Urban Prey by S. J. Lewis

come out of either of the exits, either she was lingering in the store for a while to throw off anyone following her, or she’d doubled back. In either of those cases, he’d have to play it by ear.
    To his utter surprise, he almost collided with her as she came around the corner of the building. They both stopped abruptly, and for one brief moment he was looking right into her eyes. They were a dark, dark brown, wide open from her initial surprise. They stood very close to each other for a moment. Her presence, so very near, hit him almost as strongly as a physical blow. He almost thought that he had affected her the same way. Then her composure returned. She smiled up at him in the way that strangers sometimes do when they almost run into each other. Her eyes were still brown, but no longer opened wide. A gust of wind ruffled her hair. Her grip on the handbag slung over her right shoulder loosened. She didn’t say anything.
    “Excuse me,” he smiled back, tipping his hat to her. He stepped out of her way.
“Thank you,” she nodded. She swept past him and went on up the street. After a few steps she looked back quickly over her shoulder. She gave him a brief little smile and continued on her way. Until then, he hadn’t realized that he was just standing there, staring after her.
He had to step around the corner, out of her sight if she looked back again, and take a moment to compose himself. After watching the videos, he had concluded that she was a woman that a still photograph simply could not do justice to. After their close encounter, he didn’t think a mere video could capture the impact of her in person either. She radiated so much warmth and vitality that any man would want to be near her. But up as close to her as he’d been, he’d also felt somehow challenged. She hadn’t backed away from him at all after their near-collision, and he’d had to fight an impulse to back away himself.
    He took a deep breath before walking around the corner to continue following her. She was already at the far corner, waiting for the light to change. He checked the traffic quickly and dashed across the street. He saw her cross. She kept going straight. He hurried a little to get closer to her. At least there was no doubt that she’d seen him now. From here on, the trick would be to show up again and again, but never so close that she would feel he was a threat. He hoped she’d be taking a long walk today.
    He managed to get ahead of her without being spotted. At another intersection, he knew she saw him standing across the street from her as she waited for another light to change. He walked away before she could cross, but as he risked a quick look back he saw that she hadn’t crossed after all. Instead she’d turned around and gone back the way she’d come. He certainly had her attention now.
    She didn’t go straight back to her hotel. He could think of a number of reasons for that: Maybe she didn’t want to look like she was running away: Maybe she wasn’t quite sure that he was trailing her: And maybe she was enjoying the possibility that he was stalking her. Whatever the case, she stayed out on the streets where he could see her. She must have felt it was safe. There were still a lot of other people around, although not as many as there had been. He wondered how long she’d keep this up. For the first time in a while, he was enjoying the feeling of being on a hunt.
    He gave her a number of opportunities to spot him again. On the two occasions when she saw him ahead of her, she changed her direction. Once she saw him walking in the same direction as she was, but on the other side of the street. That time she went into another department store with multiple exits and it took him a little while to pick up her trail again. He managed to follow along behind her for a while before something made her look back and spot him. He was close enough to see her expression then. She didn’t look scared as she ducked into a