Why (Stalker Series Book 2)

by Megan Mitcham

  Too soon, the woman was in her view, hands fisted at her sides at the large bank of elevators. A small black purse hung at her hip with the fine strap perched on her shoulder. It swayed left and right, bumping into her arm with each diminishing sway. If the woman offered Perry a backward glance, she’d get quite a shock.

  Gen would too, so she held perfectly still. Even her breaths stalled.

  White metal careened toward Genevieve’s face. Trapped again. Her gaze shot wide, searching for some hint from the world beyond. The little window revealed nothing, but the small crack between the door and its frame showed a tall column of charcoal gray fabric. The expensive stuff.

  Perry stood six inches from her. She’d recognize that aftershave anywhere.

  “I’ll be down in a moment. We’ll take my car. Jeff will know you’re coming.” Perry’s voice was so genial he might have been speaking to a dear friend. Gen hadn’t gotten a good look at the woman’s face, but nothing about the rest of her was familiar.

  “That’s all I wanted.”

  The door began to close once more, revealing Genevieve in a slow curtain pull. A ding rang in her ears. She watched one side of the elevator’s door open. The audience was about to see what was behind door number one. Long Legs stepped into the car and turned, her fingers extended toward the bank of buttons.

  Her face was a stunning sculpture of sharp lines that Genevieve was certain she’d never before seen. No one forgot a face like that. She was very near Perry’s age but hadn’t let one thing slip. Amazing. Gen was on the front-side of forty and already her ass and thighs held the extra drink she enjoyed here and there.

  Long Legs shifted toward the corner of the small space and made her selection, sending a wave of relief through Gen’s stilted body. Then the woman stepped back to the center of the car.

  Every muscle in Genevieve’s body locked in place. One move and the woman’s gaze would lift from the floor and zero in on her.

  Excruciatingly slow, the doors drew to a close with a gentle thud. Metal groaned. The hum of cable sliding through their pulleys filled the room.

  Gen sagged against the wall, crushing the tree in an obnoxious series of crunches. The suit jacket she’d held in the crook of her arm that held her suitcase since she exited the subway slipped to the ground. Pants rocked her chest as though she’d run to the tenth floor. With the infiltration of fresh air came the barrage of what-the-fucks. The interaction she’d witnessed wouldn’t compute. None of it. Perry. The woman. The clandestine meeting.

  And it wasn’t finished.

  He’d been so close and hadn’t known she was there. It seemed a breach of contract. Trust went both ways, and it seemed Perry wasn’t ready to explain something either.

  The one double-edged question that repeated in her head like a megaphone blasted once more.

  Why is he hiding this woman, and who the hell is she?

  Even as she shoved off the wall and ran for the bank of elevators, Genevieve knew she shouldn’t follow. Whoever the woman was to Perry, there was a 99.9% chance that the relationship was benign. She smacked the call button in rapid succession, causing her finger to sting. That 0.1% would haunt her along with the images of Perry’s family.

  The gears of her mind squeaked from the struggle of comprehension. Perry planned to meet Long Legs downstairs to share his car with her, but he hadn’t joined her on the elevator.

  Why?

  Perhaps he needed to grab something or tell Lisa, the receptionist, that he was headed out. Sweat beaded on Genevieve’s upper lip. He could push through the rear entrance door at any moment. She strangled the handle of her small briefcase and danced from one foot to the other, willing one of the damn cars to stop on her floor, open, and take her away. Like the woman before her, Gen dared not look back terrified of what she might see.

  What excuse could she give Perry for being here? None sprang to mind.

  Gen jabbed the button as though it were a doorbell and the increased racket would get someone’s attention. Seconds ticked past. They piled into half of a minute. A full one past. Doubt nagged. She could, no, she should turn around, march through the doors, go straight to her office where a thousand case files begged for her attention, and forget everything that’d happened in the past five minutes.

