Chapter 9 - The Cars That Did Not Move in the Lot
I clocked out at six forty-two and the screen made that flat beep that always sounded louder in the back hall. My shirt stuck to my back under the polo and my ponytail had gone loose enough that strands kept catching on my neck. I untied the apron and folded it twice before I hung it on the hook with my name taped above it. The fabric still smelled like fries and cleaning spray.
Marisol was counting her drawer at the desk. She didn't look up right away.
"You good?" she said. "You were quiet after lunch."
I pulled the time slip out and smoothed it. "I'm tired," I said. That was true enough, and it was short enough to end it.
She nodded toward the front. "Those guys finally left around four. Left everything. Danny had to toss it."
"I know," I said.
She studied me for half a second longer, then went back to her singles. I was glad she didn't push. I changed my shoes by the lockers, work sneakers to my old gray Nikes, and shoved my apron strings deeper into my bag so they wouldn't hang out. The evening crew was already laughing out by the fryers. Normal sounds. I wanted them to stay normal.
The back door opened onto the side of the lot where the employees parked under the one buzzing light. The air had cooled a little, that thin evening air you get in late summer when the sun drops behind the strip mall. Daylight was still holding but going pale at the edges. I could smell hot asphalt and the dumpster from behind the building.
I stepped out and stopped with my hand still on the metal bar.
There were two cars parked straight across from the exit, not in spaces, just pulled along the curb by the sidewalk where customers never parked. A dark SUV closest to me, and behind it a low black sedan with tinted windows. The sedan's engine was off but the driver's window was down an inch. I could see the shape of a man in the driver's seat, slicked-back hair, arm resting on the door. Even at that distance I knew the cut of the gray jacket.
Matteo Morealio didn't look at me at first. He was looking at the back door. At me, really, but past the point of pretending otherwise.
The bald man stood outside the SUV on the passenger side, phone in his hand, not on a call, just holding it. He was positioned where he could see both the back door and the front corner of the restaurant. He didn't move when I came out. He didn't need to.
My chest tightened once, hard, and then I made myself breathe the way I'd been breathing all afternoon at the table. In through my nose. Out slow. I looked down at my bag strap and adjusted it so I had something to do with my hands.
I walked to my car.
It was an old blue Civic in the second row, near the light. My steps sounded too loud on the blacktop. I kept my eyes on the ground for three steps, then lifted them because I didn't want to look like I was hiding. The sedan hadn't moved. The window stayed cracked that same inch. I couldn't see his eyes but I felt the weight of being watched without being called out.
When I unlocked my door the click echoed. I got in, locked it right away out of habit, and set my bag on the passenger seat. My hands were shaking a little on the keys. I pressed my palms flat against the wheel for a second until it stopped.
Through my windshield I could see them in my rearview angle. The associate had shifted now, just a half step, so his shoulder turned toward my car. Still no approach. No wave. No headlights flashing. Just presence. That was the point, I realized. Parked where I had to see them to leave. Close enough to the door that I understood they'd waited, far enough onto public curb that nobody could say they were trespassing.
I started the car. The radio came on mid-sentence to a traffic report and I turned it off.
The lot had two exits, one onto the main road by the gas station, one onto the side street behind the shopping center that cut over to the county road. I usually took the main road because it was faster. I backed out slow, headlights on even though it wasn't dark yet, and turned left toward the side street instead. If they wanted to follow, they'd have to make a choice in front of me.
I drove past the front windows of the restaurant on my way around. The dining area glowed warm inside, brick wall and light wood tables emptying out for the dinner shift. My table from that afternoon was already wiped down, tray gone. Someone else was sitting there with a laptop. It looked so ordinary it made my stomach turn.
At the stop sign by the sidewalk, I checked the mirror.
The black sedan pulled away from the curb, unhurried, and turned the same way I had. It stayed three car lengths back. The SUV followed a beat later, headlights still off in the fading light. No speeding up. No cutting lanes. Just a steady distance as I took the side street and then the right onto the county road past the church parking lot.
My mouth went dry. I kept both hands on the wheel at ten and two like I'd learned in driver's ed and told myself to stay on streets I knew. I passed the turn I would normally take to my apartment and kept straight toward the grocery store lot instead. If I led them home now, I'd never feel safe unlocking my door.
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The sedan stayed back through two lights. At the grocery entrance, I turned in without signaling until the last second and looped around the parked carts. In the mirror, the sedan drove past the entrance without turning. The SUV went with it.
I parked between a pickup and a minivan and sat there with the engine running, watching the road. My breathing was loud in the quiet car. After a minute, brake lights flared way down the road where they'd pulled into the bank lot to turn around, but they didn't come back. I waited until my clock said seven oh four before I pulled out again and took the long way around the block to my street, checking the mirror the whole time.
