Jilling (Kit Tolliver #6) (The Kit Tolliver Stories) Read Free

his features, and when the garage door rose at his command she despaired of getting a better look at him.
    The Subaru made the turn, then stopped halfway to the garage. The driver emerged to walk around the back of the car and wheel the tricycle into the garage. Then he returned to the Subaru, and a moment later it and its driver were out of sight behind the descending garage door.
    That told her something about the man’s character. He had plenty of clearance, he could have left the tricycle where it was and driven directly into the garage. She couldn’t jump to any conclusions about his nature on the basis of that action because for all she knew he’d now enter the house screaming, “Mary, why can’t you keep the little bastard’s bike out of the fucking driveway?” But that seemed unlikely, given the air of calm acceptance he’d projected clear across the street.
    But none of that really amounted to anything. The little bastard’s bike had played a more important role from her own singular point of view. Because it had given her a good look at the little bastard’s father, full face and profile, and she recognized him. Graham Weider, now of Kirkland, Washington, but once a Chicagoan in New York, who’d shared a bed with her for an hour or so and then been so inconsiderate as to skip town before she could finish what she’d started.
    She stopped at the supermarket on the way home, careful not to buy more than she could carry, but the bag boy automatically placed her groceries in her shopping cart. No one came here on foot, she realized, and everybody wheeled their purchases to their cars.
    She followed the cart all the way home.

    What they said seemed to be true: You didn’t forget how to ride a bicycle.
    She rode Rita’s the next morning to Barling Industries. The parking lot was unattended, and she was able to stash her bike between a couple of minivans and walk around in search of Weider’s Subaru. She’d had a good look at the license plate while he moved the tricycle, and made a point of memorizing the first three digits, so she knew his car when she came upon it.
    So he was here. Somewhere within the concrete-block cube, doing whatever it was they paid him to do, so he in turn could go on paying the mortgage on the nice little suburban house and buy the kid a real bike when he was ready to step up from the tricycle.
    Now what?
    A thought, unbidden: What she could do, and it would be simplicity itself, was forget all about Graham Weider. What did the man who moved the tricycle have to do with the man who’d taken her to lunch and to bed? Why remain committed to this curious mission to purge the planet of her past and future lovers? He had a kid, he lived in the suburbs, and what did he have to do with her, or she with him?
    She pushed the thought away. This is what I do, she told herself. This is who I am.

    She got on her bike, rode away, rode around. And was back in the Barling lot by noon. This time she stationed herself where she could see both his car and the employee entrance, and she spotted him right away when he left the building in the company of another man. They both wore shirts and ties, but they’d left their suit jackets inside.
    They walked to the Subaru, got in, and drove off. Two fellow workers, she decided, on their way to a casual lunch. She could follow, but only if Rita’s bike were jet-propelled.
    So? What was she supposed to do now, hang around and wait for him to come back, then follow him home and watch him move the tricycle again?
    She hopped on her bike, headed for home.

    Saturday morning she took a bus to Seattle and found her way to Spy Shoppe, a retail firm with a showroom one flight above a sporting goods store. Spy Shoppe worked both sides of the espionage avenue, offering a wide range of eavesdropping gadgets and just as wide a range of devices made to foil them. Want to tap a phone? Want to know if your phone is tapped? They were like international arms dealers,