by Rainey Daye
“Nah. He don’t talk to none of us. Only stays a coupla hours and then he’s off again.”
“What time of day is he usually here?”
“Late at night. Usually gone all day. Normally don’t roll in till after midnight then gone again early the next day.”
“No idea where he goes?”
“Nope.”
“Ever have any visitors?”
“Nope. Figure he conducts his bizness elsewhere and only uses this place to crash.”
Alex stood there deep in thought for a long time, until the skinny guy cleared his throat and Alex blinked, becoming aware of his surroundings once again. “Thanks,” he told him and handed over several twenties before turning away.
“Well, I’s can keep my trap shut, but not too sure about my other homeys,” the guy said, nodding around at the small group of people who had been eyeing the conversation with interest. “I’s mean, what’s to keep someone from telling him a suit was here askin’ around ’bout him?”
“Absolutely nothing,” Alex replied with a grin that he didn’t feel. “But if I happen to stop by again and my friend wasn’t expecting me, I’d probably have some extra cash on me to spread around,” he added.
The druggie nodded in understanding, and he saw a few heads bend together and whisper. Relieved that they probably wouldn’t approach their nonsociable neighbor to give him a heads up about his visit, Alex returned to his car.
He drove to a nearby gas station and parked before taking out his cell phone and calling Jess.
“Where are you?” Alex asked without preamble.
“In a taxi with Maggie on our way home,” Jess replied.
“How soon will you get there?”
“Another twenty minutes. You?”
“About the same.”
“Well, guess we’ll see you soon, then.”
“Yeah,” Alex replied. “I’ll try to beat you there so I can pay the fare.”
“Appreciate that,” Jess replied.
“No problem. See you soon.” And Alex put the car in drive and hurried back to the expressway.
* * * *
Jess was impatient, but he contained himself and waited until Maggie had fallen asleep that night before he grabbed Alex’s arm and pulled him out of bed and to the storage room across from Maggie’s so he could question Alex thoroughly. Alex only paused long enough to grab a slip of paper out of his discarded pants pocket and followed Jess on quiet feet so their exit didn’t disturb Maggie.
“Well?” Jess asked as soon as he closed the door of the storage room behind them.
“The brunette drove him to his car. It was in the parking lot of The Inferno. He must have met her at the party.”
“Coincidence that he met his girlfriend at the same party we took our girlfriend to last night?”
Alex shook his head as he said, “Too much of a coincidence. He had to have followed us there.” Alex then handed him the piece of paper and moved to the window to glance surreptitiously out the window.
“What’s this?”
“The name and room number of the motel Troy’s been living at for the past couple of months,” Alex replied absently.
“What? Months?”
“Yeah, according to a guy I questioned there, Troy has been hanging his hat there for almost two months. Gone all day and most of the night.”
“My God. He’s been watching the house for months?”
“Apparently.”
“What the fuck does he want? This is a piss-poor way to get Maggie back,” Jess pointed out.
“I know. She’s gonna flip if she finds out. Probably take out a restraining order on him or something.”
“Should we tell her?” Jess asked, beginning to pace.
“Why?”
“What do you mean, ‘why’? Because Maggie has the right to know that her ex-boyfriend is stalking her.”
“I mean, I’d rather find out just what the fuck he’s up to and what his ultimate game plan is before we do anything rash like telling Maggie. If he’s been watching us all this time, then lord only knows what kind of dirt he has on us. Do you really want the truth about the three of us to be open to public consumption?”
“Hell, no! But, Christ, if he was at that party last night, then he must have gotten an eyeful. We weren’t exactly on our best behavior.”
“We weren’t drunk, only pleasantly buzzed. We weren’t nearly as perverted as some of the others at that party. We played with her, sure. But in the dark and under the table. I doubt if anyone saw anything. And we did leave our masks on all night. I seriously doubt if anyone could positively ID us from any blurry pictures snapped in that bad lighting.”
