Free Diary of a Mad Fat Girl by Stephanie McAfee Page B

Nice,” I say, “so what
now?”
    “ Well, it appears he was dropping
loads of cash in Europe during the first two weeks of this billing
cycle and then the last two weeks, he must’ve been around here
because it looks like local charges,” she flips the paper over,
“regular stuff like the Dodge Store and the Tobacco Shop,” she
pauses. “Oh hold on a second! Here it is!” She waves the billing
statement in the air. “Last purchase on this statement is a plane
ticket!” She squints at the paper, “Twenty-eight hundred dollars.
Damn!”
    “ So I’m gonna venture a guess and say
that-”
    “ He could very well be back in Europe
or some other faraway place,” Lilly finishes my sentence. “It’s a
long shot, Ace, but it’s all we’ve got right now. Turn
around.”
    “ We going back to the house?” I ask,
feeling a rush of adrenaline worthy of a hunter eyeballing a
sixteen point deer.
    “ Hell yeah, but let’s park somewhere
else.”
    “ Oh my goodness, this reminds me of
when you thought that beaver-toothed boy was cheating on you, but
the poor bastard was really just playing cards with his friends at
that awful hunting cabin that we almost died trying to
find.”
    “ Why you gotta bring that
up?”
    “ Well, it’s the last time we did some
down-and-dirty-out-in-the-bushes kind of stalking,” I say, turning
into an upscale apartment complex two blocks from our
target.
    “ Hey, we should go get Buster Loo and
pretend we’re out walking the dog.”
    “ If we had a dog,” I say,
sarcastically, “why would we pretend to be walking a dog?”
    “ You know what I mean,
smartass!”
    “ Now, you wanna talk about getting our
cover blown?” I say. “We’d get arrested for disturbing the peace!
You know he barks his fool head off every time the wind
blows!”
    “ Right, okay. No Buster Loo. Let’s go
then.” She crams the camera down in her bag.
    “ Wait! Let’s get that flash turned
off.”
    “ I did that already.”
    “ Are you sure?” I ask and she nods her
head and doesn’t look sure at all.
    “ C’mon let’s go!” she says and hops
out of the car like a rabbit on Red Bull.
    We maneuver though the landscaping at the
edge of the parking lot, climb into and out of a deep gully, then
walk along the short concrete fencing that outlines the more
affluent neighborhoods on the west side of town.
    Something moves in the darkness ahead of us
and I don’t know if it’s a possum or the devil coming to get us and
I get scared. I yelp like a dog and grab a tree trunk to hold on to
while I scan the area for a varmint or a pitch fork. Lilly laughs
so hard I’m afraid she’s going to piss her pants. Then a bat swoops
down, she screams like a banshee and we both hit the grass and let
the chiggers have their way with us for a few minutes.
    “ We are going to jail!” Lilly
whispers.
    “ No,” I assure her, “we are not going
to jail because we are way too slick for that.”
    “ Yeah, we look slick.” she whispers,
“slick as the working side of duct tape.”
    “ I was talking about the dew,” I
whisper back.
    We get up, shake off like wet dogs, and make
our way down to the house where Richard Stacks’ Lexus is still
parked in the drive. The backyard of the four story estate is
completely dark. I hop the short stone fence and land in some
prickly holly bushes and Lilly sniggers as I whisper-cuss like a
sailor.
    She hops the fence a few feet down and we
tip toe across the pristine lawn onto a sprawling concrete patio. I
ease up to the French doors while she creeps up to a large
window.
    “ There’s a man and a woman on the
sofa, but all I can see is the back of their heads,” I
whisper.
    “ I can see the woman’s profile,” she
whispers back, “but I just barely see the dude.”
    “ You think it’s him?” I
ask.
    “ Don’t know,” she answers, shaking her
head, “but it’d just about have to be wouldn’t it?”
    I decide to change positions and step back
into a large wrought