The Stalked Girl

by Evan Ronan

  Never having done this before, I try not to contemplate what I’m about to do. I just brace myself in the seat, grip the steering wheel harder, and—

  The guy suddenly slams his brakes. For a moment I think this is some kind of maneuver and he’s going to hit me on purpose, but then he swerves back into our lane right behind me, moving to avoid a big truck coming from the opposite direction. It must have pulled out from one of the crossroads ahead.

  Now that he’s behind me again, and when there’s no traffic coming the other way, I move out into the middle of the road so he can’t get around me. I call Lucy.

  “What’s going on?” she answers, breathless. “Is that him?”

  “I don’t know. Just keep going. There’s a convenience store on the next corner. I’m going to keep this asshole behind me the whole way. Get to the store and I’ll be right behind you.”

  “Okay.”

  “I’ll pull right out front and then you jump in. Just leave the bike. Got it? Leave the bike.”

  “Okay.”

  I can see her put her phone away, while I continue to be the annoying driver taking up the middle of the road. The guy behind me is going crazy now, wearing out his horn and swerving back and forth to get around me. But I’m not letting him anywhere near Lucy.

  If this is Adam, I’m going to kill him.

  If it’s not Adam … I’m still going to kill him.

  I’m in a cold sweat as we reach the convenience store. Lucy pulls into the parking lot, jumps off her bike and waits for me. Without activating my turn signal, I pull in at the last moment and maintain my speed, barreling toward the store. I hit the brakes hard. Tires screeching, I slide to a stop in front of the store and throw open the passenger door.

  Always wanted to try that, just not under these circumstances.

  Lucy dives in. Before she even closes the door, my foot is on the gas again.

  The other vehicle flies by the convenience store, tearing up the road.

  Lucy’s face is tear-streaked. Still breathless from the exertion and probably nerves, she grips my arm.

  “IS IT HIM?”

  “Get your belt on.”

  I pull out of the lot and floor it to catch up to the car. He’s already half a mile out.

  “WHAT ARE YOU DOING?” she asks.

  “GET YOUR BELT ON.” I take a deep breath, trying to calm myself down as she gets strapped in and we build speed. The other car is easily doing seventy miles per hour in a forty-five zone. I’m on pace to hit eighty so we can catch up.

  “Greg, stop the car!”

  “Is that Adam’s car?” I ask.

  “No! It’s not. Please stop the car!”

  Adam could have rented or borrowed one.

  “GREG, PLEASE!”

  “If it’s Adam, he’s violated the hell out of the court order and we’ve got him dead to rights. But we need him caught.” I dig my phone out of my pocket and pass it to her. “Take a picture of the car, make sure to get the plate.”

  Her hands are shaking as she takes the phone from me. They’re so unsteady as she raises it, I’ll be amazed if she can even take a picture.

  She thumbs the picture icon many times as we get right up the guy’s ass. He responds by picking up speed. We’re now both doing eighty in a forty-five.

  “Gregpleaseslowdown.”

  I know she’s scared, but if it’s Adam ahead of us, this is our opportunity. “Scroll through my contacts till you find a guy named Shawn. S-H-A-W-N.”

  “Okay, okay.” She finds it quickly. “Got it.”

  “Call him for me and put it on speaker.”

  She gives me a confused look.

  “He’s my buddy on the police force.”

  Ahead of us, the guy is now inching up closer to eighty-five. He’s desperate to get away, but I’m not letting him go. No way.

  Lucy throttles the in-call volume up on my phone. It rings loudly over the roar of the air conditioning and the engine.

  “Come on,” I urge the ringing phone.

  “Greg Owen,” Shawn answers. “To what do I owe the pleasure?”

  “Shawn, I need your help right now. I’m with my client, Lucy Hale. We’ve got a restraining order filed against Adam Mueller. I think he just tried to run Lucy off the road and we’re following him now.”

  “Got the plates?” Shawn asks immediately.

