Thief (2 page)

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Abby didn't know if Ryan was merely humoring
her or if he really believed her plan might actually work, but she
didn't care. All that mattered was that Ryan as well as Jimmy
Fisher said they'd help her "stake out the quad," as Jimmy called
it. Jimmy liked to watch cop shows on television, which was funny
because Ryan was the one who was pre-law. Jimmy was a business
major, but he still peppered his language with quotes from his
favorite television shows. Ryan said not to worry, that it was just
a phase Jimmy was going through.

"You missed out on his Playboy bunny phase,"
Ryan said. "That's why he's so hot on Karen."

Half the college was hot on Karen Sullivan.
She'd been the first runner up in the Miss Nevada pageant. Jimmy
actually thought he had a shot with her. Abby thought Karen was too
much of a snob to be interested in a former jock like Jimmy, but
stranger things had happened.

Like the fact that she'd started to haunt the
quad, watching and waiting for the purse snatcher to strike
again.

By the end of the first week, Abby had caught
nothing but a cold in the ever-changing Nevada weather that roasted
her one day and chilled her with a cold north wind the next. Even
the trees surrounding the quad couldn't make up their minds whether
to bloom or not bloom. Abby spent every spare minute between
classes sitting on a bench if a seat was available, or sitting on a
blanket when all of the benches were spoken for, her Sociology text
propped up on her knees, pretending to read while in reality she
scanned the people in the quad, trying to figure out if anyone
looked familiar.

The problem with that was that soon every
skinny guy in a dark jacket and jeans looked like the thief. There
had to be something unusual about him. The way he walked? Only he
hadn't walked long before he broke into a run. How about how he
ran? Both Ryan and Jimmy ran with the fluid grace of a natural
athlete. For them, running was as easy as walking. The guy who'd
robbed her had seemed to work at it, even though he took the
narrow, steep, concrete stairs to the library two at a time. So, he
might be in good enough shape to run for short distances, but he
wasn't an athlete.

There was something else nagging at her. Abby
blew her nose and ran through the mental checklist. Dark jacket.
Dark hair. Faded jeans. Tennis shoes. No backpack.

No backpack.

No books. The guy was on a campus full of
students, and he had no books. Even Ryan and Jimmy brought books as
well as a Frisbee to the quad. The campus was too spread out,
parking too far away, to leave books in a car or a dorm room and go
get them between classes. Plus, every class used more than one
book. She'd bought five for her Sociology class alone, and that was
only one of five classes she was taking this semester. She figured
that by the time she was done with college, her back would be
permanently screwed up just from the weight of her backpack. The
thing was already coming apart at the seams, which was why she
didn't carry her wallet in her backpack like a lot of women but
kept using a purse instead. She'd thought it would be safer. So
much for that bright idea.

She liked her new idea much better. She
didn't have to look at every skinny guy in the quad, she only had
to look at the skinny guys who didn't have a backpack.

Abby got up off the bench. She had no idea if
her theory was right, but it felt right, and she needed to let Ryan
and Jimmy know. They were tossing the Frisbee around at the other
end of the quad, the end closest to the library. They figured if
they spotted the guy running toward his getaway spot, they could
cut him off before he disappeared again.

She was halfway across the quad when she
spotted the thief. He was still wearing faded jeans and tennis
shoes, but today he had on a heavier denim coat with a wooly
collar. More memorable than the black jacket but not unique on
campus. Abby wouldn't have noticed him except for the fact that not
only didn't he have a backpack, he wasn't carrying a book or even a
notebook. He was walking across the quad like he belonged there,
but he was doing the same thing Abby was. He was watching the
crowd.

Looking for another victim.

Abby tried to signal Ryan and Jimmy, but they
weren't looking her way. She didn't want to yell. She didn't want
the thief to run again, not when they weren't ready to chase him.
So instead she followed him, keeping her distance but keeping him
in sight.

