IMPULSE SPY
A Sonic Sleuths Mystery
Carrie Ann Knox
Contents
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
About the Author
IMPULSE SPY
Copyright © 2017 Carrie Ann Knox
All rights reserved.
Published by Xotolithic Press 2017
Suffolk, VA, U.S.
Cover Design by James T. Egan of Bookfly Design
ISBN: 978-0-9990032-1-3
One
I first heard rather than saw her.
It was something in the sound of her boots that caught my attention. Or maybe the confident swish as she sashayed past my table. Whatever it was, I found myself abandoning the book in my hands to eye the mysterious girl.
I was clearly not the only one in the sleepy café to take notice. Yet as she strolled to the front counter, she seemed entirely unaware of any attention. A well-learned skill of the beautiful and striking, surely.
What was it about her, exactly? On paper, she didn’t look all that different from me.
We both had long dark hair, although hers was a bit darker, almost black. While she was only a little taller, the combination of tight jeans under impossibly-high heeled black boots made her legs seem much longer than mine ever had. My blue eyes were bigger; hers had a narrowed, piercing look accentuated by the dark eyeliner that ringed them. I figured she was in her late twenties, like myself, but she somehow imparted an air of maturity and sophistication I rarely felt. I was intrigued by this sexier and more-refined doppelgänger.
It took the fumbling teenaged barista multiple tries to prepare her espresso and caramel macchiato. When proudly presented with the first tiny cup, she threw her head back and swallowed it in one gulp. She then grabbed the larger lidded coffee and strolled out the way she came, leaving behind a parting wink that set the young man’s face on fire.
I returned my attention to the novel in my hands and the mundanity that was my day, eventually able to shake the image of the unfairly beautiful stranger. But the remainder of the bland bestselling so-called-thriller was now utterly uninspiring. I polished off my skinny latte and headed into the adjoining bookstore, intent on picking out my next read. I would need some vicarious excitement to get through the week.
But on the way to the mystery aisle, I became distracted. I spotted the girl again.
Coffee in hand, she was poring over a large reference manual of some kind while she spoke on her phone. I tried to continue on my way. Really, I did. But the language I heard wasn't English. It was deep and fast, vaguely eastern European. My best guess was Russian—a tongue quite unusual for our area of coastal Virginia. Interesting.
I hung a quick left into the cookbook section.
I found myself half-heartedly browsing the books on Italian and Mediterranean cuisine in front of me. Waiting. For what? I had no idea. I simply kept an eye on her. Inconspicuously, of course.
The girl finished her suspicious phone call and wandered away, oblivious. I waited until she settled in the spirituality section before I made my move. Ever so casually, I drifted over to her abandoned manual to check the contents. What was the mysterious Russian-speaking girl up to?
It was a dry tome on stock market trading. She’s a banker? I flipped through, excitement fading. Not exactly the femme fatale image I had going.
I checked her position just as she replaced another large book and moved away again, this time out of sight. Nothing to see here . . . but no harm in checking for sure, right? I strolled to the vacated aisle, allowing myself one final act of intrusiveness.
The book she had been browsing was on occultism. Intriguing. I picked it up and leafed through. Is she a witch? Maybe that explains my fascination.
The sound of a voice being cleared startled me.
“Into the occult, are you?”
I looked up and found myself face to face with the object of my stalking. It occurred to me that the lilt of her voice sounded strictly American, no accent.
“Er, not really. I was just . . . curious.” I looked down at the book sheepishly.
“Curious, huh?” Her cool eyes bore into me. “About the subject? Or about me?”
I replaced the book to avoid answering right away, my face reddening with embarrassment.
“I think I have my answer,” she continued, a smile creeping onto her face. “You were following me. Why?”
I tried to come up with a reasonable explanation, but I was not sure myself. Why was I following this stranger?
“I don’t know . . . boredom, I guess?”
She narrowed her eyes, dubious. “Boredom.”
I shrugged. “I was going to find a new mystery to read. I guess I…wanted to check out a real-life mystery instead.” I felt utterly foolish even saying it, but it was the only thing I could come up with.
Her mouth turned up on one side; she was laughing at me. “And I was a mystery?”
“I don’t know, I . . . ” I needed to get out of there as quickly as possible. “Seriously, I was just bored.”
“Okay.” She looked me over, sizing me up. “Well, I’d be happy to solve a mystery for you, but I wouldn’t want to ruin any fun.”
She was teasing me. How do I get out of this?
“How about this,” she offered, leaning in conspiratorially. Her face turned intense, the words emphatic. “Do you want to know if I’m a witch?”
I hesitated, fairly certain she was messing with me. But I had to admit some lingering curiosity. And I saw no other way out. “Sure,” I finally responded.
She laughed and shook her head, smiling. “No. I’m a writer. I come here sometimes to do research. Look things up.”
“Oh,” I replied stupidly, unable to think of anything else.
