Nick didn’t want her having anything to do with the guy. Not personally. Professionally he had to want her to contact the guy, if it led him and his people to the jerk.
“We don’t want her suspicious, but we do want her trying to contact him,” Nick said, thinking out loud. “I’m going to tell her the number’s not working, but that we couldn’t figure out why. Then I’ll just ask if she has another way to contact him. I think she’ll tell me if she does.”
“’Cause she likes you?” Harry asked.
“She tolerates me.”
He wasn’t kidding himself about it being anything more.
“Tell her tonight,” Harry said. “We need to move this thing along.”
Yeah, they did.
Kim thought about calling her brother, because the whole thing with the sugar and the coffee was creeping her out. But in all likelihood it was nothing. Mrs. O’Connor forgetting to tell her she’d let the phone company guy in and the phone company getting mixed up about whose line was giving them trouble or something like that.
This was Magnolia Falls, after all.
Nothing really dangerous ever happened in Magnolia Falls.
And her brother tended to be a tad overprotective anyway. She tried not to ever give him an excuse to worry even more about her and he’d worry about this. He’d probably freak out about this. He’d come over and dust for prints, probably haul in every guy who’d worked for the phone company in the last ten years for questioning. It would not be pretty.
And he’d watch her even more closely than he already did, despite the fact that she was a completely reasonable, rational twenty-four-year-old woman, more than capable of watching out for herself, her little travel difficulties notwithstanding.
So what if she’d had her wallet, her credit cards and her traveler’s checks stolen in New York City once, taken in by a fake mime in Central Park? She’d just thought he was doing some kind of magic trick, that’s all, and everybody liked magic tricks, didn’t they? She’d still gotten home okay. And that whole thing with the car accident in Mexico because there was a goat on the road…. That had been way overblown. It hadn’t hurt her or the car that much, and there was no way she was hitting a goat. She still didn’t believe that was a scam. That the goat’s owner forced him out into the road at least once a day in hopes of running a tourist off the road, then scamming them into letting him fix their rental car so they didn’t have to report it to the insurance company or the car-rental place. He’d been a very nice man, after all, and way too nice to the goat to shove him into the road. And she hadn’t nearly drowned in Vienna. She hadn’t!
But her brother was a little odd about things at times and she did not want to call him unless she absolutely had to.
So the phone company guy had made himself a cup of coffee and he liked sugar and hadn’t cleaned up that well after himself?
No big deal.
She wouldn’t begrudge him a cup of coffee.
She wouldn’t make a federal case of it, either.
And yet, as the sun went down and darkness slowly descended around her, she hated the idea of being in her apartment alone.
She started turning on lights. All of them. She locked the door, unlocked it and locked it again. Yes, the lock was working. She had a dead bolt. It was working, too.
She was heading for the stereo, to turn it on, so she didn’t have to stay there in utter silence, listening for every little thing that went bump in the night, when someone knocked on her door.
“Ahhh!” She couldn’t help it. It startled her.
“Kim? Are you okay?”
It was her neighbor Nick’s voice, sounding as worried as she felt.
“Kim!”
“Yes. I’m here. Hang on.” She got to the door, fumbled with the lock.
Why did he sound so scared?
Had the mysterious phone guy been trespassing in his room, too?
She pulled open the door and it was like some mysterious force was pushing her forward, toward him.
“We don’t want her suspicious, but we do want her trying to contact him,” Nick said, thinking out loud. “I’m going to tell her the number’s not working, but that we couldn’t figure out why. Then I’ll just ask if she has another way to contact him. I think she’ll tell me if she does.”
“’Cause she likes you?” Harry asked.
“She tolerates me.”
He wasn’t kidding himself about it being anything more.
“Tell her tonight,” Harry said. “We need to move this thing along.”
Yeah, they did.
Kim thought about calling her brother, because the whole thing with the sugar and the coffee was creeping her out. But in all likelihood it was nothing. Mrs. O’Connor forgetting to tell her she’d let the phone company guy in and the phone company getting mixed up about whose line was giving them trouble or something like that.
This was Magnolia Falls, after all.
Nothing really dangerous ever happened in Magnolia Falls.
And her brother tended to be a tad overprotective anyway. She tried not to ever give him an excuse to worry even more about her and he’d worry about this. He’d probably freak out about this. He’d come over and dust for prints, probably haul in every guy who’d worked for the phone company in the last ten years for questioning. It would not be pretty.
And he’d watch her even more closely than he already did, despite the fact that she was a completely reasonable, rational twenty-four-year-old woman, more than capable of watching out for herself, her little travel difficulties notwithstanding.
So what if she’d had her wallet, her credit cards and her traveler’s checks stolen in New York City once, taken in by a fake mime in Central Park? She’d just thought he was doing some kind of magic trick, that’s all, and everybody liked magic tricks, didn’t they? She’d still gotten home okay. And that whole thing with the car accident in Mexico because there was a goat on the road…. That had been way overblown. It hadn’t hurt her or the car that much, and there was no way she was hitting a goat. She still didn’t believe that was a scam. That the goat’s owner forced him out into the road at least once a day in hopes of running a tourist off the road, then scamming them into letting him fix their rental car so they didn’t have to report it to the insurance company or the car-rental place. He’d been a very nice man, after all, and way too nice to the goat to shove him into the road. And she hadn’t nearly drowned in Vienna. She hadn’t!
But her brother was a little odd about things at times and she did not want to call him unless she absolutely had to.
So the phone company guy had made himself a cup of coffee and he liked sugar and hadn’t cleaned up that well after himself?
No big deal.
She wouldn’t begrudge him a cup of coffee.
She wouldn’t make a federal case of it, either.
And yet, as the sun went down and darkness slowly descended around her, she hated the idea of being in her apartment alone.
She started turning on lights. All of them. She locked the door, unlocked it and locked it again. Yes, the lock was working. She had a dead bolt. It was working, too.
She was heading for the stereo, to turn it on, so she didn’t have to stay there in utter silence, listening for every little thing that went bump in the night, when someone knocked on her door.
“Ahhh!” She couldn’t help it. It startled her.
“Kim? Are you okay?”
It was her neighbor Nick’s voice, sounding as worried as she felt.
“Kim!”
“Yes. I’m here. Hang on.” She got to the door, fumbled with the lock.
Why did he sound so scared?
Had the mysterious phone guy been trespassing in his room, too?
She pulled open the door and it was like some mysterious force was pushing her forward, toward him.
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