  I’m close enough I can read them off to Shawn. “You’ll be getting a few pictures from my phone in a moment.”

  “Okay.” I hear Shawn’s fingers on a keyboard. “Tell me what happened.”

  I give him the ten thousand foot view, and before I can finish my story, he says:

  “Hang on, Greg.”

  I hear him put his cell down, then I hear his voice coming from afar. He’s ordering a couple units to intercept us and puts out a BOLO on the make and model of the car in front of us.

  Shawn comes back on. “Greg, the car is registered to a kid named Levy Stenger.”

  I shoot Lucy a look. She shakes her head.

  “I don’t know him.”

  Shawn says, “He’s twenty-six and lives in Willow Grove.”

  Again Lucy shakes her head.

  “Anything else on him?” I ask Shawn.

  “That’s all I have in front of me,” Shawn says. “Two units are real close, Greg.”

  I ease off the gas pedal, bring the car back down to a sane seventy miles per hour. Ahead of us, Levy Stenger—if that’s him—doesn’t slow. He begins to get away from us and when he takes the next bend, he’s out of sight.

  “Does he have a record?” I ask. “Anything?”

  Shawn is slow to answer. “Couple speeding tickets. That’s it.”

  I feel deflated. Levy Stenger is sounding more and more like he’s just a reckless, idiot driver.

  Shawn says, “We’ll need you to file a report.”

  “I’ll be there later.”

  “When can we expect you?”

  Now driving the speed limit once more, I take my eyes off the road to study Lucy. She is crying quietly, swiping under her eyes but still holding the phone up for me.

  “What do you want to do?” I ask.

  She shakes her head, looks down at her lap.

  “Shawn, I’ll call you right back.”

  “Alright, Greg.”

  “And thanks for your help, pal.”

  “No problem.”

  The call ends. I pull off the road when the shoulder widens. Slip it into PARK and keep the engine going so we can benefit from the air conditioning.

  “I’m sorry,” I say.

  “I asked you to stop the car, Greg.” She gives me a brave, challenging look that isn’t undermined by her quivering chin. “I asked you to stop!”

  “I’m sorry,” I say. “But that might have been Adam. If it was—”

  “IT WAS ADAM!” she screams.

  I bite back what I was going to say. Right now she needs to emote. Right now she needs somewhere to put all those feelings.

  She shakes her head, looks away. “Even if it wasn’t Adam, it WAS Adam.”

  I don’t follow, but keep my trap shut to let her breathe.

  Lucy drags her eyes back over to me. “You don’t understand. Everything is Adam now. Everything. A year ago I could have trained by myself, I could have done all this by myself.”

  “I’m sorry.” It sounds so feeble.

  “Now you’re here with me. Because of Adam. Next year I’ll be a college senior and I’ll live at home again. Because of Adam. Everything is Adam. Everything.”

  I just sit there and listen.

  “That was just some tailgating asshole,” she says. “That’s all it was. It would never have even bothered me before. But now it’s Adam!”

  I close my eyes and nod. There’s nothing to say here. Nor would my two cents help much. She needs to vent.

  “He’s made my life about him.” She shakes her head bitterly. “Everything is about him now. I’m sitting in this car because of him.”<
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  “You’re right,” I say. “We have Adam to thank for bringing us together.”

  She manages to crack a smile. “That’s not funny.”

  “If you want to laugh, then go ahead and laugh. Adam doesn’t define you.”

  She humphs. “You think?”

  “Yeah, I think. I think you’re strong. I think you could have just given up. I think you could have locked yourself in your house, only going out in the daylight. I think you could have thrown in the towel on the qualifier. I think you could have dropped out of school. But you didn’t do any of that, did you?”

  She looks away.

  “I think you’re not going to let Adam define your life.”

  “Fuck him.”

  “Yeah, that’s right. Fuck him.”

  Her jaw tightens. “I hate him. I hate him so much.”

  “You can use that.”

  She balls her fists. “I was going to set a new PR today.”

