Lisa Scottoline - Daddy's Girl

Hours passed, nine to ten o'clock, then to eleven. Families drove in and out of the exit, in cars packed with kids. Nat kept her head down in the cap, fake-reading the newspaper. She flashed on Graf outside the Saunders house. She could believe him capable of murder, especially of a black man. But one question plagued her. Why hadn't that been the first thing Saunders said to her, in his very last words on earth?

Suddenly, the front door of the Graf house opened, and a man stepped outside. It was Joe Graf. He was wearing his same quilted vest he'd worn at the Saunders house, on top of a flannel shirt. He paused to light a cigarette, cocking his head and cupping his hand, while the door opened again. A child emerged in white pants and a blue snow jacket.

Nat could tell even at this distance it was a boy. The child's hair blew like a black fan in the wind, and his small legs churned as he ran to keep up with Graf. Graf caught the child's hand and walked him, jumping along, to a black Bronco. He opened the car door and lifted the child inside, then presumably fastened him into a car seat. It wasn't exactly the actions of a cold-blooded killer, and Nat figured this was either the dumbest or the smartest thing she'd ever done. She started the engine, drove out the main exit road, and waited a distance from the Heaven's Gate sign. If Graf were leaving, he'd have to go out this way. In a minute or two, his black Bronco traveled out of the exit and onto the main road. Nat let two cars pass in front of her, then took off after him.

She tracked the black Bronco as it made its way through the suburbs, in increasing traffic. They wended their way through a busy Ship Road, then to Routes 100 and 113, a tangle of big-box stores, tanning salons, Office Depots, Toys "R" Us stores, and strip malls like the ones she'd seen the day before. The whole time, she kept her eye out for police cars. She followed Graf as he eventually switched onto an even busier Lancaster Avenue, going west, and at one stoplight she got so close she could see the child waving his hands in the backseat. She dropped back and let a truck get between them. In Paoli, the Bronco pulled off of Lancaster Avenue and took a right turn into a strip mall with a Dunkin' Donuts, a Radio Shack, and, at the corner, yet another Wawa.

She pulled to the far side of the Wawa lot, so it would be hard to see her from the Bronco, and watched as Graf parked in the strip mall and emerged from his car, lighting another cigarette. He took a few puffs before he went around to the backseat of the car and opened the door. The cigarette clamped between his lips, he lifted the child out. Nat could see that Graf had an adorable little boy, no doubt a mix of his mother's Asian blood and his father's bad blood, not that she was jumping to conclusions.

Graf took the kid's hand and walked him around the side of the strip mall to a storefront she hadn't noticed when she pulled up: Kwan's Karate Studio. She slumped behind the wheel of the Neon, dejected. She'd pegged Graf for a killer and all he was doing was being a great father. She eyed the traffic nervously. She was risking apprehension for karate classes? Graf went through the front door, disappearing inside the karate studio, and Nat settled in for the duration.

Suddenly the door to the karate studio opened, and Graf emerged. Nat ducked instinctively as he hurried to the strip mall, jumped back into the Bronco, pulled out of the space, and took off fast.

Go! Nat started the ignition and followed as Graf made an illegal U-turn on Lancaster Avenue, then headed east. The two cars drove, with four cars between them, all the way back to where they'd come from. She hoped Graf wasn't going shopping. She told herself to remain calm as she followed the Bronco and ten other cars into the parking lot at the Exton Square Mall, at the bustling intersection of Routes 30 and 100. She drove slowly, at the end of the line, as Graf parked the Bronco, jumped out, and hustled into Houlihan's in front.

She pulled into a space at the back of the parking lot. What was going on? From Paoli to Exton, they had passed tons of other places to eat. Why hadn't Graf stopped at one of them? Was he a Houlihan's freak? Was anybody? She watched the door to the restaurant. A well-dressed older couple went inside, followed by a quartet of high school gymnasts in blue-and-white sweats.

She couldn't see through the dark glass of Houlihan's from this distance. She waited but he didn't come out. What was he doing in there. He couldn't be eating; it made no sense. He wouldn't have enough time if he was going to pick up his son. She had to risk getting closer, to see. She straightened her cap, pushed up her sunglasses, and got out of the Neon. She walked toward Houlihan's, lingering near the mall entrance, then peered inside.

Nat spotted him after a minute. Graf was seated at a small table.

near the window. He had a soda and appeared to be looking out the window. He had to be waiting for someone. Was he meeting that nice wife of his? Was he cheating on her? Nat kept her head down, under the hat brim. People walked by Graf's table, but he kept looking out the window. In the next second, he checked his wristwatch.

Who was he waiting for?

"Excuse me," said an older man in a leather coat, walking past on the way to the mall.

"Sorry." Nat shifted over to let him pass, but he didn't move.

"You a NASCAR fan? Me, too!"

"Sorry, it's not my hat," Nat answered. She didn't want to be remembered or draw attention to herself. The man moved on, unblocking her view of a bright red pickup that was just pulling into the front of the parking lot. A black man in a Sixers cap and black down coat got out of the truck, hustled to Houlihan's, and made a beeline for Graf's table.

Nat squinted behind her sunglasses. Something about the man looked familiar. Were they friends? Did the man know Graf was a bigot? The man sat down opposite Graf, and they started to talk, their heads bent together. She kept watching. She figured that they couldn't talk long because the karate lesson couldn't last more than an hour. It had taken half an hour to get to here from the karate studio, in traffic. Graf didn't have much time. That meant neither did Nat.

She pulled down her cap and went back to the Neon, walking past the red pickup. It was an F-250. The license plate was from Pennsylvania. She strolled casually around the back of the truck-which was when she saw it. A little Calvin decal. Where had she seen that before? A blurry picture flashed through her mind. Darkness. A patch of ice. The Ford F-250. The side of the driver's face barely visible through the dark glass. Then she knew where she'd seen the man. He was driving the black pickup that had crashed into her and Angus.

Was it possible? She rechecked the license plate. It was Pennsylvania, not Delaware. But license plates could be switched. Pickups could be painted. It had been a few days. Could it be the same pickup? it couldn't have looked more different from the black one. It was a loud cherry red, with shiny white pinstripes running along the sides. On the back of the truck bed was a memorial, painted in flowery white letters. It read,

IN MEMORY OF ANJELA REYNOLDS, 2002-2006.

Still. Was it the same truck, painted red? Was it the same driver who had crashed into them? She looked around, but nobody was watching. Shoppers walked quickly because it was so cold. She reached into her pocket for her keys, stepped up to the side of the pickup, and walked between it and a Dodge Caravan, making an inch-long scratch in the side of the truck. A jittery black line appeared out of nowhere. The pickup was black underneath the bright red. It was the same truck and the same driver.

Whoa. Nat turned and walked away, trying to act casual as she headed for the Neon. Questions clicked away in her brain, and she felt all her senses on alert. How did the pickup driver and Graf know each other? Had Graf had anything to do with the crash? Why would this guy have wanted to hurt her and Angus? Was he part of a drug ring? She wished she could talk it over with Angus, but she'd left the damn cell phone. She had to figure it out herself. It gave her a new plan. She would follow the pickup driver, not Graf, when he left Houlihan's. She had almost reached the Neon when she heard a woman’s voice, shouting shrilly in the parking lot.