“The library has a lot more books,” she continued, “but it’s so quiet and there’s no coffee.” Her nose wrinkled. “Not really my scene.”
I continued my impressive display of conversational skills. “Oh.” I added a nod this time.
The girl studied me for another moment. “Well, I’d better get going.” She smirked. “But be careful who you follow. Never know who you might stumble across by accident. Dangerous people out there.”
“Right.” I was sure my embarrassment was written all over my face.
The girl threw me a quick wink. “Later, Nancy Drew.” She tossed her thick, shiny hair over her shoulder and strolled toward the entrance.
I shook my head at myself, appalled at my strange behavior. Has to be all those books getting into my head. I was officially banned from mysteries and thrillers for a while.
The vow didn’t last very long. After a long workweek devoid of any pleasure reading, I was desperate for my fix. I would never make it through the weekend without a little suspense to spice things up. And that certainly wasn’t going to come from my personal life at the moment.
Unfortunately, that would mean returning to the scen
e of humiliation. My safe little indie bookstore felt spoiled now. Epilogue Books had become my haven in this new town of Norfolk, VA. And I refused to find a new shop.
I would have to suck it up. Just mind your own business this time.
I strolled into the bookstore after work on Friday, head held high with faked indifference. The familiar smell of fresh-roasted beans from the café greeted me warmly. A quick circuit through the place assured me the maybe-not-so-mysterious girl was nowhere to be seen.
I sighed in relief and began to wander the fiction area, slowly feeling like myself again. An armful of books in hand, I eventually retired to the café and used them to reserve a quiet table in the corner while I purchased coffee.
When I returned with my latte, I found my eyes locked with an olive-skinned young man two tables away. He was staring blankly at me. I half-smiled politely as I sat down, but the young man held my gaze until I looked away and picked up the first book. Curious.
Detective novels were my favorite escape, and I had found a few newcomers. I planned to read a little of each to gauge my interest. The first didn’t hook me right away, so I started a reject pile and picked up another. But as I sat back with the next option, I glanced up—and met the stranger’s eyes yet again. No emotion or reaction, just staring from under thick black eyebrows. Unfalteringly.
I began to get just a shade unnerved. I sipped my coffee and tried to ignore the scrutiny. I worked to suppress my squirm reflex under his gaze.
Eventually I became engrossed enough in the story to tune out the attention. Having successfully found a winner, I reached for the final option in the stack—and a slip of paper floated to the floor.
I glanced up before bending to retrieve it. The young man was gone.
The scrap was simple stationary with a handwritten note:
It was funny how I could feel all alone and under surveillance at the same time.
Tiny hairs stood up on the back of my neck. I glanced around, paranoia creeping in. No one looking.
Trying to remain calm, I turned my attention back to the note and studied the neat script. The words were simple but seemed vaguely familiar. I pulled out my phone and did a quick search. The line was a quote from a young adult novel I had read. Homeland. I considered the meaning of the words.
Surveillance? Perhaps it was just a coincidence, a random scribbling left in the book by a fellow reader. This was a bookstore, after all. But the subject of the note made me apprehensive. Especially given the young man’s stare only moments before. And I didn’t believe the paper had fallen out of the book. After double-checking—nothing inside—I decided to have a look at the origin of the quote to jog my memory.
Back in the fiction section, I searched for the author, Cory Doctorow. One copy of the novel on the shelf. I picked it up and thumbed through, trying to remember what the book was about. It was a sequel, about a paranoid tech-savvy teenager that uses technology to fight for privacy. Everyone in the novel was constantly under surveillance. As I flipped through, my eyes caught on a single line boldly underlined in pencil.
It was the same sentence that was left on the table for me to find. This could not be a coincidence.
I hustled back to my table with the book and started at the beginning. Upon closer inspection, I found more markings, but these were more faint. There were eight words lightly underlined in the book. I jotted down each word as I found it, and they quickly formed a sentence. The spy who came in from the cold.
I didn’t need to look this one up. It was the title of one of the most famous spy novels of all time. Another spying reference. Could someone be sending me a message?
No, that would be crazy. Right? I tried to come up with a reasonable explanation. Could be just a coincidence. A hoax. Or maybe some kind of weird secret admirer thing?
Either way, I couldn’t walk away just yet. There could be more. I went to fetch the John le Carre novel.
Once again, there was only one copy. My hands were a little shaky as I flipped through, page by page, looking for another message. There were no markings this time. Darn.
Darn?
Well, it was fun while it lasted.
But as I closed the book, something peeked out from behind the slipcover. A receipt. It was for coffee and a slice of pie, at a place called Joe’s Diner. Never heard of it. It was dated two days prior, paid in cash.
I checked the book over once more. Nothing else was amiss. Was this another clue? To what? Or was I losing my mind? I checked to see if anyone was watching me. Again, no observers in sight.
