I should go back to the apartment with the blue pillows and the succulent and the blackout curtains.
But Dario just smiled at my cookies.
And I’m not Beth Taylor.
I never was.
I start the car.
And when he drives off like nothing’s changed, I follow like everything has.
Chapter Twelve
STEVIE
I’ve never tailed someone before.
In hindsight, I should’ve done some light training. Watched a CIA recruitment video. Read Stalking for Dummies. Subscribed to a mob wife’s burner TikTok.
Too late now.
Dario’s black car pulls out of the parking lot and I follow at what I think is a reasonable distance. Far enough to not be obvious. Close enough to not lose him.
Except I have no idea what a reasonable distance actually is.
Am I too close? I feel too close. He’s going to look in his rearview mirror and see me and know immediately that the unhinged cookie woman is following him home like a stray cat who’s decided he’s her new owner.
I drop back. Way back. Too far back.
The light ahead turns yellow.
His car slips through like a smug criminal with diplomatic immunity. Mine hits red like divine punishment for unmedicated impulsivity.
“No no no no.”
I slam on the brakes. And watch his car disappear around a corner while I sit at a red light having a small cardiac event.
This is fine. I’ll find him. How many black cars can there be in this city?
The answer, it turns out, is many. So many. An unreasonable number of black cars, all of which look exactly the same, none of which contain the mobster I’m trying to stalk.
The light turns green. I gun it through the intersection, take the corner too fast, and, there…
His car. Two blocks ahead. Thank God.
I ease up on the gas. Try to look casual. Just a normal woman driving normally through a neighborhood she’s never been to, definitely not following anyone, nothing to see here.
We drive for fifteen minutes.
The neighborhood gets progressively nicer as we go. Smaller houses give way to bigger ones. Chain-link fences become wrought iron. The cars parked on the street go from functional to costs more than my yearly salary.
I’m extremely out of place here.
My car is a twelve-year-old sedan with a dent in the passenger door and an air freshener shaped like a tree that stopped smelling like anything two weeks ago.
Dario’s car turns into a driveway.
I slow down. Creep past. Watch in my rearview mirror as he parks in front of a house that is... nice.