  Her hand dropped from the button, and a huff of air rushed from her lungs. She turned back to the door. If Perry entered at this point, she’d just tell him, “Good morning,” and be on her way. No harm done. It wasn’t like this was the first conversation she’d eavesdropped upon, accidental or otherwise.

  She reached for the door’s handle, and a ding rang in her ears. Behind her, the car cables squeaked to a stop, and the doors rumbled as they rolled open. Her 0.01% stopped her. Curiosity turned her. Determination carried her onto the open elevator car, down ten stories, and out onto the street. Gucci pumps reminded her that they were only two block heels and that the side trip around to the front of the building was past their limit.

  Jeff, Perry’s driver, stood on the curb near the back-passenger door, arms folded across his middle. The mystery woman was nowhere in sight. Gen guessed she’d already gotten into the vehicle. She scanned the main entrance. No sign of Perry.

  Genevieve maneuvered through the flowing crowd. Eye rolls, elbows, and shoulders hit her without apology. Normally, she’d walk with the current and ease to the street like a native, but there wasn’t time. Her briefcase caught on someone’s knee and propelled her sideways. Only the crush of hot bodies heading to work kept her upright. A vicious hand shoved her off. She careened forward and teetered headfirst toward the edge of the sidewalk and the surprisingly steady rush of traffic.

  At least she made it to the damn road. She waved her arm and steadied herself on the edge of a garbage receptacle. Desperate times. In short order, a yellow fish parted from the sea. The car jerked to a stop, rocking on its frame. She jumped inside, slammed the door, and scanned the building front. Suits and slacks, briefcases and handbags obscured her view of the main entrance.

  No wonder Jeff waited outside the car. Otherwise, he wouldn’t see Perry’s approach.

  “Where to?” a gruff and most likely cigarette worn voice demanded.

  “Um … just a minute.” Genevieve slung her briefcase onto the seat and searched for Perry once more. Again, she couldn’t see anyone entering or exiting The Ashford Building. Her gaze swung toward Perry’s car.

  “Lady, where you wanna go?”

  The top of Jeff’s hat and a snippet of his face stood out from the line of cars in front of them.

  “I just want to sit here for a minute.” She pushed up to the edge of the seat and craned her neck toward Perry’s Town Car. The top was all she could see, but it was enough.

  “Look, this ain’t no bench. I drive or you get gone.”

  She spared the man a glance for the first time. Younger than she’d expected by a lot, considering the frayed voice and crotchety attitude.

  “What’s it gonna be? The meter’s runnin'.” His gaze narrowed, and a sneer maimed what could’ve been a sweet face.

  Gen rifled through her briefcase and then wallet. She snagged a twenty and shoved it through the slit in the partition.

  “On top of the meter. Okay?” she asked.

  He plucked the bill from the front seat and inspected it. While he wasted time ensuring its authenticity, Gen checked on Jeff. Still there.

  “You bought yourself five minutes.”

  “No. Ten minutes or I’ll take my twenty and find a cabbie with some sense.”

  “I got sense,” he whined.

  “Ten minutes?” She bartered but didn’t take her eyes off the Town Car.

  “Fine.”

  “Then yes, you have some sense.” Ten seconds—not minutes—later, the crowd parted, and Perry strode toward his car. “Clearly, I don’t.”

  “What?”

  Perry disappeared into the car. A blink later, Jeff did too.

  “Never mind.” Gen pointed at the tra
ffic. “Let’s go.”

  “Nah, you agreed. I agreed.” The driver shoved the twenty in his pocket.

  “Keep the twenty. Just go.”

  “Crazy bitch.” He growled the insult under his breath.

  Did he really think she couldn’t hear him?

  He eased his front wheel into traffic but not as aggressively as Jeff. The car lurched away from the curb and zipped into the flow.

  “Go!” She banged on the partition.

  “Wait a minute.” His gaze followed hers to the black Town Car pulling away from the curb. “You trying to follow that car? Are you serious?”

  Gen lunged for her wallet again, grabbed a president he’d recognize on sight, and slapped it face first against the clear plexiglass. “I am.”

