Split Black /#Wattys 2021

Chapter Twenty-eight

Author's note: Part of the reason I put this up on Wattpad instead of just self-publishing it was I absolutely hated one plot point and took it all out ... and then Bob got really sick and I forgot to spackle the cracks. So that's what I'm trying to do here, and it's more difficult when you haven't looked at the thing in close to a year and the story sort of fell out of your brain. This is the only part of the novel that still needed major surgery, and there's still the possibility I've planned this poorly, forgotten something, or screwed something up. So, be alert when you read this, and if you see anything that doesn't make sense, please comment. Thank you for helping me fix this bit of the novel!! --P.D.

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Dawn woke him at six in the morning. He lay back, unobserved, peering over the dash to watch as cars started and motored out of the lot. Clay's space still stood empty.

Fifteen minutes later a late model white Grand Caravan pulled into the parking lot and into Clay's space. John watched as a short, bald little man emerged from the minivan and went into Clay's apartment building.

John sat, thinking. Right make and model, wrong color, but ... he squinted. There was the green "E" sticker on the bumper. It was an Enterprise rental. The physical description was right.

This guy, if it was the guy, had been out all night. Chances were he was staying put. If it was the right guy and not just a parking-space squatter.

John decided to hang around another half hour, tops. Then he'd have to go home, shower—after all night out here, the shower was mandatory. He'd need to change, eat, and get to work.

He had just cranked the motor to leave when the little man appeared on the steps to the building, keys in hand, on his way back to the minivan. He was wearing different clothes. John placed his age at about thirty-five.

John decided to tail him.

The white Caravan backed out. John followed it down the winding road past the country club, then left and around the corner, through three lights to the McDonald's he had stopped at last night. John drove past the McDonald's, then turned around and doubled back. He spied the minivan parked in the lot next to the street, drove in, and idled in a parking space behind the drive-through. Eventually the little bald man came out, climbed back into the minivan, and pulled out.

John waited until he had two cover cars and followed Egghead onto Chippenham, onto the parkway, through the tolls, and onto I-195, musing about the cigar-smoking old man as he drove. Mother for wife, sister for wife, pictures for flowers, truck for minivan. Could he have meant white instead of black?

Then Egghead signaled for the Cary Street exit, and John realized where the man was going: his house.

Egghead turned east on Cary. He passed the Ukrops, passed the cute, trendy little shops and the animal care places, on down the street and up a block. One block from the narrow white-and-blue house John shared with Lizzie.

Egghead drove past John's and found a place to turn around. John watched him park on the opposite side of the street, several spaces down from his house. He drove on by, not too worried about being made. He saw Egghead sitting there as he drove past, mindlessly eating a hash brown, his eyes glued to John's 442 parked out front. John wondered where he had spent the night. One of Clay's whores, maybe? Or was he out here all night waiting for John to come home? He shivered, picturing Lizzie in the house alone with this guy parked out front.