Lynn came to stand beside me, peering out the window and looking puzzled.

“Did you get the tag number?” Wyatt asked.

“It was behind me.” I’m pretty sure no one follows from in front.

He let that pass. Big of him. “What do you mean, it just left?”

“It was parked across the street from Great Bods. It just pulled out and left.”

“This person followed you to Great Bods?”

“No, I did some juking and got away from them…her…him…whoever the hell it was, but when I got here to Great Bods they were waiting across the street.”

Right away I saw the impossibility of that, even if the silence on the other end of the line hadn’t been pointing it out, loud and clear. Again, you can’t follow from the front; that car had been here before I arrived. There was only one way it could have been the same car, and that seemed just as impossible.

“They know me,” I said, stunned. “They know who I am and where I work.”

Lynn said, “Who does?”

Wyatt said, “Did you recognize the driver?”

I closed my eyes, feeling a little dizzy from hearing a different voice in each ear. Wyatt was the cop, so I concentrated on him. “No. He…she—damn it, I couldn’t even tell if it was a man or a woman! Baseball cap, sunglasses. I could tell that much. The windshield was tinted.”

“What about yesterday? Are you sure it was the same person?”

“A woman was driving yesterday. Long hair. She tailgated me.”

“Did you recognize her?”

“No, but…she followed me here.” Relief poured through me at being able to provide a logical explanation for the Chevrolet being here before I was. “That’s how she knew where I work!”

“But you aren’t sure it was the same person.”

He was being thorough, and logical, the way cops had to be. I knew that on an intellectual level. On an emotional level, though, I wanted him to stop asking questions and round up all drivers of white Chevrolets and beat them bloody. Well, except for old people; I could tell the driver wasn’t even middle aged. He shouldn’t beat up young kids, either, because I was certain neither of the drivers I’d seen was a teenager. You can just tell, you know? Teenagers have that unfinished, still-growing thing going on. Big people were out, too, as well as teeny people. Okay, the people I wanted beat bloody were of regular size, ages twenty to maybe fifty. How hard could that be?

Taking my silence for a negative answer, which it wasn’t, Wyatt asked, “Was there another person in the car with the driver?”

I’d been saying “they” and “them” so of course he would ask that, but the only reason I’d been so confused was because yesterday the driver had been a woman and today I couldn’t tell, so there could be two different drivers, but how the hell would I know? “No.”

“And you aren’t certain it was the same driver both times?”

I was. The visceral part of me that had just been scared stupid was absolutely certain, because otherwise I’d have to believe that two days in a row someone in a white Chevrolet had tailgated me. Okay, so that wasn’t much of a stretch. But the most plausible answer wasn’t always the right answer.

Wyatt tried again. “Could you testify in a court of law, under oath, that you’re certain it was the same driver in both cases?”

Well, nail me to the wall, why don’t you? Thoroughly pissed, I said, “No, not if I were under oath.” Then I stubbornly added, “But it was the same driver.” So there.

He sighed and said, “There isn’t anything here I can pursue.”

“I’d already figured that out.”

Impatiently he said, “Next time, get the tag number.”

“I will,” I said politely. “I’m sorry I didn’t think to do it this time.” Yes indeedy, while I was sitting in that turn lane I should have gotten out, calmly walked past the nutcase to the back of the Chevrolet, and jotted down the tag number. The nutcase shouldn’t have had any objection to that, right?

After a long silence he said, “I don’t know if I’ll get to Great Bods tonight in time for you to close.”

“That’s okay. No problem.” I’d been closing Great Bods without him for a long time; I was pretty sure I still knew how. “You take care now, you hear? Good-bye.”

He said “Fuck” with restrained violence, and hung up.

Beside me, Lynn said, “I guess what you’re doing could be called smiling, because all your teeth are showing, but I have to tell you, it looks damn scary. Great haircut, though.”

“Thank you,” I said, fluffing my hair a little and then making it swing. I kept smiling the whole time, too.