RAINEY DAYS

by Bradshaw, R. E.

  “No, she should put 911 on speed dial, if she hasn’t already. I’m the backup, just in case,” Rainey said. Although she was thinking, “If she has a chance to call.” She kept the thought to herself. Then she had another idea. “I’d like to give you a GPS chip to slip in her phone. I’ll have her location at all times. If she gets in trouble, at least we’ll know exactly where she is.”

  “That sounds like a good idea. I’ve always wanted to do that, just to be able to keep up with her.” JW seemed a little too eager to track his wife.

  Rainey quickly added, “The chip comes out when this is over.”

  “Yeah, I guess that would make me a stalker too, huh,” he said, sheepishly.

  Rainey was ready to move on with her surveillance, so she ended the call, “I guess that’s it for now. Email me if you think of anything else. I’m online in the car.”

  “Okay, let me know if you find anything.” He paused, then added, “Be safe out there,” before hanging up.

  Rainey spent the next hour taking pictures of the vehicles parked in the area, careful to get tag numbers. She appeared to be snapping shots of the flowers blooming in the manicured lawns. With the powerful zoom lens on the digital camera, she was able to capture details from a great distance and then review them on the larger screen on her laptop. She always marveled at the things she had missed, at first glance, even though she took the picture.

  Around six o’clock she headed back toward the car. Her stomach growled, as the smells of supper cooking, in the South, wafted through the trees. She stopped in front of JW’s house and took a picture of the front lawn. She then took pictures going three hundred and sixty degrees from that vantage point. Rainey had just dropped the camera from her eye when she heard a voice behind her.

  “May I ask what you are taking pictures of?”

  It was not a demand, but a gentle inquiry, complete with Southern lilt. Rainey was shocked that she had been unaware of the woman, who had somehow appeared on the other side of the wrought iron gate. It was Katie and she was glowing in the evening sun. Not only was Rainey surprised by her presence, she was taken aback by the sheer attractiveness of this woman. Katie had changed her clothes and was now wearing old gray shorts, rolled up at the waist and a Tar Heel tank top. She must have been pulling weeds, because she was wearing gardening gloves and carrying a small spade. She had a little dirt on one cheek, which only made her more beautiful.

  Rainey smiled and put the camera away, before she answered, “It’s such a wonderful street and I love your wild flowers.”

  “Why, thank you,” Katie said, extending her hand in greeting. “My name is Katie Wilson.”

  “I’m Caroline,” Rainey replied, shaking her hand. “Caroline Lee.”

  Rainey lied, because she could not say her real name. It was too unusual, too easy to remember. Katie was not supposed to know Rainey was there. She removed her sunglasses from the top of her head, where she had put them while she took pictures, and placed them over her eyes. She had to get out of there fast.

  “It was nice to meet you, Katie,” Rainey said, moving off.

  “You too,” Katie said. “Hope you got some nice shots.”

  Rainey looked back over her shoulder, at the smiling Katie. “Thanks,” was all she could manage to say.

  Rainey berated herself all the way back to the car. How could she have been so stupid? She was shaken by the fact she had not heard Katie approach, and then she had stammered like a nervous schoolgirl when Katie spoke to her. That was such an odd reaction, because Rainey was always in control in situations like that. She told herself it was because she let Katie get so close to finding out who she was and what she was doing. JW would not have been pleased. Rainey decided not to tell him about her little slip up.

  Once in the car she started it up and let the air blow on her face. She drank the rest of the water from her backpack and collected her thoughts. She drove around the block, finding a shady spot with a frontal view of the house. The tinted windows on the car made it nearly impossible for Rainey to be observed inside. At night, if she kept the laptop shut, she was all but invisible. She left the air running while she hooked the camera up to the laptop and downloaded the pictures. Usually the heat did not bother her so much, but she had to remember she was sweating out quite a lot of alcohol, as well. It crossed her mind that she should stop drinking, but only for a second.

