Stalker (9780307823557) Read Online Free Page B

He retrieved a manila envelope and handed it to her. “Here’s your stuff. You’ll find your boyfriend’s car parked in the lot across the street.”
    Jennifer signed the paper he handed her, shook her watch from the envelope and put it on. It was almost time to pick up Mark. She’d better hurry. She shoved her wallet into the back hip pocket of her jeans and clutched the keys to Mark’s car.
    “I’ve got a girl about your age,” the detective said. “Goes to Ray High. Plays a lot of basketball. Anyhow, I know you kids take things pretty hard, and this is a rough one for you.” He blinked, looking uncomfortable. “I’m trying to say, don’t tear yourself up attempting to make things come out the way you want them instead of the way they are. See what I mean?”
    “I know Bobbie.” Jennifer’s words were spaced and slow, as though she were talking to a child who couldn’t understand. “She didn’t kill her mother.”
    She turned and left the station, running down the steps, crossing the nearly empty street to the parking lot, where she found Mark’s car nosed in under one of the bright arc lamps. She drove it out of the parking lot and down the side street to Staples, heading toward the supermarket where Mark would soon be waiting for her.
    Would a private investigator help? Why not find out? She had some money—not much—but there was a small bank account where she put something from the paychecks she got for her weekend and summer work at the Green Garden Nursery. There was almost three hundred dollars in the account now. And she’d be willing to spend it all to help Bobbie.
    She knew a private investigator. Well, she didn’t really know him. She had met him a year or so ago when she was over at Bobbie’s and some guy had come by to pick up Stella for a date. They’d said hello, and after he and Stella had left, Bobbie had told her the man was a private eye. They had giggled about that and about his funny name. What was his name? If she could only remember it! She had never seen him again, and Bobbie hadn’t mentioned him; so apparently he and Stella hadn’t dated much. But he knew Stella. Surely he’d want to help.
    Mark came out of the side entrance of the market at the same time Jennifer pulled to a stop next to the curb. “Good timing,” he said, climbing into the driver’s side as she quickly scooted over. “Did you find Bobbie?”
    Jennifer told him everything that had happened as he drove her home. She ended with her encounter in the interrogation room as Mark parked his car in front of her house. He turned off the ignition and twisted in his seat to face her.
    “You might have been shot!”
    “But I wasn’t. Anyhow, that doesn’t matter. Bobbie matters. We’ve got to help her.”
    Mark’s scowl was made deeper by the shadows cast from the streetlight. “That detective was right. Leave it alone. They wouldn’t have arrested Bobbie if they didn’t think she’d done it.”
    Jennifer gasped. She hadn’t expected this reaction fromMark. “But Bobbie didn’t even know her mother was dead! I had to tell her!”
    “A guy in the store said he heard on KRIS that the scarf that strangled Mrs. Trax belonged to Bobbie,” Mark said. “Bobbie could have put on an act with you.”
    “Even if you don’t believe in Bobbie, I do! And I’m going to do what I can to help her.” Jennifer reached for the door handle, but Mark grasped her shoulders, turning her toward him.
    “Right now you’re upset. So’m I. But you’ve got to take it easy and slow and think things out. Maybe get away for a while.” His voice softened and deepened. “Jen, I’ve got an idea, and please don’t say no until you think about it. Why don’t you and I go over to Padre for the weekend?”
    “No.”
    “Look,” he said. “I worked this all out and gave it a lot of thought. I know how you feel, but it won’t be wrong. We love each other, and we’re going to get married right after graduation.