Free The Informant by James Grippando Page A

like her rules. “I don’t know what I’d do.”
    “Would you fall in love with someone else?”
    “Karen,” he winced.
    “Would you?”
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    “No, never. Why would you even ask me that?”
    She paused, then said quietly, “To see if you love me enough.”
    He took her hand. “Isn’t totally ‘enough’?”
    She smiled sadly. It would be, she thought—but it would take nothing less than that to tell him something she’d been trying to tell him for a very long time. Still, she couldn’t find the courage.
    “Next stop, South Miami,” came the crackling announcement from the Metrorail conductor. Karen shook off her memories and prepared for her stop.
    The train slowed as it neared the station, and she moved toward the exit. Through the glass door that joined one car to the next she noticed a man in the next compartment who had seemed to move only when she moved.
    She glanced his way again for a better look. He looked away quickly, as if he’d been caught staring. He was mid-twenties, she’d say, and professional—pinstripes, power tie, briefcase. He looked like any other accountant or banker who rode the train every day. What bothered her, however, was that he looked even more like the guy at the mall she’d noticed last Tuesday night.
    The train stopped, and the automatic doors opened. A few people got on, many more got off. She had a funny feeling—an intuition. Just as a test, she stayed on. Sure enough, so did Mr. Tuesday. The doors closed and the train pulled away, carrying both of them toward the next stop.
    Her mind raced. He could be just some nice-looking guy trying to get the nerve up to say hello, she thought.
    Could be some weirdo who’s been following 74
    James Grippando
    her for a week. Or it could all be in her head. Get off at the next stop , she resolved. If he gets off too, it isn’t para-noia.
    The train stopped at the Datran Office Center—the last station on the southbound line. Everybody had to get off, she realized, which meant that his getting off here really wouldn’t confirm he was after her. When the doors opened she moved with the flow across the open-air platform toward the escalators that took the stream of passengers down to ground level eighty feet below. Two or three people crowded onto each step. Gliding down, her eyes roamed the station in search of a guard, but she saw none. Halfway down, she checked over her shoulder, to the bottleneck of commuters at the top of the escalator.
    He, too, was going with the flow. Or he was following her.
    The crowd fanned out at the bottom in a weekend charge to the turnstiles. Karen, however, did an immediate U-turn and jumped on the up escalator, which ran adjacent to the one going down. She was alone going up, since no one was city-bound in the evening rush hour.
    She was face-to-face with the steady stream coming down, slowly drawing closer to the man she wanted to see. She wanted to memorize his mug, and she wanted him to know she could finger him in a lineup if ever she had to.
    Her heart pounded as the gap narrowed. She forced herself to take a good look, imagining she was describing him to the police. Six feet. Brown hair. Brown eyes. Possibly Latin. She searched frantically for some distinguishing feature, but her nerves got in the way. The closer she got, the more indescribable he became.
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    They had yet to make eye contact, and the moment they passed he completely looked away. Not the behavior of a man who simply wants to get to know me.
    She reached the top just as he reached the bottom. The crowd had completely funneled down the escalator, leaving her alone on the platform. Her heart sank as she watched the train she’d rode in on—her planned route of escape—pull away from the station. Half the bulbs overhead had been smashed by vandals, she noticed, and the platform was even darker without the lights from the train. An eerie quiet filled the night, punctuated by the electric hum of six