“Maybe,” Jess said, not fully convinced. “Still, it was a pretty risky move on our part.”
“We weren’t sure it was really Troy, and we sure as hell weren’t expecting him to follow us when he apparently hasn’t followed us before.”
“But we can’t be sure of that, can we? He could have been following each time either of us took Maggie out on a date. I don’t know about you, but I’m not too cognizant of my surroundings when I’m out with Maggie.”
“Me neither,” Alex admitted. “But don’t you think that if he’s gathered dirt on us during the past couple of months, he would have contacted us already? Maybe some blackmail, telling us to kick Maggie out or he’ll tell her parents or something?”
“Do you really think he’d involve her folks?” Jess asked, sick to his stomach.
“If he wants her back bad enough, then yeah. He would probably think that they would fly up here, drag her ass out of school, and lock her in her room back home.”
“And then Troy would swoop in, promising to take good care of her and not let anything like this happen to her again. He’d be a hero in their eyes, rescuing their little girl from a life of sin and debauchery. Yeah, I can see that happening all too well.”
“Which is why I say we keep our mouths shut and turn the hunter into the hunted,” Alex replied grimly.
“What do you have in mind?” Jess asked him, ready to do anything to keep the girl they both loved in their lives and in their bed.
“Well, we now know where he’s staying and what he drives. We keep our eyes peeled and we turn around and follow him. Track his moves. According to the guy I talked to, Troy is gone all day long. So I suggest we find out where he goes and follow him for awhile.”
“And get him on tape or film,” Jess added. “That way if he plans on blackmailing us, we can blackmail him back.”
“Exactly,” Alex said, then, “There it is.”
“What?”
“Troy’s car. I can see the front bumper sticking out from a hedge at the corner. He must park one street over and then slink over here to spy on the house.”
“He’s doing a crappy job of spying. You said there’s been no evidence of him in the yard.”
“Maybe he’s that good and I haven’t found the evidence,” Alex pointed out.
“That’s a scary thought,” Jess admitted.
“I know.”
“Can you think of anything that he might have managed to get on tape?” “Too much,” Alex admitted with a shudder. “We haven’t been worried about discretion in the privacy of our own home,” he pointed out.
Jess went pale as he thought about all the numerous sex acts they’d engaged in all around the house and the different combinations those acts happened in. Hell, just last week he had given Alex a blow job in the foyer when he had been feeling particularly frisky. His parents would stroke out if they discovered his sexual preference was bi rather than hetero. He shuddered as he imagined that painful conversation and decided that he would do anything to avoid it.
“Okay, what’s the game plan?” Jess asked.
“I say we try to suss out where he’s watching us from. We’re going to have to go out there,” Alex added, one hand still on the curtain as he continued to peer outside.
“What if Maggie wakes up and finds us gon
e? Don’t you think she might come looking for us?”
“Shit,” Alex swore softly and let go of the curtain as he turned back into the room.
“Yeah,” Jess commiserated, having no helpful suggestions to add.
“Okay,” Alex finally said, “since this is my idea, you go back to the room and get back in bed with Maggie. If she wakes up and notices I’m gone, distract her.”
“Yeah, I can do that,” Jess replied with a worried grin. “But will you be okay out there trying to scope out Troy?”
“Troy’s attention is probably centered on the house. I can exit from the kitchen doors since the kitchen patio is pretty much enclosed. Then I’ll work my way through the neighbor’s yards and come out about two houses up. As long as I stay out of the street lights, I should be able to work my way around toward him.”
“But you don’t even know where he is,” Jess pointed out.
“No, but if I dress in dark clothes and stay in the shadows, I should eventually spot him. Once spotted, I’ll hang back and watch. See if he moves to other positions or not. Things like that. Try to get his routine down.”
“You can’t get his routine down in one night. We’re going to have to take turns tracking him, find all his hiding spots, et cetera.”
“Then we’re going to have to start taking turns sleeping in Maggie’s room with her so she doesn’t keep waking up to find one of us gone,” Alex suggested.
