already told her that he barely knew Audrey. What would he tell her now? The truth? Part of the truth?
He looked out his window, as he’d been doing all day long. The police had not returned. The courtyard was quiet.
He walked to the mirror that Quinn had hung next to the front door. He rubbed at the skin below his eyes as though he could rub away the dark hollows. He wore his favorite vintage blazer and a knotted cashmere scarf. He’d put the scarf on so long ago—preparing himself to leave—that his neck had gotten sweaty. He took it off. Why would he need a scarf just to go across to another apartment?
He paced back to the window and saw Kate crossing the courtyard toward the street. Without thinking, he bolted to his bedroom, grabbed his wallet, then raced out his own door, taking the stairs down to the lobby three at a time.
By the time he reached the courtyard Kate had disappeared, but when he reached Bury Street he spotted her a block and a half away, making her way toward Charles. He began to follow. It was cooler than he thought, and he regretted taking off his scarf. He buttoned all three buttons on his blazer and turned the collar up. The clouds were building up in the sky again and he wondered if it might rain.
When Kate reached Charles, she stopped for a moment. Alan slowed his pace. He was only about half a block away, close enough to see that she held a small orange umbrella in her left hand. She turned left. Alan wondered if she was looking for a place to eat, or if she was just taking a walk. Either way, he’d follow her. It would be easier to approach her in a restaurant, pretend that he was also there for dinner. It might look suspicious, but he did live in the neighborhood.
Charles Street was quiet, mostly dog walkers and mothers pushing strollers. A man with a stricken face hustled past carrying a bouquet of expensive-looking flowers. A husband who’d forgotten an anniversary, Alan thought. Kate was walking slowly, pausing to look through the windows of the many small bistros that lined this stretch of Charles. She was clearly looking for a place to eat. Alan forced himself to walk slowly as well, pausing at one point in front of an old carriage house that had been converted into a swank residence. He bent and tied his shoe. The brick sidewalk was still wet from an earlier shower, and he could smell an earthy scent, the smell of spring. Winter, always long in New England, had been particularly brutal this past year, dumping over four feet of snow in a two-week stretch at the end of January.
Alan watched Kate cross the street. She was hesitant, looking to the right and left as though she couldn’t remember which way the cars would be coming from. Alan followed her across Charles, then up a narrow gaslit side street where she entered a place called St. Stephen’s Tavern that Alan had never been to, even though he’d passed it frequently.
He kept walking, not wanting to look like he was following her. She was probably eating, which meant she’d be there for at least an hour. Alan decided he had time for a quick drink down at the Sevens before showing up at St. Stephen’s. He walked fast, down the impossibly steep side street, then back onto Charles, where he pushed through the door into the narrow interior of his favorite bar. He ordered a rye and ginger ale, and drank it standing up, elbow perched on the wooden bar.
He was in a state of nervous excitement, he realized, from following this woman he barely knew. What was wrong with him? Maybe his obsession with Audrey had had nothing to do with Audrey herself and everything to do with the fact that he could watch her from afar.
Not for the first time, an uncomfortable memory resurfaced. He’d been thirteen years old, and his sister, sixteen at the time, had a summer job as a camp counselor in Maine. His parents had put him on a bus to visit her one weekend, and he’d been given a spare room in the counselors’ area, a row of dorm-style rooms on the second floor of the main lodge. On his first night there, he’d discovered a knothole in one of the planks of wood that allowed him to see