She turns around, but he has vanished again. She weighs the pros and cons of speaking before opening her mouth.
"I can see you," she says.
"I know," he replies. "I know."
Those two words send a chill up her spine. "What do you know?" she asks.
"I know," he repeats. Out of the corner of her eye she catches a blur disappearing behind a tree. That's where he's hiding, then.
"What do you know?" Now, she must simply be careful. It will be easy enough to catch him.
"I know." These last two words are breathed down her neck....
"So you're saying you didn't see Willie Mason leaving the store Friday night?" PI Dot Post eyed the man sitting in her passenger seat.
"I see no man, no ma'am. Course you know dat."
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"I see someone leave that store, 'bout 11:45, I reckon, but weren't no Willie Mason. Nah, dis person got curly red hair an' wear army boots."
Dot glanced down at her own foot attire, her hand reaching uncertainly for her auburn curls.
"Aye, I see you, detective lady." He grinned maliciously. "I see you wit' de blood on your hands."
Well,...
I'm fine
No really.
Really really!
I'm not being aggressive.
NO, I'm NOT!
I am NOT shouting.
I'm perfectly Ok. O… K…
I'm Fiiiiiinnnnneeee.
Yes
Yes
No, it's not…
No
NO!
Look. I'm fine, Oh…Kay! It's all good. Absolutely great.
Best ever. Brilliant. Bendi (bloody) gedig!
No, I'm not swearing now. That's Welsh.
No not the middle.
Yes, I know 'bloody' is a swear word. Oh God!
I am really, Really, REALLY Ok.
Yes.
Yes , really.
Yes, he was. I know that now
…
Ok… maybe I'm not…
"Is it me, or are getting text messages tinier and tinier?" Without her glasses, Jen was practically blind. She searched her purse, but they weren't there, when suddendly her phone rang. "Great. I can't even see who's calling me. Hello?!" The voice on the other line was distortet, heavily breathing, and uttered: "Looking for something?" "Who is this?" The voice let out a quite and diabolical laugh. "That is for you to find out. At the desk right across from your's sits Jim. He knows everything. If you ask him, you will never see again... Because I will break you're...
There was a comma where a semicolon should have been. This drove her crazy. She thought of actually shooting herself in the head but that would have required a 3-day waiting period; besides, she hated guns. So she kept going through the papers, red slashes here, smiley faces there. But many more slashes than smileys. Soon she just started making slashing smiley faces. Her students wouldn't know the difference, she thought.
After all, they couldn't tell the difference between simple punctuation so how could they get her irony?
John, her favorite student and best writer in her Senior Classics class...
She knew more than she was letting on - then again, that was her weapon. That was the way she lived her life, mostly on her wits.
He'd been watching her for longer than he should, longer than he'd been contracted to. He'd taken the case on (and that sounded ridiculous, he wasn't a detective, he was just a man) and had found himself captivated.
It wasn't lust. Wasn't love either. Neither of those things interested him, especially not with her (she may have been beautiful, once, a long time ago, or maybe she would become it when she grew...
What did it matter what he thought of her? She knew he couldn't ever really see into her.
"You want the veal," he said.
And he was right; as much as she didn't like it, he was right.
"You're wrong," she told him. She looked at the waiter. "I'll have the mixed greens with the balsamic on the side."
It was a kind of a sneer, a way to get back at him.
Simon carved out a bite-sized piece of meat and held it on his fork, reaching across the white linen tablecloth.
She opened her mouth, mesmerized by him,...
she tracked him to the cafe. it wasn't right that her past was in his mind, and not her own. she watched his every move. when he sat down, she entered. she sat across from him, acting as if this was perfectly normal. "I need to aquire the information you're carrying. that information doesn't belong in your hands, anyhow." she said. "I don't know what you're talking about." he said simply, taking a sip of the dark liquid swirling in his glass. "I'm talking about my past. my parents, the journal, the apprentice, everything." she said, softer with every word....
"Do you believe in ghosts?" he asked
"No I don't." she replied
"You're about to."
The doors opened wide with their bottoms scrapping across the wooden panelled floor. The light shone out in a thing line and then a bigger line and then a rectangle and then eclipsed the entire room in thick white light.
She turned to him with fear in her eyes. She was quaking in her little boots, her little hands started shaking too, she searched for comfort. He held out his hand.
"All good things" he started, require a leap of faith..."
She looked him in...