  From Rainey’s vantage point, she could see Katie occasionally, when she would stand, spade in hand, and then disappear again behind the Crepe Myrtles and Hydrangea bushes, in search of more weeds to pull. Rainey ate another sandwich and the watermelon from the container, while she watched the blonde woman work in her garden. Rainey realized she had been staring at Katie for quite some time, when an alert tone sounded on her laptop. The woman was mesmerizing. Rainey was star struck and she had to shake it off. She could see right away how someone could become obsessed with watching Katie Wilson.

  The alert was for email, from Mackie. Everything was going fine on his end and he was just checking in with her. Rainey wrote back, telling him about her day and her plans to watch the Wilson house for the evening. She gave him the address, so he could stop by later if he wanted, but she knew he would be too busy picking up skippers tonight. Just after the first of the month was always a good time to hunt for a bail jumper. Momma would have the kitchen table full of food for her little baby criminal and maybe a little cash left over from her monthly check. Oh yeah, crooks love their mommas. She closed the email with, “I better let you go. It’s almost suppertime in the hood.” She knew he would read it right away, because his Escalade was tricked out with a built in laptop, and he was probably doing the same thing she was. Sitting and watching.

  It was true that they could instant message, text, or talk to each other on the phone, but none of those methods were as secure as the encrypted network she set up for their business. A degree, in Computer Forensics, came in handy more than once, in Rainey’s line of work. She used it to secure her insulated life from outside intruders, to erase her existence. It allowed her to live apart from the world, venturing out only at the times and places of her choosing.

  Rainey had chosen to be on this street, alone, at the coming of darkness. She removed the Glock from the camera bag and re-holstered it, sliding the leather straps back over her shoulders. She took the taser out of the console, checked the charge again and placed it on the passenger seat beside her. The message on the laptop screen said the pictures from the camera had been downloaded, so she removed the adaptor, and placed the camera back in the bag.

  She took a small USB, night vision webcam out of the camera bag and hooked it up to the laptop. Snapping the camera into the holder already on the dashboard, Rainey opened a window on the laptop screen and focused the camera on the scene, in front of her. She pulled a second USB cable out of its hiding place next to the center consol. When she plugged it in, another window was called up, displaying the image from an identical webcam, permanently mounted in the rear window. It peered through a small square, cut out of the tint on the window, but had a wide-angle lens so Rainey’s back was always covered.

  Rainey settled into the seat and began reviewing the pictures she had taken earlier. She reached for the thermos of coffee and prepared for a long night of vigilance.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  The final rays of the sun slipped below the tree line and only then did the heat begin to relinquish its grip on the day. Katie Wilson had retreated into the house when JW’s car pulled in the driveway. Rainey, knowing JW was in the house, took the opportunity to drive around the neighborhood, with the webcams sending the images to the laptop. She would do this drive once an hour, throughout the night, recording each trip. Later she would compare the videos, looking for vehicles and people moving in the night.

  Twice she had to drive over to Franklin Street to locate a restroom and get more coffee, but for the most part, Rainey remained in front of the Wilson house, watching. She sat in silence,
windows rolled down just enough to catch the breeze and so she could listen to the sounds of the neighborhood. As the hours grew later, the streets around her quieted. Chapel Hill was a college town, so it never completely went to sleep, but the pace slowed and parts of the town, not occupied by bars or athletic venues, took on a hushed, studious mood. It was summer, which meant the student population had taken a significant dip. Rainey thought she could almost believe she was in a quaint little southern village, if she did not know the mighty Tar Heel basketball team resided right next door. People either loved them or hated them, but even non-basketball fans knew what that tar heeled foot represented.

  You could not live in North Carolina and not know something about basketball. With Carolina, Duke, Wake Forest and North Carolina State all within its boundaries, this state worshipped basketball, like they do football out in Oklahoma. Ask anybody where Michael Jordan played college ball. Rainey laughed at the old joke, “Who is the only person who could stop Michael Jordan? Dean Smith.” Dean Smith, the man who built the Dean Dome. Rainey was a closet Tar Heel fan, but had refused to attend the University under her mother’s nose.

