“Dennis .. . I’ve told you before. I’m not interested.”
He grinned. “You will be. Just wait.”
There was something eerie about him, something scary. She wondered again whether he could be the one who…She shook her head. No. She had to forget about it, move on.
On her way home, Ashley stopped and parked her car in front of the Apple Tree Book House. Before she went in, she studied the reflection in the storefront mirror to see if there was anyone behind her whom she recognized. No one. She went inside the store.
A young male clerk walked up to her. “May I help you?”
“Yes. I—Do you have a book on stalkers?”
He was looking at her strangely. “Stalkers?”
Ashley felt like an idiot. She said quickly, “Yes. I also want a book on—er—gardening and—and animals of Africa.”
“Stalkers and gardening and animals of Africa?”
“That’s right,” she said firmly.
Who knows? Maybe someday I’ll have a garden and I’ll take a trip to Africa.
When Ashley returned to the car, it began to rain again. As she drove, the rain beat against the windshield, fracturing space and turning the streets ahead into surreal pointillistic paintings. She turned on the windshield wipers. They began to sweep across the window, hissing, “He’s gonna get you…gonna get you…gonna get you.…” Hastily, Ashley turned them off. No, she thought. They’re saying, “No one’s there, no one’s there, no one’s there.”
She turned the windshield wipers on again. “He’s gonna get you…gonna get you…gonna get you.…”
Ashley parked her car in the garage and pressed the button for the elevator. Two minutes later, she was heading for her apartment. She reached the front door, put the key in the lock, opened the door and froze.
Every light in the apartment had been turned on.
Chapter Two
All around the mulberry bush,
The monkey chased the weasel.
The monkey thought ’twas all in fun,
Pop! goes the weasel.”
Toni Prescott knew exactly why she liked to sing that silly song. Her mum had hated it. “Stop singing that stupid song. Do you hear me? You have no voice, anyway.”
“Yes, Mother.” And Toni would sing it again and again, under her breath. That had been long ago, but the memory of defying her mother still gave her a glow.
Toni Prescott hated working at Global Computer Graphics. She was twenty-two years old, impish, vivacious, and daring. She was half smoldering, half firecracker. Her face was puckishly heart shaped, her eyes were a mischievous brown, her figure alluring. She had been born in London and she spoke with a delightful British accent. She was athletic and loved sports, particularly winter sports: skiing and bobsledding and ice-skating.
Going to college in London, Toni had dressed conservatively during the day, but at night, she had donned miniskirts and disco gear and made the swinging rounds. She had spent her evenings and nights at the Electric Ballroom on Camden High Street, and at Subterania and the Leopard Lounge, mixing with the trendy West End crowd. She had a beautiful voice, sultry and sensuous, and at some of the clubs, she would go to the piano and play and sing, and the patrons would cheer her. That was when she felt most alive.
The routine inside the clubs would always follow the same pattern:
“Do you know you’re a fantastic singer, Toni?”
“Ta.”
“Can I buy you a drink?”
She smiled. “A Pimm’s would be lovely.”
“My pleasure.”
And it would end the same way. Her date would lean close to her and whisper in her ear, “Why don’t we go up to my flat and have a shag?”
“Buzz off.” And Toni would be out of there. She would lie in her bed at night, thinking about how stupid men were and how bloody easy it was to control them. The poor sods did not know it, but they wanted to be controlled. They needed to be controlled.
And then came the move from London to Cupertino. In the beginning, it had been a disaster. Toni hated Cupertino and she loathed working at Global Computer Graphics. She was bored with hearing about plug-ins and dpi’s and halftones and grids. She desperately missed the exciting nightlife of London. There were a few nightspots in the Cupertino area, and Toni frequented those: San Jose Live or P. J. Mulligan’s or Hollywood Junction. She wore tight-fitting miniskirts and tube tops with open-toed shoes having five-inch heels or platform shoes with thick cork soles. She used a lot of makeup—thick, dark eyeliner, false eyelashes, colored eye shadow and bright lipstick. It was as though she were trying to hide her beauty.