to go into the party store and purchase some snacks to hold her over.
She returned to her car with chips, peppermints, soda, chocolate, and beef jerky. She continued to observe the strip mall as she tore into her snacks. “There’s no guarantee he would come here. There are a million places to eat, so this is a waste of time.” As Marla got comfortable in the driver seat, Stanley came walking out of the restaurant. He left with nothing in his hands, but his car keys. A gust of wind flowed through, causing a receipt to blow out of Stanley’s suit jacket. He quickly turned around to grab the receipt off the floor and headed for his vehicle. He sat in his vehicle for a while, pulled out of his parking spot and drove up to the door. A beautiful brunette, standing about six feet tall and wearing a long, white dress approached the car and got in. Stanley quickly looked around and sped off. “If this ain’t about something. All this time, I’m thinking he’s ‘mister goodie two shoes’ and turns out he’s ‘mister good for nothing’.” Marla put her snack food to the side, made note of what she saw, and headed back to work.
Diane decided to park in the parking lot of Michael’s construction company. She parked three parking sections back, from the door. She put the car in park and sunk very low into the driver’s seat, so that she couldn’t be seen. Michael walked out of the office, laughing and talking to the company’s secretary, Olivia, who was following behind him. As Michael stood and held the door open with his back towards the secretary, she lightly pinched his butt as she passed by with a devilish smirk on her face. “Hey, hey now”, said Michael, as they both laughed. Diane peeked over the dashboard and watched as they got into Michael’s vehicle to go to lunch. As Michael was backing out of the parking spot, he looked in his rearview mirror and saw Diane’s vehicle. He stopped and hesitated to put the vehicle in drive.
“What’s wrong”, asked Olivia.
“That vehicle looks just like my sister’s.”
“Really? Where”, asked Olivia as she looked behind her.
“I’ll just detour around. I’m not sure.”
Michael backed up a little further and did a U-turn towards Diane’s vehicle. Diane sunk all the way down. Michael tried to get a good look as he drove by. “That’s got to be her car”, he said to Olivia. Michael read the license plate and tried to remember what Diane’s license plate number was. Michael continued to drive off as Olivia looked at him.
“Is it her?”
“It has to be. I can’t remember the license plate number. I’ll have to ask my wife.”
Unsure if Michael was still in the parking lot, Diane continued to sit on the floor of the vehicle. She gave herself five minutes, then slowly crept up to see if Michael was around. “Thank GOD.” She quickly turned the car on and sped out of the parking lot. As Diane made it down the street, she went into shock as she thought about almost being caught and began to cry. “What am I doing?! I can’t do this!” Tears continued to stream down her face as she fought to stay under control.
# # #
Rhonda finally found time to take a break from her job. Being a registered nurse, Rhonda’s schedule depended on the severity of the patients and the efficiency of the staff. Rhonda had agreed to try and gather some information on Reggie. Reggie is a barber and like most barbers, he didn’t cut hair on Sundays and Mondays. So, Stephanie gave Rhonda her home address to try and gather some information. Before Rhonda made the trip to Stephanie’s place, she stopped to grab some tacos for her lunch.
When she pulled up to Stephanie’s address, she began to observe the area. “34-20.” Rhonda parked in front of the house, next door to Stephanie’s house. “This is a nice area.” She kept an eye on the house, while eating her lunch. Time went by
Chris McCoy
Kathryn Smith
Simone St. James
Ann Purser
Tana French
David Pascoe
Celia T. Rose
Anita M. Whiting
Sarah-Kate Lynch
Rosanne Bittner