I kept on walking and never did look back.
Chapter 3
Mrs. Parker glanced in the general direction of where I'd seen the guy. Even though I'd only met the woman a few weeks earlier, I felt a lot more at ease with her than I normally did, especially during these get-acquainted visits.
She was a couple decades older than me, but there was a freshness about her I almost envied.
Her long brown hair was tied in a loose knot at the nape of her neck, and she was wearing dark jeans and a Detroit Redwings T-shirt. But even if shehadbeen wearing some of the designer stuff that no doubt filled her closets, there was something about her demeanor that made me feel surprisingly at home.
When had I ever felt that comfortable in my own skin? Then again, when had I ever had the chance? If she weren't so likeable, I might've hated her.
We were sitting at the counter of her designer kitchen, where we had gone over the plant-watering schedule just an hour earlier, before I'd taken Chucky out for his get-acquainted walk.
"He's a sneaky one," Mrs. Parker had warned me, ruffling the fur around Chucky's collar. "You've got to watch him every second, or he'll be out of your sight before you know it."
"Don't worry," I assured her. "I'll be careful."
"We're counting on it." Her tone grew earnest. "That's why we picked you for this job. Looking at your references, we had every confidence you'd take this seriously." She glanced down at Chucky. "If he ever got out on his own, or if something ever happened to him –" She shook her head. "We'd never get over it."
"I'll watch him like a hawk," I told her. And I would. I liked dogs, and more to the point, I liked what they were paying for my services – and my discretion. It was a classic win-win. I agreed to keep it confidential that they were out of town, and they agreed to let me live there while I took care of things.
As far as the plant-watering instructions, I'd never seen anything like it. She had a special measuring cup, custom-created plant food, and notations on the exact amount of water each plant needed.
The whole thing was kind of odd. The dog, I got. The plants, I didn't. If Mrs. Parker didn't seem so easygoing in every other way, I'd have pegged her as a massive control freak. But the more I thought about it, the more I decided it was probably her husband, the surgeon, who was the control freak. She was probably just the messenger.
A very comfortable messenger.
I glanced around, taking in my rich surroundings. If her only job was to obsess over the houseplants, she didn't have it too bad.
"Some like to drink in the morning, and some like to drink at night," she had told me when she first pulled out the list.
Drinking in the morning, drinking at night. Yeah, it was like that in my Mom's house too. Except it was Jack Daniels, not filtered rainwater.
But Mrs. Parker and I weren't talking about plants now. Returning from the walk with Chucky, I'd just finished telling her about the guy with the tattoos.
I'd given her a brief rundown, looking for some indication on whether I should call the police or simply ignore him until he found a different neighborhood to loiter in. How she responded would tell me a lot, not just about what I should do now, but how I should handle future encounters.
I was going to be living in the Parkers' house for most of the winter. I knew from experience, it's better to let the home-owner dictate what to do in cases like this.
If I called the police and the owners didn't want a scene, they wouldn't be hiring me the next time they went out of town. If Ididn'tcall the police and something bad happened, I'd get the blame.
If it were up to me, I'd do something. What, I don't know. But I definitely wouldn't just look away and hope for the best. If there was one thing I had learned the hard way, it was that problems don’t just go away on their own. They only get bigger.
This guy was a problem. I knew that as sure as I knew that the Parkers' exotic houseplants were getting a lot more TLC than I'd ever gotten, even as a kid.
Mrs. Parker bit her lower lip and thought about it.
I waited, keeping my expression studiously neutral. This was her decision, not mine. I'm completely capable of handling my own decisions. But I needed this job, more than I was willing to admit, even to myself.
If she told me to run through the neighborhood screaming that some tattooed stranger was on the loose, well, I guess I wouldn't exactly do it. But I'd still be kicking myself later if I ended up at my Dad's house, sleeping on the couch in his basement.
The couch was orange, lumpy, and smelled vaguely of sour milk. It was the one piece of furniture in his entire place that wasn't new, designer, or some priceless antique, which is why it was the one place I was actually allowed to sleep.
I hated that couch.
I was contemplating just how much when Mrs. Parker finally smiled. With her index finger, she gave a single tap to the counter and said, "I think I know who that guy is."
"You do?" Just how long had he been hanging around there anyway? "So you've seen him before?"