Scot in a Trap by Catriona McPherson

Author:Catriona McPherson [McPherson, Catriona]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Severn House
Published: 2022-08-05T00:00:00+00:00

FIFTEEN

I walked on by, swinging my arms and smiling, as if the Thrift was a graveyard and I was on a dare at midnight. Daft, really; there was no reason to think the woman was on my tail, watching me catch on to what she was up to. Except, of course, that she had been on my tail for at least a week now, shadowing me from Lode to Browser to Odie’s to home to killing my first love feet from my bed.

I wasn’t strolling now. I wasn’t running either, thinking that would be conspicuous. Rather, I was doing that speed-walking that looks like threatened diarrhoea, much more conspicuous than a flat-out sprint. And I was going the wrong way. Plus, I realized as I patted my pockets, I’d left my bloody phone somewhere.

And now the very peace and shade of the peaceful shady streets at the start of Cuento’s residential neighbourhood started to freak me out. There was absolutely no one around in any of these picket-fenced front gardens, nor swinging on the swing-seats on any of the deep porches, nor sitting by an open window in any of the downstairs parlours. The very leaves of autumn were getting to fall and settle on the grass in a highly un-American way.

It was small-business Sunday, after all. And the conscientious citizens of old east central Cuento were out making sure that the downtown shops had a good day and survived the year.

If that woman was on my tail right now she could probably have her way with me and there wouldn’t be a single witness to tell the tale. Behind me, a car was driving along slower than Roger Bannister on the beach and my hackles rose along with my certainty that it was her and she was kerb-crawling me, picking her moment to pounce.

The relief as the car passed by and I saw the DoorDash decal clinging to the side! I had to stop and hang on to the fleur-de-lis on top of the nearest picket fence while the adrenaline left. Just my luck that I had picked the fancy fence of the only house for blocks around that wasn’t lying empty. A woman in an apron, bustling about on the porch, stopped and shaded her eyes to stare my way.

‘Can I help you?’ she said. It made a change from ‘Did your friend find you?’, at least.

‘I’m fine,’ I said.

‘You sure?’

I had no idea what to say now. Never in the history of ‘keeping your head down until you’ve made miles more trouble than you ever could, if you just spoke up’ – aka British life – had anyone kept pushing after an ‘I’m fine’.

‘I’m just … I was … But I’ll …’ I said, which was amazingly articulate of me in such an unprecedented situation. Then I cast my eyes around for something to distract her, while I ran away. I was hoping for a squirrel but I saw something much better. Driven into one corner of

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