  Rainey heard two girls approaching and watched, as they laughed and talked, passing right in front of her, never once looking around them, not aware of her presence. She wanted to get out of the car and scare them. She wanted to shake them both, telling them how stupid it was to walk out here, in the wee hours of the morning, without once looking around to see who else might be there. She wanted to rip off her shirt and show them what happens when you do not pay attention. Instead, she peered into the darkness, at who might be watching them, the silent guardian of this tiny block.

  Rainey checked the cameras, stopped the recording, saved it to a file and started another recording. This way she could review the earlier recordings while she waited in the car. She opened the file she had just saved. Using the fast forward key, she scanned the video for any vehicles that drove by more frequently than others did. She looked at the foot traffic for anyone repeatedly passing the Wilson house. From her position, the camera had a clear view of the front door and boxwood hedge on the right side of the property line. Even with the night vision, the tall shrubs cast dark shadows the camera could not penetrate. If this was her house, Rainey thought, those bushes would be down. It would not be pretty, but it would be so much safer.

  Rainey reviewed five hours of video, stopping the playback to listen and look around her every few minutes. By the time she finished, it was deep into the night. Rainey raised her eyes from the laptop and listened. Traffic sounds from a distance where punctuated by the summer insect cantata going on all around her. She heard nothing unusual. Still, the hair began to prickle on her arms and down her neck. She did a quick three hundred and sixty degree check of her surroundings. She looked at the feeds from the webcams, nothing moving.

  Rainey fought off the thoughts that it was her own paranoia again. Something was not right; she could feel it and she had learned to respect that primal instinct. She peered into the shadows cast by the boxwoods. There. There, something was moving. She blinked her eyes and sat up, so her face was closer to the windshield. Her left hand automatically checked that the Glock was there and ready in its holster. Again, she saw the low crawling shadow creeping down the hedge. He was coming closer.

  Rainey’s left hand went to the door handle. She had disabled the interior light so the car would not glow when she opened the door. Her right hand took the keys out of the ignition and slowly dropped them into her front pocket. Gradually she opened the door and stood up. All the while, her eyes never left the shadow. She did not shut the door, but stepped around it, steadily moving toward her target. She removed the Glock from the holster and held it down at her side. If she went directly at him, she would have to cross under a streetlight.

  Rainey decided to come up behind the moving mass. She walked down the street a few paces and then turned, crossing over to the Wilson’s neighbor’s yard, avoiding the direct light from the streetlamp. While she accomplished this, her eyes lost contact with the shadow. She crept closer to where she had last seen him. He was not there. Rainey looked down the boxwoods. The darkness swallowed her, as she inched her way down the shrub line. She told herself to take deep, slow breaths, but her breathing quickened with every step. She felt her scalp crawling and the chill bumps forming on her arms. She could almost smell him.

  Rainey crouched down, listening. The only sound she heard was her own heart beating in her ears. She had to calm down. She took several deep breaths and listened again. She heard a faint sound, back by the street. There were footsteps coming closer, running down the brick sidewalk. He had not seen her. He was coming right at her. Her breathing quickened again as she moved, now using the shadows, inching closer to the sidewalk. She crouched again and waited for the right moment. When she could hear his heavy breathing, just steps from her hiding place, she sprang up, stepping onto the walkway, in front of her prey.

  “Jesus, God! You scared the shit out of me.”

  It was JW, dressed in sweats with the hood pulled up over his head. He was sweating profusely, as he grabbed his knees and tried to catch his breath.

  “What the hell are you doing out here, in the middle of the night?” Rainey snapped, the adrenaline coursing through her body, causing her hand to shake a little, as she re-holstered her pistol.

