Duncan dropped a few meters farther behind, keeping the pale flash of her dress in his field of vision. He’d charged out of there all fired up, with every intention of confronting her face on, right in the street, and demanding to know, exactly, in every particular, what her fucking problem was. Then he’d gotten close enough to see that she was crying.
And aw, shit. He’d lost his nerve. He might have known he was going to pay in blood for anything that good.
So he went into surveillance mode. Blank, emotions flatlined, attention focused on the target. Projecting a don’t-see-me vibe, for camo. He was nobody important, just a faceless suit in a sea of suits. Though at this hour, there was no sea of suits on the streets. The suits were vegging in front of their TVs, or packed into bars managing their stress by consuming excessive amounts of alcohol. Not a problem, though. Nell wasn’t noticing him. She was stumbling along the sidewalk, her hand over her mouth, clutching her purse. Attracting attention. A beautiful woman sobbing right out on the street. Christ.
That made his emotional flatline twitch, first with guilt and then with anger. What the fuck? Why? He hadn’t intended any of this. The last thing he wanted to do was to hurt her feelings. All he’d done to the chick was give her multiple orgasms. So fucking shoot him, already. Of course, seducing her hadn’t helped with her current off-the-charts stress level.
But he hadn’t been able to stop himself. It just…happened.
Yeah, and now he was compounding his problems by stalking her. Nice. That was superintelligent. Yeah, that was razor sharp.
But his feet didn’t hear the sarcasm, didn’t get the message. His feet just kept carrying him along, keeping her a safe thirty meters or so ahead of him. Watching that mane of springy black ringlets sway and swirl with every gust of wind.
Then he felt it. Like the whispery brush of a cobweb breaking across his mind. Instinct that said, Something’s wrong with this picture.
He looked closer. Since he’d snapped into surveillance mode, part of his mind had been tracking not just her, but everything around her. That gray sweatshirt had been around for a while. Too long. Behind, but not far. Gray sweatshirt, jeans. Long blond hair. Dirty white athletic shoes. Nell paused to wait for a light. The guy slowed and gazed into a cosmetics products shop window. Yeah, right. Like that skank could be interested in aromatherapy bath salts or orange blossom body butter.
Duncan got on line at a streetside bank machine, and watched out of the corner of his eye as the guy sauntered across the street, and continued on his way, in the same direction as Nell, parallel to her.
Duncan flash analyzed the data, which had been reliably gathering only since the moment he’d given up on the idea of confronting her. That guy had been in his field of vision that entire time, and might have been there since they’d walked out of the building. Lying in wait.
Thirty-five downtown blocks. Too far to walk voluntarily, to not take a subway or a cab, to not have some other business or detour along the way. Nell crossed the street again as well, and headed over toward the Astor Place subway stop. Gray Sweatshirt strolled after her.
Nell disappeared into a big, brightly lit chain bookstore. The guy stopped, muttered into his collar, and followed her in.
Fuck. A thread of ice congealed down his middle. The guy was wired. Reporting to someone, in real time. This wasn’t some random sicko obsessed with Nell’s tits. This was a team of random sickos. A team meant organization, financing, a serious agenda. What the fuck?
He eased to the back of the line for the bank machine again and waited, as intent and single-minded as a cat watching a mouse hole. Crunching data, speculating, presenting and rejecting hypotheses.
Time warped. People swirled by, like speeded-up film. He stood motionless in the middle of it, a laser-focused eye of contemplation.
Customers began coming out in numbers. He glanced at his watch. The store was about to close. His adrenaline started to rev as Nell came out of the store, swinging a plastic shopping bag in her hand. She looked around herself, as if trying to get her bearings, and took off in the direction of Astor Place.
Three seconds later, Gray Sweatshirt came out and followed.
Duncan forced himself to move in a casual stride. No sprinting, no primordial roars of rage. His heart thudded. Blood roared in his head. He had to pinch like a vise on the overwhelming urge to leap on that piece-of-shit dickhead and take him apart.
Nell turned onto Lafayette. Gray Sweatshirt muttered into his collar once again. Urgency began to prick at Duncan. Something was going down, and he was the only one around to stop it. He was only one guy.
So far. He pulled out his cell, and speed dialed Gant.
“What is it?” Gant snarled, in his usual bad humor. “You again? Got any more unreasonable demands to make, Dunc?”
“Yeah. Remember the chick who I’m obsessed with?”
“Yeah, the daughter of Lucia D’Onofrio. What about her?”
“I’m tailing her right now,” he said. “Stalking her, you might say.”
Gant hissed something viciously obscene in Pushtu. “And you are burdening me with this embarrassing, unwelcome, extremely personal information about yourself exactly why?”
“Because I’m not the only one who’s doing it,” he said.
Gant was gratifyingly speechless for a moment. “Come again?”
“She’s under surveillance,” he said patiently. “At least a two-man team. I’m about half a block behind the guy who’s tailing her. We’re on Lafayette. Just past the Public Theater.”
“Holy fuck,” Gant muttered. “I’ll send someone.”
“Do it fast. They’re gearing up for something,” Duncan said.
“Dunc? Do not engage with them.” He paused. “Did you hear me?”
“I heard you,” Duncan said, noncommittal.
Gant snarled yet another curse in Pushtu. “Are you armed?”
“No, but I’ll be careful.”
Gant hung up with no farewell, and Duncan hurried to catch up, having hung back to call Gant. He did not like Lafayette. It was darker than Broadway, more deserted, fewer storefronts, everything closed. He wished she’d stayed on crowded Broadway, where he could afford to be closer to her. As it was, it was a miracle that Gray Sweatshirt hadn’t made him yet. The guy might be incompetent. That, however, did not make him any less dangerous to Nell.
The cobweb whisper of alarm tipped him off again. Gray Sweatshirt’s demeanor had changed. He looked more focused. Was walking faster, as if he’d been released from some imperative, or given a new one. Beyond Nell coming toward them in the opposite direction was another pedestrian figure. A tall, rangy black man with a shaved head. They had her in a pair of tweezers. Then the car pulled up, driving slowly. Too slowly. It passed Duncan.
Its brake lights flickered, on and off, for no good reason.
It sped up. Gray Sweatshirt did, too. So did the guy coming on.
Duncan didn’t remember starting to sprint. His legs pumped with frantic speed as he struggled to close the gap. The car door swung open. The guys grabbed Nell, started wrestling her into the car, headfirst. She struggled, screamed. Duncan flung himself at the closest of the two men, the tall black guy. The man hit the side of the car with a grunt of surprise. Gray Sweatshirt’s head whipped around. “What the fuck—”
Duncan rammed a fist into Gray Sweatshirt’s nose, knocking him against the car door. In that split-second opening, he grabbed Nell by the waist, yanked her out and away from the car, and flung her in the direction of the sidewalk. She hit the ground, rolled into the gutter.
He surged back as a boot whipped past the tip of his nose, blocked Gray Sweatshirt’s swing with his forearm, rammed an elbow into the black guy’s neck. He blocked a punch to the gut, spun to take Gray Sweatshirt’s knee-jab to the groin on his thigh instead. An uppercut to the black guy’s chin sent the man bouncing heavily against the car, and he whirled just in time to meet Gray Sweatshirt’s renewed attack.