The List
Vale was followed home for the first time. A car. A man who stopped when she stopped. She made it inside and locked the door. But the document was there, and now so was the question of who sent him.
It started small, the kind of thing you dismiss the first time
because you think you're being paranoid, and I was already paranoid so I tried to ignore it.
What did you notice first?
A car, dark gray, parked across from my building two mornings in a row,
and I wouldn't have thought anything of it except that on the second morning it was there before six,
and nobody sits in a parked car before six unless they're waiting for something.
I told myself it was nothing and I went to work and I didn't look back, and that evening on my walk home I felt it,
that feeling you get when you know someone is behind you before you actually check.
Did you check?
I stopped in front of a shop window and looked at the reflection and there was a man about half a block back,
middle aged, nothing remarkable about him, just walking, except that when I slowed down he slowed down and when I stopped he stopped.
What did you do?
I went into the first open place
I saw which was a pharmacy and I stayed in there for fifteen minutes and when I came out he was gone,
and I walked home fast and locked my door and sat on my couch and thought about the copy I had made of that document.
I had kept it at home, which suddenly felt less like a smart decision
and more like a reason for someone to want to come inside my apartment.
Did you tell anyone?
Who was I going to tell, Elise,
my boss was the one with the list.