I took the results of my bizarre scavenger hunt to the front to pay and hurried out, abandoning the books I had previously chosen. I wouldn’t need a novel to keep me occupied tonight.
Two
I’d intended to go straight home.
Instead I found myself sitting outside Joe’s Diner, watching through the windows. The curiosity was too strong to ignore.
It had begun to drizzle since I left the bookstore. The place was a small old-fashioned diner in a grittier section of town I was not familiar with. The weed-eaten parking lot was mostly empty. I watched the bored-looking waitresses and decided the place seemed non-threatening enough.
I entered and took a worn vinyl booth in the back. A middle-aged waitress perked up and hustled over. Her nametag read “Dottie.”
“Evenin’. What can I get ya?”
“I’ll take a coffee. Decaf.” I fished out the receipt. “And can I ask you about something?”
“Do my best,” she answered.
I handed her the receipt. “Is there any way to know who this receipt belongs to? I need to speak to them.”
The woman studied the slip and shook her head.
“Sorry darlin’. But they paid in cash, and we don’t exactly have a camera system here. Don't see any way to tell.”
“Would anyone remember who came in?”
Dottie chuckled, a wheezing smoker’s laugh that sounded more like a cough. “Orderin' coffee and pie ain’t exactly unusual around here. That’s what we’re known for.” She handed the receipt back to me. “Best pie in town,” she added.
“Ok, thanks anyway.” As she walked away, I called after her. “Go ahead and bring me a piece of pie, too. Whatever’s most popular.”
“You got it, honey.” She hurried back behind the counter.
I stared at the receipt again, trying to come up with an explanation for everything. Why was I brought here? Perhaps the receipt was not a message at all. It could’ve been left in the book by anyone. But I refused to believe that everything was a coincidence.
I watched the handful of other patrons, almost all men in smudged work gear. Most were alone, reading the newspaper or staring out the windows as they ate. I figured they were on a break from one of the nearby industrial sites.
My mind in knots, I finally gave up and tried to relax as I nibbled on my crumbly apple pie. It really was quite good. I enjoyed sound of the rain outside, which had picked up as the sky turned dark. The ceiling fans lazily stirring the fresh coffee aroma were hypnotic.
I liked this place, a vestige of a long-lost era. Still confused but contented, I finished my pie and told myself I would come back another day.
I didn’t realize at the time that someone else would make sure of that.
With the puzzling trail of clues gone cold, I was back to the usual grind as a fourth-year audiology fellow itching for graduation. A few months and a research project were all that stood in my way. To that end, my adviser had requested I attend a lecture by a visiting researcher after work and report back.
My boss, Dr. Seymore, had invited herself to join me. No added pressure. To avoid adding an awkward commute to the event with my boss, I snuck out of work as quickly as possible and hustled to the light-rail trail station. It would be my first ride.
The tiny train reminded me of an amusement-park monorail, and the crowd was boisterous. But by the second stop most of the passengers had cleared, leaving only two othe
rs on board my car. And that’s when I noticed him looking at me.
The twenty-something Asian man struck a casual pose as he stared, kicked back with his leg across the adjacent seat. He had side-swept fringe and an eclectically-layered outfit; definitely a hacker vibe. His eyes didn’t shift when I returned the gaze. He didn’t even flinch. Oh no—not this again.
I tried to hide my discomfort by returning my attention out the window. But I could feel his eyes on me. I’m pretty sure he was smiling subtly, but it didn’t feel lewd. It felt intentionally disturbing.
The short ride remaining felt interminable. I tried slow-breathing techniques from past yoga classes to stay calm. Finally we pulled to a stop. I stifled a sigh of relief and headed for the door. But just as I neared the stranger, he leapt to his feet and faced me, blocking my way.
In a panic, I met the man’s eyes. He was still just smiling.
“Excuse me,” I mumbled with as much courage as I could muster.
He stared back intensely for a moment before speaking. “Eight p.m. Sharp.”
“I’m sorry?”
His smile became a wide grin. Then without a word, he stepped to the side, freeing my path. I was able to scramble out the door just before it closed.
I was a mess when I arrived at the lecture hall. After making the remaining walk in record time with one eye over my shoulder, I was relieved to be back in a crowd. I rushed to take a seat amongst the other medical professionals and tried to calm my breathing. What had just happened?
“Good to see you, Quinn. Mind if I join you?”
I looked up to see Dr. Seymore hovering above me. I couldn’t think straight yet but believed I had regained my composure. I forced my best smile.
“Of course,” I replied, shifting to let her pass.
She took the seat next to me and pulled out a portfolio with a legal pad. Then she turned her attention back to me.
“I’m so glad you could attend tonight,” she said. “It always impresses me when our students take the initiative and participate in activities that aren’t required.” She turned to give me a direct look. “The kind of thing I admire in the students we sometimes keep on as staff after graduation.”
Impulse Spy (Sonic Sleuths Series) Page 1
