Nourwood looked uncomfortable. “I didn’t really socialize much in college,” he said. “I doubt I’d know any of your friends. Anyway, I didn’t-I didn’t exactly graduate. Long story.” A taut laugh.
“Love to hear it.”
“But not a very interesting story. Maybe some other time.”
“I’ll take a rain check,” Matt said. “We’d love to have you guys over sometime. What’s your cell number?” Of course, Matt had no intention of inviting the Nourwoods over. Not in a million years. But there had to be ways to trace a cell phone number.
“I should have my new mobile phone in a day or two,” Nourwood said. “Let me take yours.”
Touché, Matt thought. He smiled like an idiot while he scrambled for a response. “You know, it’s funny, I’m blanking on it.”
“Is that your mobile phone right there, clipped to your belt?”
“Oh,” Matt said, looking down, flushing with embarrassment.
“Your number’s easy to find on the phone. Here, let me take a look.”
Nourwood reached for Matt’s phone, but Matt put his hand over it. Just then, Matt felt a painful pinch at his elbow. “Excuse us,” Kate said. “Matt, Audrey Kramer needs to ask you something.”
“Hope you find your earrings,” Nourwood said with a wink that sent a chill down Matt’s spine.
“What the hell do you think you were doing in there?” Kate said on the walk home.
Matt, embarrassed, snorted softly and shook his head.
“I don’t believe you.”
“What?”
“The way you were interrogating him? That was out-and-out rude.”
“I was just making conversation.”
“Please, Matt. I know damned well what you were doing. You might as well have put him under the klieg lights. That was way out of line.”
“You notice how he was evading my questions?”
“Fine, so let it drop!”
“Don’t you get it? Don’t you get how dangerous this guy might be?”
“Oh, for God’s sake, Matt. You’re doing that Rear Window thing again. Laura seems perfectly nice.”
“There you go: perfectly nice.’ Like that milk that’s about to go bad.”
“The milk is fine,” she snapped. “And I’m not even going to ask what you were doing in front of their house at five in the morning.”
A moment passed. The scuff of their footsteps on the pavement. “You still haven’t heard back from the doctor, have you?”
“Will you please stop asking?”
“But what’s taking him so long?”
“Matt, we’ve been through this three times before.”
“I know,” he said softly.
“And we always come through just fine.”
“There’s always the first time.”
“God, you’re such a worrier.”
“Better safe than sorry I worry for both of us.”
“I know,” she said, and she linked arms with him and snuggled close. “I know you do.”
The next morning, as Matt was backing the Escalade out of the garage, he glanced over and saw Nourwood getting into his tiny Toyota, and another idea came to him.
Halfway down the driveway, he stopped the car. For a minute or so he just sat there, enjoying the muted throb of the 6.2-liter all-aluminum V-8 engine with its 403 horsepower and its 517 foot-pounds of torque. He watched Nourwood back his crappy, holier-than-thou subcompact out into the street with a toylike whine and then proceed down Ballard to Centre Street.
James Nourwood was going to work, and Matt Parker was going to follow
Let’s see where you really work. Whoever you really are.
He called his manager, Regina, and told her he was having car trouble and would probably be a little late. She sounded mildly annoyed, but that was her default mode.
Matt kept his Escalade a few cars behind Nourwood’s Yaris, so Nourwood wouldn’t notice. At the end of Centre Street, Nourwood signaled for a right. No traffic light here, just a stop sign, and the morning rush hour was heavy. By the time Matt was able to turn, Nourwood was in the far left lane, almost out of sight, signaling left. That was the way to the Mass Pike westbound. The direction of Hopkinton and ADS headquarters. Maybe he really did work there after all.
Matt followed him around the curve, but then Nourwood abruptly veered into the right lane, onto Washington Street, which made no sense at all. This was a local road. Where was the man going?
When Nourwood turned into a gas station, Matt smiled to himself. Even those damned gas-sipping toy cars needed to fill up from time to time. Matt drove on past the gas station-he couldn’t exactly follow him in-and parked along the curb fifty feet or so ahead. Far enough away that Nourwood wouldn’t notice but close enough to see him leave.
But then Matt noticed something peculiar in his rearview mirror. Nourwood didn’t pull up to a gas pump. Instead, he parked alongside another car, a gleaming blue Ford Focus not much bigger than his own.
Then Nourwood’s car door opened. He got out, looked around quickly, then opened the passenger’s side door of the blue Ford and got in.
Matt’s heart began to thud. Who was Nourwood meeting? The strong morning sun was reflected off the Ford’s windows, turning them into mirrors, impossible to see in. Matt just watched for what seemed an eternity.
It was probably no more than five minutes, as it turned out, before Nourwood got out of the Ford, followed by the driver, a slender, black-haired young man in his twenties wearing khakis and a white shirt and blue tie. With crisp efficiency, the two men switched cars. Nourwood was the first to leave, backing the Ford out of the space, then hanging a left out of the gas station onto Washington Street, back the way he’d come.
Matt, facing the wrong way on Washington Street, didn’t dare attempt a U-turn: too much oncoming traffic. There was nowhere to turn left. Frantic, he pulled away from the curb without looking. A car swerved, horn blasting and brakes squealing. Just up ahead on the right was a Dunkin’ Donuts. Matt turned into the lot, spun around, and circled back. But the blue Ford was gone.
He cursed aloud. If only he had some idea which way Nourwood was headed. West on the turnpike? East? Or maybe not the turnpike at all. Furious at himself, he gave up and proceeded toward the Mass Pike inbound. He’d surely lost the last chance to flush the guy out: Tomorrow was the big day. In the morning, it would be too late.
As he drove onto the ramp and merged with the clotted traffic on the pike, his mind raced. Why had Nourwood switched cars? Why else except to elude detection, to avoid being spotted by someone who might recognize his vehicle?
The inbound traffic was heavy and sluggish, worse than usual. Was there an accident? Construction? He switched on his radio in search of a traffic report. “-According to a spokesman for the FBI’s Boston office,” a female announcer was saying. Then a man’s voice, a thick Boston accent: “You know, Kim, if I worked in one of those buildings downtown, I’d take a personal day. Call it a long weekend. Get an early start on my weekend golf game.” Matt switched the radio off.
Just outside the city, the lines were long at the Allston/ Brighton toll plaza, but not at the Fast Lane booths. Matt had never gotten one of those E-ZPass accounts, though. He didn’t like the idea of putting a transponder on his windshield, an electronic dog tag. He didn’t want Big Brother to know where he was at all times. Sometimes it amazed him how people gave up their right to privacy without a second thought. They just didn’t think about how easily tyranny could move in to fill the vacuum. His brother, Donny, back in Colorado-he understood. He was a true hero.