Free False Premises by Leslie Caine Page B

Holland on my own!” He returned his gaze to the road ahead, as if too disgusted to continue to look at me.
    I stared at him in profile and stayed put. If I did as he demanded, there wasn’t a doubt in my mind that we would revert to the barely civil relationship that we’d had for my first two years in Crestview. He was going to have to say something else to me eventually, and his words would either repair or worsen this ever-deepening chasm between us.
    “Anyway, he’d seen you before as you were leaving my office a couple days earlier and started bugging me for an introduction. I was hoping you wouldn’t go for it, okay? But you practically threw yourself at him.”
    “So, in other words, you were testing me? Dangling your friend in front of me to see if I’d take the bait?”
    “No! Jeez! Let’s just drop it, Gilbert! Everything worked out for the best for all three of us. You and John are obviously all hot and heavy, so it’s too late now. Besides, it’s not as if—” He broke off as headlights emerged from the otherwise black void of the small cul-de-sac on the slope above us. “Holland’s leaving! At nearly midnight! He’s meeting her!”
    We ducked down to avoid being seen in his headlights. Steve started the engine but left his own headlights off. This was such a small subdivision and seldom-traveled road that the trick would be to follow Holland’s car from enough of a distance that he didn’t realize he was being tailed, all the while not losing track of his car’s taillights in the darkness. Once traffic picked up farther in town, we’d probably have to change strategies.
    It was too dark to drive for long with no lights, though, and Sullivan soon relented and turned them on. Breaking the silence, I said quietly, “You’re right. Everything did work out best for the three of us. You and I are like oil and water.”
    “Like cats and dogs.”
    “Exactly.” Sullivan was a dog, all right.
    We merged into the winding road that led to the canyon into downtown Crestview, just one car back from Dave Holland’s. At length, Steve said, “As long as he stays on these two-lane roads, we won’t have any trouble tailing him.”
    “Yeah. We’ll be fine, as long as he doesn’t get on the turnpike to Denver.”
    Minutes later, I groaned. The black coupe had turned onto the turnpike. We were doing our best to keep track of him, but despite the hour, there were dozens of cars on this section of the road. We soon lost track of which taillights were his when we got caught in a clot of traffic. Sullivan resorted to muttering four-letter words as we wove our way through the cars, failing to find Dave Holland’s.
    At the next exit, I spotted him passing under a streetlamp and pointed out his car by shouting, “There!”
    Sullivan hit the brakes and made an abrupt exit, tailgating a truck, which blocked our vision of the road ahead. We’d lost Dave once again. Sullivan cursed and pounded the steering wheel. Just as we passed an intersection, I spotted Dave’s car pulling away from a traffic light.
    “That’s him! He’s going north. Turn around.”
    A couple of cars had boxed us in, and we had no choice but to continue to the next intersection.
    “I know where he’s going!” Sullivan cried as he finally managed to swing the car around. “He’s heading toward the rental warehouse . . . U-Store. I’ll bet that’s where Laura’s stashed the antiques.”
    He smacked the steering wheel again. “I should have realized this is where she’d keep the stuff! She knows all about U-Store. She always pumped me for information about my job. To think, I used to flatter myself into thinking she was interested in learning about my work.”
    “I’ve got a unit rented there right now.” One of us should indeed have thought of the possibility that Laura had rented space at U-Store. Many, if not all, of the designers in Crestview used this facility. For large-scale jobs, a storage rental was a great