Survival Clause, стр. 20

“Let me talk to Mom,” Charlotte said and breezed out of the room, still holding my daughter. I turned my attention back to the phone in my hand.

By the time she came back, with the news that her mother would be happy to let us borrow the little hybrid in exchange for my gas-guzzling Volvo, I had watched the video one more time, and had noticed something.

“See this shadow here, across the top of the dashboard? She’s got something hanging in her front window.” Looped around the mirror, maybe. “Looks like a scarf, or maybe a thick chain of something…”

“Mardi Gras beads,” Charlotte said, in the process of dumping Carrie back into her car seat. “A handful of Mardi Gras beads. I’ve seen people do that.”

I had too, now that she mentioned it. I examined the shadow again. “Could be. It gives us something to look for, anyway. A car with a bunch of beads, or something that casts the same shadow as a bunch of beads, around the rearview mirror. Can’t be too many of those around.”

“More than you’d think,” Charlotte said, straightening, “but at least it narrows it down from every car on the road.”

It did. “Unless she takes them down.”

“No reason for her to do that. She doesn’t know we noticed them.” Charlotte looked around for her purse. “She doesn’t know we’re looking for her. Not yet.”

Maybe not. “What about your kids?”

“Mom’s staying with them,” Charlotte said, heading for the door. “Come on.”

I grabbed Carrie and the car seat and followed.

Fifteen minutes later, we were back outside the Columbia PD again. Rafe’s loaner was still parked at the foot of the stairs, so he was either inside, or had left by other means. Since we didn’t know which was the case, we decided to go with the assumption that he was still there, and that his stalker might be, too.

“She doesn’t know what I look like.” Charlotte said, surveying the street outside the police station with shining eyes. “I should be the one getting out and looking around.”

“Be my guest.” She was really getting into this, so who was I to deprive her of any of the fun? “I’ll just stay here with Carrie.”

“I’ll be back in a few minutes,” Charlotte said, and swung the hybrid’s door open. I watched her walk away, up the street toward the police station, while she peered intently into every car she passed. Once she’d reached the top of the street, I saw her cross over to the other side, and come back down, doing the same thing to the cars parked on the other side. She was about as circumspect as that proverbial bull in the china shop, but since nobody peeled out of their parking spot and took off on her approach, I figured nobody had a guilty conscience or anything to hide.

“Nothing?” I asked politely when she opened the door again, and fit herself behind the wheel.

She shook her head. “Not in this section. Not now.”

“What do you want to do?”

I glanced at the dashboard clock. With everything that had already happened today, it was still only nine-fifteen. “We have about an hour and a half until we have to head over to Fulton Street for the photographer.”

“I guess we wait and see if Rafe comes out,” Charlotte said, moving her seat back and getting comfortable, “and if he does, we follow him. And in the meantime, we check any new cars that come along.”

Fine by me. If we didn’t know where Rafe was going, it wasn’t likely that Jessica Rabbit knew, either—she’d have to be here to follow him, too, and if she was here, Charlotte would have seen her—but I didn’t have anything else to do for the next hour and a half, so I figured I might as well stay here and enjoy the company.

As it happened, we got lucky. We hadn’t been sitting there more than ten minutes when the door to the police station opened and Leslie Yung stepped out. A second later, Rafe followed. He gestured to the tan Chevy, and Agent Yung headed down the stairs.

“Who’s that?” Charlotte wanted to know, her nose so close to the windshield her breath was fogging up the window.

“That’s the FBI agent I was telling you about.”

She shot me a look. “I can see why you thought she might have been an old girlfriend.”

I nodded, as I watched my husband open the door of the Chevy for Agent Yung and hold it while she arranged herself in the passenger seat. Then he closed the door behind her and walked around the car. He stopped for just a second to run his gaze over the street—for a second I could have sworn he looked straight at me—before he opened his own door and slid behind the wheel.

“Better get ready,” I told Charlotte. “He takes off like a bat out of hell.”

She nodded. “Where do you think they’re going? Left or right?”

My money was on right—toward the interstate and the road to Sweetwater, but— “I guess we’ll find out.”

The Chevy reversed out of the parking space and took off. I sincerely hoped—with only a little malice—that Agent Yung was hanging onto the door handle and barely avoiding peeing her pants.

“Don’t let them get too far ahead,” I told Charlotte as the Chevy headed past us and down the street. “The way he drives, we’ll lose them.”

Charlotte nodded. She was already moving backward out of the space while I watched the Chevy in the mirror.

By the time we’d gotten turned around, they were out of sight down the road. “Step on it,” I told Charlotte, “and let’s see if we can catch them.”

She obliged, and the little hybrid took off like a shot down the street.

I had kept watching until I couldn’t watch anymore, and hadn’t seen them turn off the main drag, so I kept Charlotte going straight. And every time she slowed down a little—because neither one