“She’s going to be wanting to sleep alone in her room sometime next week,” Jess pointed out, and Alex nodded, saying, “That’ll help,” and Jess was thankful once again that they had had the foresight to track her cycle so as to be prepared for any outbreaks of PMS. Because when Maggie had PMS, it showed itself as irrational anger, and knowing that hormones were the cause kept the men from entering into fights with her. Instead, they employed strategic retreats by apologizing for whatever had upset her and defusing her anger by simply asking her if it was PMS or if she was genuinely angry with them. That question in and of itself was usually sufficient to give Maggie pause, and her anger usually quickly evaporated after that.
They knew that Maggie was more comfortable sleeping alone during that time of month, since she said it was hard to sleep with them and not touch them and she found it doubly frustrating when she couldn’t. Not that they would have minded. But it bothered her to even contemplate having sex while on her period. So she said it was only fair that the two of them have some private time for themselves, since they had started out as lovers long before they managed to convince her to be their girlfriend, so sleeping in her original bed when she had her period was the perfect solution. Not that the two men were such horndogs that they couldn’t share a bed with her and keep their hands to themselves for a couple of days, but Maggie insisted, so they didn’t argue.
Okay, then, next week they could both participate in the stakeout, with Maggie none the wiser. In the meantime, Alex slipped the binoculars around his neck before the men both snuck back into their room, where Alex quietly moved to his walk-in closet and pulled out a pair of black running pants and a dark hoodie while Jess climbed back into bed, prepared to distract Maggie with sex if she woke up while Alex was gone. He was actually looking forward to her waking up. Maybe then the hard knot of dread would be dispelled from his stomach.
* * * *
Alex slipped out the French doors to the kitchen patio and quickly worked his way toward the hedges separating his property from the neighbors. He slipped carefully through them and stayed to the shadows as he slunk his way through that yard and into the next, where he then made a sharp left and worked his way along the stone wall at the edge of the next property line. A dog barked at him from that house, and he briefly thought that maybe they should consider investing in a dog, a little one that yapped its head off and would alert them if anyone did what he was doing.
He shook his head to get it back in the game. He edged along the driveway, being careful not to trip any motion-controlled lights, and went off on another tangent that they should have some of these installed along the edge of their home. Damn, his neighbors had some serious security. Too bad the three of them were poor college students and couldn’t afford anything like that at present. But once they were solvent…
Alex paused at the end of the driveway, staying in the shadows of a large evergreen tree, and carefully looked back toward his house. He tried to put himself in Troy’s shoes to determine where the best unobstructed view would be. They had no gate blocking the driveway, no walls surrounding the property, only hedges on both sides and a large wooden fence along the back. The house sat quite a ways off the street, and the front yard had a few stately oaks in it, which helped block the view and noise from the street. He eyed Maggie’s room and then connected a mental line from it to street level to determine the best place to watch her window. Right there, he thought as he eyed a pair of pine trees on the opposite side of the street. That would be the best place to watch her window from. But would that also afford an unimpeded view of the front door? Yes, it did, he concluded as he visually connected the line of sight.
Alex watched the shadows near the pines, looking for a man-shaped one. Was that one or was it caused by the nearby bushes? Alex moved farther away from the house and pulled his hoodie tightly over his dark hair before he quietly crossed the street to come upon the trees from the side rather than the front. He blessed the stone wall of this neighbor’s house and hugged it carefully as he stepped softly in the grass to further muffle the sound of any footsteps his running shoes might make on the concrete of the sidewalk.
There were ground-level lights along a driveway that he was going to be forced to pass, and if Troy were indeed in the shadow of those pines and happened to glance his way, he would easily see Alex. Not liking his chances, Alex retreated to the corner and hurried down it. He paused to regroup, cursing himself for not coming out on the side of the house that was nearer to where Troy had stashed his car. The lack of light was better on that side, which was probably why Troy had parked there, Alex realized. Troy would also retreat that way after he completed his vigil, and since Alex had no idea how much time the man spent spying on them nightly, he hadn’t wanted to run the risk of running into him as Troy returned to his car.