He must not have found what he wanted.
Instead of circling back across the quad, he moved off and trailed
behind a group of women headed toward the Humanities building. From
there, he could follow a service alley that ran behind the building
to the student union, and then take any one of a number of pathways
that led off campus, and he'd be gone again.

Abby couldn't let him get away, not without
getting a really good look at his face this time.

She adjusted her backpack and fell into step
with the rest of the students leaving the quad for classes in the
Humanities building. She only hoped that Ryan and Jimmy would see
her leaving the quad and follow.

She thought she'd lost the thief for a minute
when the students bunched up at the entrance to the Humanities
building. By the time Abby had worked her way around the group, she
realized the thief was no longer there. She breathed a sigh of
relief when she caught a glimpse of his denim jacket as he rounded
the side of the building, walking down the service alley toward the
student union. Abby hurried to catch up, and in her hurry, was
totally unprepared when the thief reached out from behind a bush at
the side of the building and grabbed her elbow.

His grip was hard and rough, and he was more
than strong enough to pull her behind the bush and shove her up
against the building. Only Abby's heavy backpack kept her from
hitting her head against the building's brick facade.

"You're following me," the thief said. "I
don't like people following me. It makes me nervous, you
understand?"

Abby had more than a good enough look at his
face now. He was standing so close that his nose was mere inches
from hers. He wasn't quite as tall as Ryan or Jimmy, but tall
enough that he was looking down at her. His eyes were dark and
angry, and he looked a little older than the average college
student, but other than that, he was perfectly average. No
distinguishing scars or facial features. He was clean-shaven. His
hair was long enough to make him fit in with the rest of the
college crowd but not so long as to make him stand out anywhere
else. She didn't know what she'd hoped for. A mole? A tattoo? A
piercing? How would she have described him to security even if
she'd gotten a good look at him the first time?

She couldn't have. Neither could any other
woman whose purse he'd stolen.

"I'm sorry," she said, surprised her voice
actually worked. "I thought you were someone else."

He leaned into her harder. The corners of her
Sociology text were digging into her back even through her
backpack's padding. "Why don't I believe you?"

His lips lifted away from his teeth in a
sneer -- he was actually sneering at her! -- and she caught a good
look at his teeth about the same time the smell hit her. This guy
hadn't seen the business end of a toothbrush in far too long. She
might not be able to describe his face, but she'd have no trouble
describing his breath.

Provided she got out of here in one
piece.

Why couldn't she just have let it go? She
wasn't cut out for this kind of thing, not if the way her legs were
threatening to give out from under her was any indication.

"Please," she said. "I don't know what you
thought, and I'm sorry if I--"

He leaned in closer like he was going to kiss
her, and instinct took over. The last thing in the world Abby
wanted was his mouth on hers. She squealed and pushed at him with
her arms, turning her face away, but he was strong and he had a
good grip on both her shoulders. She dropped her hands to the
waistband of his jeans, got a good grip, and then held him in place
while she rammed one knee up directly into his crotch.

He cursed her as he dropped to his knees. As
soon as his hands were off her shoulders, Abby ran out from behind
the bush. She almost collided with Ryan, who'd been running top
speed around the side of the Humanities building.

"It's him," Abby said, pointed at the man
writhing on the ground, clutching his crotch. "I still couldn't
pick him out of a line up, but I know it's him."

She said the same thing first to campus
security, and then to a Reno Police Department detective by the
name of Ed Hastings. Neither of them quite believed her until they
found Abby's Walkman in one pocket of the thief's jacket. Abby's
mother had had the Walkman engraved with Abby's name and a good
luck wish.

After Detective Hastings had handcuffed the
thief and deposited him in the back of a patrol car, he took Abby
aside. "I'm going to need you to make a formal statement, but one
thing I'm curious about."

They were sitting on a bench by herself off
to one side of the Humanities building. Ryan and Jimmy had both
gone on to their next classes only after repeated assurances from
campus security that an officer would walk Abby back to her dorm
room after the police were done with her.

