Girl Watching You
A Novel
J.A. Schneider
Publisher Information
Girl Watching You is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author's imagination and are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, institutions or locales is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2019 J.A. Schneider.
All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce, store in a retrieval system, or transmit this book, in any part thereof, in any form or by any means whatsoever, whether now existing or devised at a future time, without permission in writing from the author, except in the case of brief quotations in critical articles and reviews.
Find out more about the author and her other books at http://jaschneiderauthor.net
Books by J.A. Schneider
The EMBRYO medical thriller series, 6 books
Homicide Detective Kerri Blasco Police/Psychological Thrillers:
FEAR DREAMS
A sensitive woman fears insanity. Intuitive Detective Kerri Blasco tries to unravel the truth of what really haunts her…
HER LAST BREATH
Mari Gill woke to horror in a strange bed next to a murdered man, and can’t remember the night before. Detective Kerri Blasco battles her police bosses believing Mari is innocent…but is she?
WATCHING YOU
A serial killer texts his victims first – but how does he get their phone numbers? Detective Kerri Blasco vows revenge. He comes after her.
SHOELESS CHILD
A little boy has seen a horrific murder but is too traumatized to speak. Detective Kerri Blasco struggles to connect with him…
Standalone Thrillers
INTO THE DARK
A perfect marriage deteriorates as a woman starts to fear that her husband is a killer.
GIRL WATCHING YOU
A young woman, obsessed by a man she considers a predator, climbs a fire escape and thinks she sees a murder
Dedicated to all who never give up
Girl Watching You
Title Page
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Chapter 56
Chapter 57
Chapter 58
Author’s Note
About the Author
. . . .
She’s buried in the older part of the cemetery, the prettier part, really, beneath a dogwood that blooms pink in spring. Its branches shelter her, and comfort me a little, but not much. What shatters me is when those pink petals fall, and then the leaves in autumn too, and the ground grows cold again…
. . . .
1
There he is again. Another girlfriend.
He approaches. I stiffen and – surprise - feel better. Not much better, but not crying bad, either. Because mad is better than sad, isn’t it? That revved feeling that pulls you out of your gloom? This guy makes me mad.
He comes right up to our sidewalk counter, surveying bouquets, hugging one-armed his beaming new girl. I give a helpless sigh. Doesn’t she know about him? He’s in every gossip column. I grit my teeth as he pays, per usual, with his gold Palladium Visa card; barely looks at me from behind his Armani sunglasses.
“Very nice,” I tell him, hands shaking as I wrap the double bouquet of pink roses in gold foil. And I think: Women should steer clear of you, Mister. You’re a predator. I know your name. I know where you live.
He’s oblivious, of course. (Do people realize, when they give you their credit cards, that you can find out practically everything about them?) Men like this enjoy their arrogance. He’s a Greed Is Good cliché who stops here often to gift his girls with bouquets, plush toys, exotic handcrafts. He’s dark-haired and handsome in an aggressive-brooding way, and his name is Peter Greer. He was written up as one of fifteen hot young hedge funders, and that was several years ago; now he’s forty-one. Weeks ago, he bought a party pad a few blocks away. Fancy place. I searched public records for his property sale.
A pity, I think, because Greer’s new girl is lovely, understated in a wheat-colored blazer over a blue dress. She thanks me sweetly, just like they taught her to do in Minnesota or Iowa or Ohio; then her pretty face disappears behind her fall of blond hair as she sniffs the bouquet, so romantic. Thank you, she smiles at him.
Minnesota, I’ve decided.
Shouldn’t warning women about men like this be some sort of civic duty?
She’s early twenties and smart-looking; maybe one of last June’s crop of new grad school types to arrive in the city, still euphoric that they’re in New York, in just the best new job ever working for bankers or media honchos and living in the heart of trendy West Village, woo hoo.
That’s how I felt, starting out.
She gazes at expensive orchids, leaning on Greer’s shoulder as he waves his wallet pointing to tall ficus and a big-leafed anthurium. Wouldn’t she like more plants in her place? It’s so bare!
She shakes her head, maybe thinking where would she put all her Ikea stuff with those big plants in the way. Her place is tiny. Last visit, he bought her potted yellow chrysanthemums. They wound up outside her window on the fire escape. I think her cat peed on them.
“Do you still have geraniums?” pipes a woman holding a poodle.
Oops. Other customers.
“September’s too late in the season, try asters?” I tell her, going back to subtly watching Greer and Minnesota.
By their effusiveness, I can tell they’ve had their early evening glass of wine at nearby Régine’s, as they’ve done for the weeks since I’ve noticed them dating. It’s probably where they met, probably their breathless our place though the poor girl doesn’t know it’s the turd’s favorite pickup joint. He still acts like their affair is new, but I catch an undercurrent of tension from her. She gives me a suddenly troubled look, then reaches – “Aww…” – to pat a plush bunny tied with a bow to roses…
What’s this?