  While he went bug-eyed at the money, she found Perry’s car sandwiched between two delivery trucks.

  “Look, I don’t want in the middle of no domestic thing.”

  Was this guy serious? Just drive the fucking car.

  “There’s no domestic thing. Not mine, anyway.” Genevieve reached into her briefcase a third time. She hated what she was about to do. She lambasted dumbasses who let this go to their heads and cursed those who used it in an effort to get out of tickets or into exclusive nightclubs. Yet she slapped the prosecutor’s badge against the glass on the far side of the hundred. “Follow that car or I’ll haul you in for impeding an investigation and I’ll keep my money.”

  The cab thrust itself into traffic, tossing her back onto the seat on purpose, no doubt. She shoved the badge into its pocket, crumpled the money in her fist, and tried to shelve her self-loathing.

  Apparently, all the cabbie needed was the proper motivation. He zipped and jibed through traffic like a professional NASCAR driver until he was two vehicles behind Perry. They followed the flow, clearing two more blocks, four in total so far.

  The driver had implied that she was a wife—ha—spying on her cheating husband. A knot formed in Genevieve’s stomach and didn’t sit well. Had Perry been having an affair before the murders? Had he not told her to minimize the blowback? Was she a new romance, only a week and a half after being released from police custody? She clung to the oh-shit handle, breathed deeply through her nose, and let it out slowly several times.

  Her head shook, rejecting the possibilities. Perry loved his family more than his career, and he loved that a hell of a lot. The sacrifices she’d seen him make for the firm paled in comparison to those he’d made for his precious baby girl. When she’d spent two weeks in the hospital with a bout of the flu, not once did he leave her side. She’d brought Perry and Pamela clothes, food, and toys to help keep up morale.

  The Town Car shifted to the right. Without her having to say a word, the cabbie followed suit. The car parked in front of the World Mutual Bank’s largest branch, housed in the first fifty floors of the WMB Building. They pulled to the curb more than 200 yards back, and Gen kept her face glued to the window, watching and waiting.

  In no time, the pair exited the Town Car and headed for the bank’s main entrance. The pedestrian flow was more sporadic, so Genevieve watched as Perry cordially ushered Long Legs into the revolving door and disappeared inside.

  She propped her elbow on the door and rested her chin on her fist.

  “You were hoping for more?” the cabbie asked.

  Gen didn’t answer right away. She took a moment and thought about what she’d hoped to accomplish. It was successful. By their demeanor, it was clear those two had no sexual relationship. She’d witnessed a business or possibly, a personal business transaction. Nothing more. Her 0.01% was appeased. Now to grab that healthy heaping of self-loathing off the shelf and guzzle. Forget a hangover. She felt run over.

  “I wasn’t hoping for it. Just expecting it.”

  “You wanna wait?” He was so amiable that she suspected he’d had trouble with the law in the past and didn’t want to make waves. Then again, the last time she suspected something, she ended up $120 plus the cab fare poorer.

  “No. Just take me back to The Ashford, please.”

  “You got it.”

  Gen slumped back against the seat.

  A familiar chime tickled her ear. Her phone? It rang from inside the briefcase. She retrieved it and saw Janney’s office number on the screen.

  “What do you want?” she answered.

  “Your disrespectful butt in the office five minutes ago.”

  “What now?” Gen’s head pounded as her queasiness returned.

  “The Carnegie Deposition.”

  “Shit. I’ll be there in ten.” She ended the call, drew a deep breath, and exhaled in a gust. A hundred and twenty bucks poorer and late to work. Fabulous.

  Eight

  Five p.m. came and went. By seven p.m., the light shining through the crack under her office door dimmed, marking the last of the firm’s employees heading out for the night. Finally alone. Gen threw down the pen, shoved away the legal pad, and stretched her cramped fingers. Two massive stacks of files created uneven pillars on her desk. One-third of them had shifted from the deal-with pile to the you’re-a-rock star pile, so at least she’d made progress. A yawn arched her mouth wide. Coffee had been put off too long already.

