whispered. “Just shut up and come with me.” I didn’t want to lose him. I wanted to know where he was heading; I wanted to know everything about him. That man piqued my interest to the max and I wasn’t going to let him go so easily. We walked outside of the club. Tristan was getting into a nice Honda Civic “Carrie, get my car.” I tossed her my car keys. “Are you kiddin’ me?” She looked at me, her eyes wide.“Are we really doing this?” “Yes, now just shut your little trap and get my car. I’ll watch him until then.” I didn’t move my eyes from Tristan or his car. He was slowly taking out his car from the parking lot and he was surely in pain, because he wasn’t using his right hand to steer. He is hurt. With a screeching sound of brake, Carrie stopped the car in front of me. “ Hop in,” Carrie shouted. I jumped in my car. Carrie was an excellent driver and I trusted her skills. But this time, Tristan was driving quite slowly and we didn’t have any problem keeping up with him, maybe because of his injury. He parked his car in front of some book store. What is he doing here? ‘Scott’s Book Club’ I read aloud. “I know this. It’s a chain of libraries, and isn’t his name is Tristan Scott?” Carrie asked. “Yes.” “May be he owns the chain. It’s a famous chain for book lovers. I’m a member of the shop near my place.” “That’s great, then. You can get all the information on him easily.” My mind was filled with many ideas. One of them was to use his help to get to Stephen. “What? Why do you want that info anyways?” Carrie said in a suspicious voice. “I have something on my mind. Please get the info for me.” I made my puppy eyes and looked over at her. “Damn, it’s college all over again,” she complained.“Okay, I’ll get it for you.” I giggled at how easily she’d crumbled. When I was in college I always asked Carrie to get info on different boys and it seemed like things hadn’t changed. *** T wo days later, Carrie was sitting in my room with all the information I wanted on paper. Tristan Scott, single, moved two years ago from Los Angeles to New York. Former MMA fighter. Won two medals in National Championship. Currently owns a chain of bookstores. “Thanks, Carrie.” I hugged her tightly. “You don’t know how much trouble I had to go through to get this info. I had to promise one guy working at his store for a date. Jerry is going to kill me if he finds out about this.” “Don’t worry, if you want I’ll go out with you two. We can have some fun, you know,” I giggled. Back in college, the two of us pulled a prank on a single guy who’d been a jerk to a lot of the girls we knew. We’d gone out with him together—and let him think he’d just won the lottery with both of us together. We were shameless in those days. “It’s like it only happened yesterday. I still remember the face of that moron. He thought he was going to have a three-some...with us. I can’t believe it’s just two-and-a-half years since then.” “Yes, and Jerry was all burned up on you for doing that.” I raised my hand for a high five. “Those were fun days.” She giggled, but then she became serious. “You shouldn’t have left college like that.” “With Stephen, I couldn’t just continue there,” I sighed, as sad memories filled my heart.” It’s been six months since I’ve seen him.” “You will see him soon. Don’t lose hope.” Carrie tried to console me. *** “A re you sure you want to do this, Nikki?” Carrie asked, looking through the driver’s window. I was standing outside my car, looking at Tristan’s house.“It’s a nice house, Carrie.” I turned around to face Carrie.“As I said, just message me if you see anything suspicious.” I was actually going to break into Tristan’s house. I couldn’t help myself; if I was going to get him to work for me, I had to know more about him. And his house was