  “I couldn’t sleep,” he said, followed by more heavy breathing. “I went for a run.” He finally stood up, wiping the sweat from his brow with his sleeve. “Why did you jump out of the bushes like that? You could have killed me.”

  “I wouldn’t have shot you,” Rainey said, defensively.

  “No, but I could have had a heart attack,” JW shot back.

  The adrenaline rush was subsiding. She tried to sound calmer, “I saw something moving by the hedge. I was checking it out and then you came running down the street. I thought you were him.”

  JW looked around, “Did you see a man?”

  Rainey shook her head, “No, more of a shadow. I didn’t get close enough to see clearly.”

  JW had finally gathered himself. “Rainey, you can’t be jumping out of bushes brandishing a weapon. Suppose it had been a neighbor or some kid out for a run?”

  “I didn’t aim it at you,” Rainey said, thinking no way was she going to be out here unarmed.

  “Well, I’ll give you that, but I don’t want to draw attention to this thing, you know,” JW, said. “Can you try to be more subtle?”

  Rainey laughed, “I’ll just bring the taser next time.”

  JW started backing away. “Just try not to kill anybody,” he said, smiling. Then he waved and ran back to his house.

  Rainey walked back to the car and got in. She was still on edge. She knew something or somebody had been out there. She stopped the video recording from the dash camera and rewound to the moment she had gotten out of the car. She watched herself cross in front of the car and walk down the street. She stared at the dark place, where she had seen the movement earlier. Rainey’s heart almost stopped when she saw the dark figure of a man rise up, watching her walk across the street, before running down the hedge line and out of view.

  She stopped the video and rewound it to the spot where the darkness rose and took the shape of a man. He was dressed exactly as JW had been, in sweats and a hoodie. It was a good disguise for a stalker. If he was stopped by the police, he was just a guy out for a run. Again and again, Rainey watched the man watch her and then vanish. He had been so close and now she knew he had seen her. He knew someone was watching Katie. Maybe it would scare him off. Rainey did not think so. It was the way he watched her, coming after him, that let her know he liked the game.

  For the remainder of the night and into the morning, Rainey was alert and focused. Even though she knew the guy probably would not come back tonight, the way he had watched her kept her vigilant. At seven fifteen, Katie Wilson left her home and headed back to work. She drove east on Franklin and then turned ont
o Estes drive, stopping for gas and coffee, and then straight to school. No one followed Katie, as far as Rainey could tell. Once Mrs. Wilson was safely inside her classroom, surrounded by her eager minions, Rainey headed home for some much needed rest.

  She drove under the cottage, just as Ernie was pulling into her parking place. It was Ernie’s, because she had painted a sign that made it so and nailed it to the building, right in front of her spot. Ernie waved to Rainey, who was crossing the lawn to the office, then unlocked the door and went in. Rainey watched her through the windows, flipping over the open/closed sign, then going to her desk. She sat down her purse and went straight for the coffee maker. Such a creature of habit, Rainey thought.

  She walked into the office, heading straight for the couch. She flopped down on it with a loud sigh, “Damn, I’m tired.”

  Ernie looked up from her coffee making, “You should go get some sleep.”

  “I will,” Rainey brushed the suggestion off. “Hey, is there any more watermelon?”

  “I think so. Let me look,” Ernie said, finishing the coffee and heading to the back room.

  Rainey laid her head back and closed her eyes. She listened to Ernie’s heels clicking on the concrete as she walked around in back. She opened her eyes again when the clicking grew louder, as Ernie reentered the room. She was carrying a bowl piled high with cubes of watermelon.

  “Will this do you?” Ernie said with a smile, handing the bowl and a fork to Rainey.

  Ernie sat down on the couch beside Rainey. She did not say anything. She just looked Rainey up and down and shook her head. Rainey ate the watermelon, careful to keep her mouth full, because she really did not want to talk to Ernie right now. Rainey did not want to tell her, how she had discovered the man in the bushes and how he had watched her. She did not want Ernie to worry any more than she already did.