I was starting to get a little worried about Mother’s decorating obsession. Over the last several months, she had been talking more and more seriously about opening a decorating business. Should I encourage her? I wondered. I couldn’t help savoring the idea of Mother bullying unsuspecting strangers into buying the kind of expensive, over-the-top rugs, furniture, and household objects she adored and actually getting them to pay her for the privilege. But I had the sneaking feeling if she ever did start her business, she’d expect me and my sister to let her redecorate once or twice a year and then keep everything absolutely spotless so she could drag potential clients through our homes with little or no notice. Not to mention the suspicion that if Mother went into decorating, she’d inflict things on us that would make toile de Jouy seem down-to-earth and homey.
I brooded about the prospect until closing time, and then went back to the Cave.
I scanned Ted’s blackmail list. So far, I’d still identified only three of the targets - Roger, Luis, and Dr. Lorelei as the Voyeur, the Hacker, and the Valkyrie. I racked my brains over the others for a while, and then gave up to take a much-needed nap before stealing back to the office for the evening’s snoop.
When midnight rolled around, I walked back to the office, enjoying the cooler night air. One of the Cave’s few virtues was its central location, only a few minutes’ walk from the campus, the Mutant Wizards office, Luigi’s, or any other important location in Caerphilly. And while some people had begun to complain about safety - imagine they actually had to lock their doors these days - the crime rate here was so minuscule compared with the Washington, D.C. area that I rarely hesitated to walk by myself.
Especially at times like this, when I wanted to be unobtrusive. I would never have expected to find anyone else around the office after hours - at least, not after midnight. But after running into such a crowd last night, I decided maybe I’d rather not have my car sitting quite so visibly in the parking lot.
The lot was empty when I arrived. Of course. It had been last night, too. Apparently, last night I had been the only surreptitious visitor to Mutant Wizards without the sense to conceal her mode of transportation.
And by the time I arrived at the parking lot, I was rather hoping I’d see a car. Serves me right for being careless about safety, I told myself as I entered the lot, already fishing in my purse for the office key. About halfway through my walk, I’d begun to get that creepy feeling that someone was watching me. If I stopped suddenly, the echo of my footsteps stopped just a little too late. Was that my shadow on that building - or the shadow of someone else, slinking along behind me.
If this were one of those teen horror flicks, I told myself as I approached the front door, we would now have reached the part where the character on screen makes the mistake of thinking that she’s safe just because her destination is within reach. And she’d let down her guard, and bingo! Casualty number one.
So I pretended to have trouble finding my keys, while concealing them in my hand, and had a good look around the parking lot while pretending to rummage through the purse. No one.
Then, to put my pursuer off guard, I put my hands on my hips, said “Damn,” and took a step or two away from the door, as if I were leaving.
When I thought whoever had been following me would surely have retreated to avoid being seen, I whirled, ran back to the door, keys at the ready, unlocked it, and ran inside.
I’d also seen plenty of horror movies where the heroine assumed she was safe just because she was inside a building. No such mistake for me. I pulled out my flashlight and made sure there was no one in the downstairs entrance. Or in the stairwell. While I was checking the stairwell, I heard a faint noise. Someone trying the knob of the outside door.
I clicked the beam off and hid in the stairwell, just beside the door. If anyone came into the stairwell, I could jump him. And of course, if whoever was following me came in and took the elevator, I’d have plenty of time to call the police before it arrived at the second floor.
Nothing, for thirty seconds. Then I heard another faint noise. The rattle of a key in the lock. Aha! So whoever had been following me had a key to the building. That narrowed my possible pursuers down to maybe a hundred people. Unless, of course, I’d caught the eye of a mugger who traveled with a collection of skeleton keys. But my money was on someone who worked in the building.