Page 2 of Go Now
There was a thing people would do, automatically, without thinking, if ever Kate showed them pictures of her parents.There was a particular trio of photos, taken at a friend's wedding in Los Angeles, two years before she was born.They looked a little drunk, a lot in love, and, above all else, just stunning, like two stars of the silver screen, Bogart and Bacall, Taylor and Burton.
And people would look at that triptych of faded Kodaks and exclaim, ‘Oh, but they’re beautiful!’
They didn’t always say the ‘but’.But… they didn’t need to.It was there, nonetheless. Staring in the Ice Cream Factory window, Kate was once again reminded that she didn’t look much like either of the people who’d made her.She wasn’t ugly.Tall and slim with freckles and auburn hair, she believed that the handful of people who’d ever called her ‘pretty’, were telling the truth.But pretty was a long way from her parents’ old-fashioned glamour.Besides which, it had been a long time since anyone had called her anything.Perhaps, she thought, she’d hit that age where you weren’t described so much as labelled – doctor, attorney, FBI agent, mom, wife, mistress…
Did that matter?Of course it didn’t.
It shouldn’t.
Shit.
Ice hockey jacket, backpack, and high tops, tall as a tree, the guy had just walked straight out of Captain Jack's. As she turned to follow him, she realised he'd bought something small – a pair of socks, maybe.The guy was no slouch. If he was confronted, he could say he'd been there to make a purchase.That he hadn't been following her.
But he had. He’d followed her in traffic, a couple of weeks ago, when she was trying to wrap up the Elijah Cox case.Then she’d caught him at it again. Technically on leave, she’d decided to lure him into the shopping mall with the aid of her partner, who wasn’t on leave.He was just on his lunch break.
‘I’m some way behind him on the down escalator,’ she said.‘He’s carrying a small silver bag from Captain Jack’s.Where are you?’
‘I’m going up,’ Marcus replied.‘I’m on the first floor.’
Kate started to pick her way through the crowd of people on the down escalator. Why did people stand there, still as statues, on the escalator? What were they doing?Enjoying the view?It was worse.The people in front had unfolded a huge map of the Mall and were having an argument about it.They’d seriously, actually come to this Mall for a family day out.What was the matter with people?
They were approaching the fourth floor now.The map family had given way to a huge couple armed with shopping bags, a pizza, and a large, gilded mirror. She found herself entangled with them on the landing as they disembarked.By the time she'd rejoined the escalator, she couldn't see her guy at all.Unless… was that him up ahead, going down?
'Where are you?'she asked Marcus, forlornly. He'd hung up. She was just redialing when a shrill alarm sounded and the entire escalator shuddered to a halt.Kate very nearly lost her balance.'What's happened?'she said, to no one in particular.
‘Some jerk switched the escalator off,’ said a voice somewhere below her.
Down on the third floor, there was garden furniture, barbecues, and pool accessories. There were also two members of the store security team, along with Marcus and the young man they'd been pursuing. He was a kid, really, and a sad, embarrassed kind of look crossed his face when Kate appeared.He knew her and she knew him – a few weeks back, Marcus had looked up his plates and discovered that he lived downstairs from her, on the same block.
‘There’s a penalty for tampering with the escalator,’ said one of the store guards, whose badge read REYES.
‘It wasn’t tampering,’ Marcus said, irritably.‘I stopped it in pursuit of a felon.’
‘I’m not a felon,’ said the kid, hotly.
'FBI,' Kate explained to the guards, displaying her badge. 'This young man is Tavone Willem Kelly, and we want to question him.'
‘You’ll need to come to the office,’ insisted Reyes.
‘We’ve got our own office,’ Marcus growled.
‘I wasn’tofferingyou the use of our office,’ replied Reyes, incredulously. ‘It’s where you’ll be detained until we get to the bottom of this mess.’
It was Marcus’s turn to laugh.‘Detain?Listen, Jack –’
‘No, Marcus,’ Kate interjected sternly.She’d seen enough antler-clashing for one day.‘I think we can resolve this situation, gentlemen.’
Within fifteen minutes, the escalator was running, store guards Reyes and Esposito were enjoying coffee and doughnuts, and Tavone Willem Kelly was on the back seat of Kate's black sedan.Kate wasn't sure if women were naturally better at negotiating, but she did know that trading threats and insults had gotten them nowhere.
She didn’t feel too generously inclined towards Tavone right now, though. The last case she’d solved had been full of direct messages to her; its instigator had used his knowledge of her innermost secrets to taunt and torment her.To discover, at the same time, that she was being followed by a young man who lived in the same block was… well, it made her feel vulnerable.And feeling vulnerable made her angry.So when she’d caught him tracking her again…
‘Why have you been following me?’
Tavone took a deep breath. He opened his mouth, but no sound came out. He tried again.
‘I worked out you were with the Bureau,’ he said, eventually.‘I saw your vest one day when you’d left it in the car.I want to join.’
Kate and Marcus exchanged a glance.
