Cherry Adair - T-flac 09 Read Online Free PDF Page B

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    One of her customers’ jewelry stores had been robbed the day before. The police had come over last night, scaring the hell out of her when they’d buzzed. God. She put a hand over her manic heart and tried to take a deep, steadying breath. She’d managed to retain her composure as they’d questioned her. But inside she’d been a mess of tension and raw nerves.

    Her fake ID was good enough to fool even the police, but they hadn’t asked for proof of her identity.
    They’d just questioned her because she’d been in the jewelry store the day before.

    “Didn’t you get enough information yesterday?” she muttered, striding over to the window overlooking the street. In the months she’d lived in the apartment she’d made a point of familiarizing herself with the cars that belonged in the neighborhood. Standing to the side she scanned the parked cars on either side of the foggy street below.

    No unfamiliar vehicles. No police car. Parking was at a premium in this district of San Francisco.
    Yesterday the police car had double-parked. So, no car. That she could see. Someone on foot then?
    That perked her up. “Girl Scout cookies?”

    She’d made no friends, no casual acquaintances, no personal attachments in the last eleven months.
    She’d purposely not developed relationships with her neighbors beyond saying hi when she went to and fro. But she’d bought cookies from the little girls in their green uniforms at the grocery store yesterday, and knew there were three little Scouts living several houses away.

    She’d been so damned stressed after the police had left last night that she’d eaten the entire box of cookies before she’d even started dinner.

    More chocolate would be good right now. She’d been bent over her worktable for hours. Cookies with her tea sounded terrific on this chilly afternoon.

    She liked the Bay Area. It, and her new life, were vastly different from her jet-setting life before. Now everything was changed. For one thing, she’d never stayed in one place for longer than a few weeks.
    Even when she’d been a child she’d had a tutor because the family traveled so extensively.

    It had been a nomadic kind of existence, and she’d only realized just how odd it was once she was no longer doing it.

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    The doorbell buzzed again

    “I hear you.” Heather smiled at the persistence of the little salesperson as she grabbed her wallet and lightly ran down the stairs from her apartment to the front door. Because of the steep hill on which the apartment building had been built, her one-room apartment was on the second floor, while her front door and her minuscule entry hall were at street level.

    Five other apartments were fitted around each other like the pieces of a jigsaw puzzle, over, beneath, and next door to her. A single, male schoolteacher, two young female flight attendants, a male bank teller, a female physical trainer, and a waitress and her young daughter. Each with their own street entrance.
    That was about all she knew of her neighbors. All she dared to know.

    She had to constantly remind herself that the isolation was imperative. Her father had warned her what might happen if she were ever found. She got it. Boy, did she get it. But God—she missed human contact, the interaction between two people, the give and take of trust. Her guard had to be up constantly. She couldn’t afford to let anyone scale the walls. Nobody had touched her in almost a full year. Forget sexually. She’d had no physical contact other than an impersonal handshake in what felt like forever.

    She felt…invisible.

    God only knew, she was thankful, and lucky, to be alive. But the constant fear, the constant looking over her shoulder, the constant knowledge that she could never let down her guard, was starting to wear thin.

    And