Okay, then, it was dark here since the streetlight for this corner was on the other side of the street. He didn’t think there was any stray light to bounce off the lens of the binoculars and alert Troy, so Alex scooted back to the corner and went down on his knees as he leaned around the wall. He took careful aim and focused the binoculars on the pine trees. Damn, it was hard seeing in the dark. He idly wondered how much a night scope would cost as he scanned carefully at ground level, sure that the pine trees would afford Troy with the best cover and that that was where the bastard was. He lay himself supine and continued his scan with the binoculars.
An hour of fruitlessly scanning produced zero results, and Alex was about to declare defeat and decided that he would scope out the area in the light of day to determine the best hiding place when a shadow slowly detached itself from a limb on one of the pines and slowly resolved into man-shape. Fuck! Troy had actually been in the tree, not under it. The man was clever, he had to give him that.
Alex carefully focused on the man-shaped shadow, wanting to make a positive ID. “Come on, you bastard, turn around,” Alex chanted mentally. Bingo! Before stepping out from the cover of the pines and onto the sidewalk, the shadow scanned the street in both directions, and for a split second, Troy’s face was framed squarely in the binoculars. When Troy seemed to peer in his direction for an inordinately long time, Alex fervently hoped that no tell-tale light was glinting off the lens and held himself rigid so as not to draw unwanted attention from his target. He finally let out his breath as Troy turned in the direction of his waiting vehicle and stepped onto the sidewalk, walking quietly yet unhurriedly toward it. Nothing to draw attention to himself. Troy remained a mysterious shadow.
Alex still lay there watching a
s Troy rounded the corner. A moment later, headlights pierced the darkness as Alex heard the quiet reverberation of a car engine. The lights moved forward, and then the car was in view. To Alex’s horror, Troy turned onto the street toward where Alex was lying, and with a curse he dropped the binoculars around his neck and rolled, flattening himself against the wall and burying his face in the ground so that no light from the headlamps would be reflected off him.
He didn’t move until long after the sound of the passing car had faded from his hearing, and then Alex slowly pushed himself up against the wall, looking in the direction in which Troy had driven to make sure he hadn’t simply parked himself farther down the road. Not seeing any car that hadn’t been there earlier, Alex breathed a sigh of relief and then hurried toward the pine trees.
Stepping under them, he cursed that their shed needles disguised any footprints that might have been left behind. He then looked up at the branches and saw that there was plenty of room for a grown man to pull himself high into the trees. Doing just that, Alex worked his way up carefully and then peered across the street toward his house. There was an unimpeded view of the entire front bank of windows, and he cursed, wondering if Troy had seen the shadows created by Maggie and Jess writhing together in her room a couple of weeks ago. Yeah, her drapes were sheer enough that shadows would indeed be cast and easily seen from this vantage. Shit, shit, shit.
Okay, first thing on the agenda, go through Aunt Ida’s storage bins in the basement and find some heavier drapes for Maggie’s room. Even if they had been lucky and Troy had missed that particular show, he didn’t relish the thought of Troy watching a shadow Maggie getting ready for bed. He raised the binoculars and looked carefully. Yeah, if the lights were on, Troy would also have a good view straight through to her bathroom. Troy no longer had the right to see a naked Maggie exit the shower, so he was just going to have to think of some reason to explain the heavier drapes.
A brisk breeze suddenly caressed his neck, and he realized that the approaching colder weather was the perfect excuse. He sighed deeply as one problem was solved. Unfortunately it was a minor problem in the whole scheme of things. Well, beggars couldn’t be choosers, so Alex hastily climbed back down and jogged across the street and reentered his house from the unlocked patio doors in the back. Tomorrow he and Jess would individually scope out other hiding spots that Troy might also use, and then they would come up with some type of game plan.