  “You still can.”

  “No, I can’t. I didn’t finish the bike and I’ve been resting for the last—”

  As she checks her time, I interrupt with, “You call the last ten minutes resting?”

  “I haven’t been on the bike.”

  “I’m pretty sure you were going faster than you ever did before when that idiot was bearing down on us.”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Come on.”

  She has to admit, “I wasn’t keeping an eye on the time.”

  I check the side view mirror. No traffic coming from either direction. I pull onto the street and turn us around.

  “You’re getting back on the bike,” I say.

  “Greg, how can I do this right now?”

  “It’s easy.” I hit the gas and start speeding back to the convenience store where, hopefully, nobody has lifted Lucy’s Olympic-caliber bike. “You get back on the bike, and you go as fast as you can.”

  “Not today,” she says. “Let’s try again tomorrow.”

  I offer her the timeless wisdom of Apollo Creed: “There is no tomorrow.”

  This snaps her out of her funk. But not because the line is profound. She does a double-take, then gives me a mocking look.

  “You’re throwing movie quotes at me now?”

  “You know that one?”

  “Of course I do. Rocky 3. Every time it’s on TV, Dad has to stop what he’s doing and watch.”

  “Well … did it work?”

  “Kind of,” she admits shyly.

  “Alright then. It works.”

  We get back to the convenience store. Lucy’s bike is still there. She gives me one last look before she hops out of the car and saddles her bike. We give each other the nod, and then Lucy pushes away from the curb and zips out of the parking lot.

  Twenty-Five

  Back at the pool hall, Bernie waves me down.

  “A smoking hot woman in a business suit stopped by to see you,” he says.

  “Did you get her name?”

  “Really? You think I wouldn’t get her name?”

  I don’t remind him that he’s oh-for-nine on getting the names of people who stop by or call during his short but eventful tenure at the pool hall.

  “Bernie, I should never doubt you.”

  “Somehow, I think you always will.”

  I pretend like he hasn’t said that. “What’s this rather attractive woman’s name?”

  “Ashlynn.”

  Ah yes.

  “Thanks, Bernie.”

  As I walk away, he calls out. “Are you dating her?”

  “No.”

  “Would you mind putting in a good word for me?”

  “I’ll be sure to tell her you are a model employee, fellow Renaissance man, and a gifted artist whose novel will one day win a bunch of critical awards while also bridging the gap to unparalleled commercial success.”

  “Could you tone it down a bit?” he suggests. “When it comes to women, I like to set the bar low.”

  “Probably a smart idea.” I don’t mean anything by it, but he takes it like it’s a cheap shot.

  “You should try the same thing.” He holds a palm up. “I mean, you’re not exactly scoring a ton of dates.”

  Roy uncharacteristically takes Bernie’s side. “Kid’s got a point, Greg.”

  “We think you need to revamp your online profile,” Wally adds. “It doesn’t really pop.”

  “You guys know what the internet is?”

  This earns me not one, not two, not three, but four middle fingers. Behind me, Bernie laughs like an old-school Bond villain.

  “Seriously,” I ask, “you guys have seen my online profile?”

  “Tammy showed us the other day,” Roy says.

  This gets better and better. “Tammy knows I have an online profile?”

  “Face it, Greg,” Wally chirps. “Your daughter is a sophisticated young woman who will always be three steps ahead of you when it comes to technology.”

  “Says the guy who can’t work his own DVD player,” I say.

  “That’s what I got a son for.” He smiles. “Maybe Tammy could give you some pointers.”

  Never in a million years. “I’m doing alright.”

  “Where’s Denise been?” Roy asks.

  Oh that was low and he knows it. Roy almost looks apologetic for a moment.

  I wave him off and head back into the office. I reach out to Glen Jarek at the university, but he doesn’t answer. I ping the captain of the police force in Adam’s home town. Even though we’ve spoken a couple times, I get routed around the station like I’m a telemarketer with nothing interesting to sell and eventually land on the desk of one of the vice lieutenants, who calmly takes my name and number and promises the captain will get me back.