"How did you know it was this guy?" Hastings
asked. "Out of all the kids up here, you tail someone you admit you
never got a good look at, and it turns out to be the right
guy."

Abby explained her theory about the lack of a
backpack or books. "I just got lucky." Or unlucky. Her knees were
still shaking, and she wanted to swallow about a gallon of
mouthwash. For the first time in her life, she was glad her nose
was mostly stuffed up from a cold.

Hastings shook his head. "No, you were good.
Not everybody would have put all that together. You might make a
good detective, you work at developing that talent you got."

Abby shook her head. The only abnormal
behavior she ever wanted to deal with ever again were the boring
case studies in her Sociology textbook. She hadn't decided what
she'd major in yet, but she doubted it would be criminal justice.
Ryan was one of those people who knew in high school what he wanted
to do with the rest of his life, but Abby figured she had plenty of
time to figure that out.

"I don't think so," she said. "I'm not the
confrontational type. Today was enough to last me for a long
time."

Hastings shrugged. "Suit yourself. Not all
detectives chase down scumbags like that guy. There's all sorts of
crooks. Some of 'em wear suits and ties, and the trail's made of
paper." He took a business card out of his shirt pocket and handed
it to Abby. It had the Reno Police Department logo on it along with
Hastings' name and phone number. "You change your mind after things
cool down, you let me know."

She stared at the card. Chasing down a paper
trail. She'd never thought about all the different kinds of work
police detectives did. She supposed she got all her understanding
of the way cops worked from televisions shows, just like Jimmy
Fisher. Still, she couldn't see herself in a police uniform.

She made arrangements to go to the police
station to give a formal statement the next day. She said goodbye
to Detective Hastings and watched him drive away.

The campus security officer was the only
person left at the scene besides Abby, and he was beginning to look
impatient. The students who'd milled around, trying to get a good
look at what was going on, had all gone back to their lives. That's
what Abby needed to do. Get back to her life. Her twenty dollars
and her I.D. were gone, but Detective Hastings said she'd get her
Walkman back after the thief's trial. If he went to trial. Hastings
said most guys like the purse snatcher took a plea deal. Chances
were she wouldn't even have to testify.

She got up off the bench, nodded at the
campus security guard, and headed toward her dorm. The security
guard fell into step beside her.

When they passed a trash bin at the front of
the student union, Abby almost pitched Detective Hastings' card in
with the rest of the trash, but something made her stop. She shoved
the card in the front pocket of her jeans.

She still had no intention of joining the
police force, but you never knew. It might not hurt to have a
friend who was a police detective.

Who knew? Someday it might even come in
handy.

# # #

SPECIAL BONUS MATERIAL

An excerpt from the Abby Maxon novel

The worst part about being a private
investigator is learning things I'd rather not know about the
people in my life.

Take Jimmy Fisher. Husband, father,
part-time soccer coach. All around nice guy.

Or so I thought.

I've known Jimmy since we were both students
at the University of Nevada in Reno more years ago than I care to
remember. He was really my ex-husband Ryan's friend, not mine, but
in the years since graduation, we'd all stayed in town and stayed
in touch.

Reno used to be a small place where you
might run into a half dozen people you knew at the mall, an old
high school teacher at the grocery store, or an old friend like
Jimmy at the movies. Not so much anymore, thanks to the nearly
unchecked urban sprawl that saw the town fill the valley and invade
the foothills back in the days before the economy went bust. These
days, I might run into Jimmy at my daughter's school functions or a
soccer tournament. To say I was surprised when he called me out of
the blue was an understatement.

Two weeks before Christmas, I had other
things I needed to do rather than meet with an old college friend
for drinks, but Jimmy wouldn't take no for an answer. He
practically begged. In all the years I'd known him, I'd never heard
Jimmy beg for anything.