  Genevieve rose from her desk, released herself from the prison of her office, and strolled toward the break room.

  Coffee.

  She’d have sworn just the thought of it made angels part the clouds and sing.

  Midway down the hall, it grew as dark as the backs of her eyelids. As many times as she’d made the middle of the night trek, she didn’t stutter a step. Light from the break room filtered down the hallway and directed her in the path to heaven. Heaven wasn’t a place, it was a thing or three; coffee, chocolate cake, and really great sex. She licked her lips. It’d been so long.

  A fresh pot would have to hold her over. It would also get her through a few more files. All those damn files kept her from getting good and laid. She rounded the corner into the break room.

  He sat at the table. A wicked grin animated his features.

  Genevieve gasped so hard she nearly swallowed her goddamned tongue. Choking on her tongue kept a concussive scream lodged in her throat. She lurched back toward the door, and her hands scrambled for the knob. The left side of her body crashed into the uneven doorframe.

  “Christ, Genevieve.” Perry stood gently and offered his palms. “I didn’t mean to scare you.”

  She blinked at him while she dislodged her tongue and tried to remember how to operate it.

  “I just needed to talk to you. You’ve been avoiding me like every other person in this cursed city.”

  “For fuck’s sake, Perry, knock on my door. Hell, pick up the phone and call me.” She clung to the frame that had most likely given her a fabulous bruise. Blood still vibrated in her veins. Once it settled, she’d know.

  “You’re right. And you were right. Maybe one day, I’ll learn to listen to you.” His head shook. He gestured to the chair across from him. “Sit with me for a minute?”

  He looked like a beaten dog. Gone was the chipper affect and world tackling attitude. His newly thickened shoulders hunched, and the lines on his face that had seemed near youthful two weeks ago now looked like deep crevices on an ancient mountain. Sympathy, something she’d thought but not felt for him in a while, welled. Maybe the eagerness to reenter the free world had taken its toll. Maybe the world had proven to be a place he no longer recognized. Maybe he’d known that all along and created a front to hide his pain.

  “Not as my lawyer,” he added when she didn’t move right away. “As my friend?”

  “That sounds good.” It too had been a long time since they’d been able to act as friends. It might take some fine-tuning to get that part of their relationship back, but he needed a friend now more than ever.

  Gen sat at the circular oak table next to Perry not across from him and shoved his left shoulder. He made an act of tipping to the far side of his chair. “Don’t ever scare me
like that again.”

  “Promise.” He crossed his heart.

  They exchanged knowing smiles.

  “Is your office still an obstacle course?”

  “Dodging boxes is my cardio. Don’t judge me.” She winked, but it was too late to recapture the words. There were so many hot button topics they needed to discuss. More than anything, she wanted to approach them without hurting him.

  “I’m hardly in a position to judge anyone.”

  “About that.” She drew a circle on the table with her finger. “I’d like to circle back to the ‘I was right’ portion of this conversation and wallow there for as long as possible.”

  “Of course you would.” He chuckled. The pitiful laughter didn’t reach his shoulders, much less his eyes or heart. “You were right about me not returning to work right away. You were also right about me not hosting the party.”

  It had been more than a week since that damn party. The law conference in DC kept McMellon out of the office and her hair. Perry had been scheduled to present on a panel and even give one of the keynote speeches, but the conference organizers had kindly revoked the invitation the moment they’d learned of Perry’s arrest. If only his family hadn’t been murdered, he hadn’t been a suspect, and they hadn’t traded partners for the speech, she wouldn't have had to hole up in her office from morning until night.

  “Would it help to say that in these instances I hate being right?”

  His head shook slightly.

  “Didn’t think so.” Gen rubbed her palms on the edge of the table. The angle of the wood against her skin distracted from Perry’s raw pain and her own discomfort. She’d acted like a spoiled child by hiding in her room when things didn’t go her way.