“What, like McDonald’s?” She didn’t answer, and I added, “Don’t be silly, Rachel. Just leave her in the office. It won’t be long before I get there. Greg’s picking me up at seven, so I have to be home by then anyway. I don’t have all night to spend on this.”
“I’ll do that, then. Have a good evening.”
“You, too,” I told her. “Have a good time with Daniel.”
“Thank you, Gina.” She sounded so sincerely grateful that I winced.
“Don’t mention it. I’ll have the car there within the hour.”
I hung up before she could thank me again, and turned my attention back to Megan and the silver Accord.
There was no way to tell what had happened yesterday—maybe Zachary’s beater had just been more noticeable than Rachel’s Toyota, or maybe I was doing a (slightly) better job of not drawing attention to myself—but she was showing no signs of knowing that she was being followed. The Accord continued down Charlotte Avenue at a brisk but steady pace, past strip malls and fast-food restaurants and the kind of businesses that have been in the same location for forty years. She didn’t change lanes or make any sort of unexpected moves. Just plodded along ahead of me, one car among many during the worst of rush hour traffic on a Friday. We passed the turnoff for I-40, which gave me a good feeling. That was where Zachary had lost her yesterday, so if she didn’t go on the interstate today, maybe that meant she hadn’t noticed me.
Not long after that, she took a turn into a neighborhood of modest brick houses and chain-link fences. Charlotte Park, if I remembered the neighborhood names correctly. Not wealthy, but solid, full of working-class families and some of the more established immigrants who didn’t feel the need to stick with their own kind in their own enclaves along Nolensville Road in South Nashville.
I turned, too. I had no choice but to go immediately; there was another car behind me, so I couldn’t linger until she was farther away.
Like with Rachel yesterday, it’s not usually a big problem to tail someone on the interstate or through rush hour traffic on a busy road like Charlotte Pike or Music Row. There are enough other cars on the road that you can keep several of them between you and your quarry without losing track of them, and you can change lanes occasionally so you don’t stay in the same spot in their vision for too long. The biggest problem you face is usually losing track of the car you’re following, especially during the time of year when it gets dark early.
Tailing someone through a quiet neighborhood where everyone knows everyone and you’re the only two cars on the road comes with a set of totally different problems. There are no other cars to hide behind, but you also don’t want to get too close for fear of being recognized.
That was the problem here. We were creeping through Charlotte Park at a glacial twenty miles an hour, with frequent stops and turns. I stayed well back, so far that the compact behind me got annoyed and started crowding me in an effort to get me to go faster. Which I had to do, eventually, because I became afraid that if I didn’t, the driver would beep at me and draw attention to us that way. Eventually, the woman behind the wheel got tired of the slow pace, and zipped past me on a straight, quiet stretch with a roar of the engine and a flick of a finger.
By then, Megan had taken a left turn onto a street called Cherokee, and was, I hoped, too far away to notice.
I took the turn, too, and kept going, happy to be away from the compact inching up on my bumper.
Up ahead, Megan turned around a corner. When I got there, I could see her brake lights flash as she slowed, and then her turn signal flickered once or twice before she zipped into a driveway. I flicked my own headlights off and coasted to a stop at the side of the road, before grabbing my binoculars from the center console.
She was already out of the car by the time I got them up to my eyes and adjusted for the correct distance.
The house was a small mid-century brick with white trim and a carport on one side. From this angle, that was really all I could see. There was a car parked in the carport, but between the perspective and Megan’s Accord being in the way, all I could see was the top of the roof. Some sort of SUV, light in color. Silver, gray, or maybe beige. Probably not white; there was a marked contrast with Megan’s car.
She walked around to the other side of the Accord and opened the passenger side door. Fetching her purse, it looked like. She had it in her hand when she straightened and shut the door.
And that was when a small figured barreled into her from the direction of the house and wrapped both arms around her waist.
A little boy, from the looks of it, in khakis and a green school shirt, with short, black hair and a big smile.
Megan smiled back, and hoisted the kid up. He—I was pretty sure it was a boy—wrapped his arms around her neck and his legs around her waist, and hung on like a monkey as she carried him toward the house.
They disappeared under the carport. There must be a backdoor there, I assumed. I stayed where I was until they were safely inside and didn’t seem to be coming back out, before I turned my lights back on and made my slow way down the street. There was a massive living room window in the front of the house—practically floor to ceiling—through which I could see the little boy pulling Megan by the hand past an overstuffed sofa to what was probably the hallway to the bedrooms. The mailbox—black, and on a wooden post—had the street number, which I endeavored to memorize. I repeated it to myself as I continued on down the street, past the house, and to the nearest corner, where I pulled over and scribbled the address on the notepad on the seat next to me.
That done, I put the Toyota back in gear and headed for Music Row.
So Megan had a child.
And not only that, but a child who looked like Nick.
Or rather, a child with Nick’s coloring. Or Mediterranean coloring, more precisely. (Which Megan certainly didn’t have, although several other people I had seen recently did. Nick, Sal, the guy in the Porsche. Detective Jaime Mendoza, not that I had seen him what I’d call recently.)
I hadn’t been close enough to Megan and the boy to determine whether there had been any other similarities between him and Nick, other than the superficial. If I had seen him—the boy—under different circumstances, he might not have reminded me of Nick at all. It was just that I had Nick on the brain these days.
The kid had looked about five, hadn’t he? The khakis and green shirt had looked somewhat like a school uniform. So a kindergartener, maybe?
What had Nick been doing six or so years ago? Had Jacquie known him then? Would she be able to tell me?
Would she even know? And how would she react if she didn’t, and I inadvertently told her?