Bruises on her wrist. Her blazer sleeve pulls back as she reaches to the toy, and I see fingerprint marks, jewel-blue over her pulse.
I lean to her, try to find a subtle way to ask if she was hurt.
But he’s already pulled her away.
I frown, watching them head east on leafy West Eleventh to her studio. It’s on the second floor in the rear, bare
ly five hundred square feet but in a pretty brownstone with a view of the garden with its fire escape that doesn’t shake when you climb up, unlike some fire escapes-
“Ah, Miss?”
“Oh, sorry!”
It’s after six – coming home time – and I switch gears to catch up with jostling newcomers: a middle-aged woman in artiste black who wants white chrysanthemums; a young man in a tight Gucci T-shirt waving calla lilies; an elderly lady seeking African violets who asks how my auditions are going (I give her a sad face; she looks sad and says, “Oh, honey”), and a pair of lovers buying a hanging fern. They’ve settled in a one-bedroom on West Sixth. When you’re out together buying hanging ferns, your relationship is serious; you are comfortable with each other.
Two reasons why I like this job: I can hide from the world, and simultaneously get a glimpse into other lives. It helps to see some people find luck.
Then I think of Minnesota’s bruises…
Customers clamor. I hurry and kick myself for getting lost in my thoughts. Minnesota will be alright. She’s smart, she’ll come to her senses – ah, see that? I glance up to see them arguing before her building; she won’t go in…good. One month, that’s about the length of Peter Greer’s affairs. He’s voracious. He’d probably bleep an open window.
I wrap and tie bows and take more credit cards.
“Ava,” I hear groaned behind me. That’s my name, Ava Beck, out of work actress. I can still find myself on Google.
I turn.
Joe Cooper is standing just inside the store’s entrance, looking miserable, wanting help with his accounting. We both loathe it: deathly tedious columns of numbers, no passion, hell for artistic types.
“In a bit?” I wince, raising my shoulders. “Still busy out here.”
He grimaces, turns back into the store’s interior.
Unlike me, Joe was smart enough to quit acting. He had some money saved, borrowed more to buy this place, and now is doing okay. I was between side jobs, a mutual friend recommended me when Joe needed help, so here I’ve been for nine weeks. The flowers are beautiful. I needed someplace obscure where I could try to heal.
Is it working? Well, I’m not curled up in a ball at home grieving anymore. That’s something, isn’t it?
Dusk gathers, lights blink on. Stragglers browse, and I go back to peering up West Eleventh.
Minnesota and her hedge funder went in after all, I’m sorry to say.
Before her building near the end of the block, they’d been hunched, speaking tensely. He tried to nuzzle and sweet-talk but she seemed suddenly tight, shaking her head, pulling away.
I could practically hear her: This has gone too far. You’re still married. What about your children? And his generic: No, we’re definitely split; the kids are fine with it; you’re so special to me.
They paced and argued. I tended to a customer. Then I looked back, saw her give in…and go in.
It makes me crazy.
Correction: crazier.
Mostly, I hate seeing the powerful exploit the weak.
Though to be truthful, people’s lives in general interest me, probably because I have none.
Doesn’t she see it? Has she not heard the stories of his womanizing?
He has two kids on Fifth Avenue and a wife so depressed she can’t squeeze the toothpaste - said Page Six a while back, from a sympathizer citing the old story of rich men who don’t leave their wives because they don’t want to part with their money. His wife did try filing for divorce once while he ran after some starlet. He probably came home and sweet-talked her, and she must have felt terrible for the kids and relented. Now he’s at it again.
So?
Minnesota or Greer’s wife: which of these women wins?
I exhale and think: Neither.
Same as it’s ever been.
Honey, go back to Minnesota or wherever you’re from. Marry a hometown boy and buy ferns together; don’t get pulled into this-
My phone chirps, and I answer. It’s Joe again, sounding ready to tantrum. “It was either call you or stand in the door screaming.”
“Okay, switch,” I surrender, scanning new customers browsing expensive plants. “Orchid-lover alert,” I say low. “Get out here.”
I pass him, traversing the lush passage of petals and plants to the interior. He’s been smoking, I realize as I catch his telltale aroma. Thought he was trying to quit…or not? I haven’t come out of my gloom enough to really know him.
Lights are dim under the overhead skylight. I glance up to the moon winking through branches of an old planetree, and stop to inhale, deep and hard. Where am I going? I ask the moon. What’s to become of me?
It sails behind a cloud, and goes dark.
Sighing, I duck the fronds of a seven-foot palm, enter the cluttered office, and try to lose myself to the joys of inventory and accounting.
