Damaged Goods

Chapter Thirty

At first, I thought I'd been hearing things. I lay there blinking, trying to get my bearings. The knocking resumed, even louder.

The watery light of dawn oozed in around the outline of the window shade. My bedside clock read 0730.

Oddly, my first thought was to call the police. My second was to grab the nearest blunt object and greet my visitor with it.

Ignore it, I thought. But my curiosity wouldn't let me. With everything that had happened, I should at least look through the peephole.

Even though the knocking had let up, I rolled out of bed, finger-combed my hair back, and crept to the door. I peered out and saw . . . no one.

Now awake and thinking, I ran to the window that overlooked the street in front of the building. There were no obvious signs of any of vehicles that had pestered me lately. Which is not to say they hadn't been there. Or weren't parked elsewhere.

Just in case, I retrieved a small pair of binoculars from my closet and my little notebook from my shoulder bag. Flipping to the page where I'd scribbled the license plate number, I returned to the window and scanned the lines of cars parked along both sides of the road. Neither the vehicles nor the plates I managed to make out were of interest.

This reminded me that I needed to look up the license plate. I'd get to that after a shower and some coffee. I let the shower pour over me for a good long while. I wanted to wash the memory of the last few days down the drain.

After finishing with my morning ablutions and throwing on a pair of jeans and a T-shirt that didn't smell, I made some coffee and did a few back stretches while waiting for the coffee to brew. After pouring a cup, I booted up my computer and signed into the database I needed.

I typed in the plate number. What came up was a keen disappointment. There was no record of the number.

"What do you mean?" I asked the computer, as if it could hear me.

I tried again. No better luck the second time.

This could only mean that I'd written down the wrong number.

I pounded my fist on the desk. "Damn it!"

Attempting fast getaways and noticing plate numbers just don't go together.