  I try Shawn but he doesn’t answer.

  I have zero leads on Adam.

  Zero.

  Nobody knows where he is.

  He didn’t show up for his final exams a couple weeks ago. Lori was helpful enough to make inquiries in places I couldn’t go, such as Adam’s fraternity house, and nothing turned up. Her parents told her that Adam emptied his savings account, and a day or so later Lori got an unsigned email from an address she didn’t know ordering her to stop looking for her brother.

  That’s it.

  I hate how reactive I’m being but that’s more a product of having nothing to go on than it is anything else. There is no trail to follow. Adam has a car and money and he hasn’t gone anywhere near the campus or home.

  I give Ashlynn a call.

  “Hi, Greg, how are you?”

  “I’m good,” I say. “And so is my employee. When I got to work he informed me that a rather attractive young woman stopped by today.”

  She laughs unselfconsciously. “I do get that from time-to-time. Was this the handsome young man working the register?”

  Handsome?

  Bernie?

  She’s probably just saying nice things because she wants to me to sell the property to her low-balling clients.

  “Yeah, that’s him. Bernie. He’s a model employee.”

  I realize, with much shock, that he has actually turned out okay. Though it was only a year ago that he freeloaded the hell out of anybody and everybody. I’m not sure a zebra can change those stripes.

  “He was very sweet. He shared some information about your clientele.”

  Oh Bernie.

  What the hell have you done?

  “It sounds like the hall isn’t turning as much of a profit as it once did.”

  Bernie.

  Bernie.

  Bernie

  “Bernie doesn’t keep the books. I can tell you the last twelve months have been our best in the last five years.”

  This isn’t a lie.

  But I don’t add the last five years have only been so-so.

  “Oh, well I guess he was mistaken. He was telling me that nobody had been in today yet, except a couple of long-time customers who don’t pay.”

  Bernie.
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  Bernie.

  Bernie.

  Guess he was trying to impress her by giving her the inside scoop on the place he worked at.

  Bernie would try something like that.

  “If you stopped by early, that’s probably accurate. We get real busy later in the afternoon and after dinner.”

  “I see,” she says in a skeptical voice. “Well, I’m glad to hear the hall is still bringing in money.”

  “Me too,” I quip.

  She laughs politely. “So, Greg. I stopped by today because our clients are considering your property again.”

  When I didn’t get back to her a few weeks ago, her clients apparently lost interest and went across town to consider a different commercial property. I wasn’t expecting to hear from her again. And I experienced an acute case of sentiment remorse, admonishing my weepy, nostalgic self for not selling the property and moving on to the next big thing.

  And here we are again, Ashlynn dangling the huge carrot.

  “We kind of left things up in the air,” she opens, “and I was wondering if you were still interested in selling.”

  “I never said I was,” I say, beginning the dance all over again. Why don’t I just sell? I’m not an emotional sap.

  “What would it take for you to sell the pool hall?”

  It would take me first removing my heart and forgetting that Pop opened the place and I spent so much of my life in it.

  “I don’t know,” I say honestly. “Why don’t you make me an offer and I’ll think about it?”

  “Well, my clients were there the other night and saw how, um, few customers came by.”

  “Must have been a slow night.”

  “Yes, it must have been,” she says without conviction. “They still value the property but think it’s more accurately priced at three-hundred and fifty thousand.”

  “They’re about one hundred thousand dollars off, then,” I say, pulling up a couple bookmarked pages on my laptop. “I’ve found three other commercial properties of similar size and location to this one and they all went for between four-twenty-five and four-seventy-five in the last year.”

  “I’m glad to hear you’ve been thinking about this,” she says. “Would you mind emailing me those properties?”

  “Sure thing.”

  “Thank you, Greg. I’ll be happy to review those listings and advise my client. But you should know that the market has significantly changed in the last six months. After the new interest rates …”