2
Two hours later, disturbingly, I’m actually into it. Joe has made errors which I correct. I catch up on shipments from Peru and South Africa and the city’s West Twenty-eighth Street flower district. Extraordinary, that part of town, a jungle few know about.
It’s after nine. I’m tired and drooping before a desk lamp in Joe’s swivel chair. I hear him in front pulling in the sidewalk plants and displays; then he turns off the lights except for those illuminating the bouquet-filled store window.
The stretch between there and the office goes dark.
Footsteps.
He looks in and says he’s leaving.
Fine, g’night. I barely look up from my laptop. An Excel grid glows.
He says he’ll lock up.
Fine.
He leans on the jamb and sighs. “Staying much longer?”
“Almost done.”
“I’m floored, you’re like an accountant. As of tonight, I’m paying you more.”
“Hey, thank you.” I give him a little smile, then resume scowling at an invoice from a Colombian orchid grower. (Yes, they grow orchids in Colombia.)
Joe’s hand scrubs his stubble. He’s brown-haired, good-looking with small features in a square face. “You should get a cat or something. Have something warm and furry to come home to.”
“Wouldn’t be fair to the cat.”
“You wouldn’t hate going home if you had one. Beats climbing fire escapes - jeez, I employ a female Peeping Tom.”
“Once,” I lie, frowning at him. “And there was nothing Peeping Tom about it.”
That elderly lady who asked about my auditions? Her name is Amelie and she has heart disease. Her landlord’s trying to force her out of her rent-control, and she nearly fainted last August. I got her onto a bench, Joe ran to get her Coke, and she told us enough about her landlord to make me take the long way home each night, past her apartment. It’s on the third floor of a grungy street, above an alley.
Three weeks ago I arrived down there, and heard a man yelling. Definitely from her window, so up the fire escape I flew, and peered in just as her red-faced pig of a landlord looked ready to hit her.
“Stop that!” I banged on the glass, freezing him.
I could still see his sprung, enraged eyes as I tore down and across the street and used my burner to call 911. “Woman being attacked!” I gasped. Seconds later the cops were there, red-blue lights strobing as they tore into the street and the building.
I re-crossed again; watched with neighbors pointing, questioning. “Somebody got attacked,” I heard over and over.
Red Face hasn’t bothered Amelie since. She looked happy tonight, relaxed and hopeful, still wondering who “the saint” was who called the police and saved her.
I told Joe about it the next morning. Mistake: it had been my first climb, as I’ve since started to think of them. The expression he wore for two days was only a little creeped out, but he said nothing…
…until what he just blurted.
“Say you’re sorry,” I scold, printing out an Excel sheet.
“For what?”
“For
calling me a Peeping Tom.”
He shrugs and apologizes, paces near the door, and looks worriedly back to me.
“What about Morton Street?”
Oops.
“That doesn’t count,” I mumble, trying to get back to Colombian orchids.
I had blundered into that admission. Too much Valium will do that, plus I hadn’t yet figured out why I was doing this craziness.
Days after Amelie I’d wanted to cheer Joe, and reported how gorgeous his half-a-truck delivery of palms, ferns and orchids looked in a solarium just built onto a Morton Street mansion. He did look glad for a moment, then asked how I knew.
“Uh, I saw it,” I faltered, feeling my color rise. “Climbed up to peek.” At least I didn’t say at night…though no one in their right mind would dare scale a place like that in broad daylight.
Joe figured it out, knowing about Amelie, but again he said little.
Now, almost two weeks later, he heaves a great sigh and his brow furrows. He pulls up a chair and sits next to me, leaning forward, elbows on his knees.
“That makes two fire escapes, and it’s been bothering me,” he says. “Please, Ava, go back to your therapist.”
I make a face. “She’s crazier than I am – and Morton isn’t a fire escape; it’s fancy wrought-iron steps from the garden that’s practically open to the street. The guy’s a complete showoff.”
I see that townhouse, red brick with black shutters and white window surrounds, exquisite on its historic street. Another Wall Street type named Holt bought it last year for around nine million, then restored it and made it snazzier. Inside, a curving staircase winds up from the parlor to a skylight at the top of the house, spectacular on the night I peered in. The moon bathed the whole interior in light, like the inside of a glowing conch shell. Fabulous to gaze at, especially if your nose is practically pressed to the glass of the new, plant-filled solarium. I would have gazed longer at the pseudo jungle if Holt’s current girlfriend hadn’t lurched in, gripping the neck of what looked like a brandy bottle, weeping and stumbling till she came right up to the glass, black-smeared eyes bawling up to the moon.
I dropped to my knees.
Like a cat burglar I flew down the iron steps to the garden, then back out to Morton where I started to trot casually; just another rich West Villager out for a late-night jog in my Nikes and black tracksuit.
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