Page 76 of How To Plot a Payback

“I moved to a flat just up the road three months ago. Which . . .” She halts, tilting her head. It’s such a commanding halt, I find myself momentarily halting too. It’s the kind of motion people make when they’ve just remembered something very important. Such as the combination to a safe that needs unlocking. Or that vital piece of information the president told you the night before he was mysteriously murdered. “Given the size of this town, I guess that makes me your neighbor. You ought to bring me a welcome-to-the-neighborhood basket. Bring me a hamper of fruit or something.”

I frown.

She stares back.

“I’ll get right on that,” I say flatly.

“I’m honestly surprised you haven’t seen me around before. I’m a regular around here now. There’s the nice fellow I pass on my walks. Hello,” she says, waving at an elderly man bussing a table at an outdoor café.

He frowns and ignores her.

“Clearly,” I say.

But as I check over my shoulder, a woman eating her breakfast does a double take. Immediately phones are out. Nobody’s going so far as standing to chase her down, but those teens a block back are still there.

They don’t look like they’re moving. I haven’t caught them walking. And yet somehow they are just as close as before.

Which is precisely what makes me feel uneasy.

I have the horrible urge to put my hand behind her back, a sign those boys should back off. Frankly, this urge makes me feel equally concerned.

My pace slows, just a little, to walk beside her.

She’s doing it again.

This woman is somehow roping me in against my will.

“So let me get this straight,” I say. “You have no dedicated security at all.”

“Correct.”

“And you live somewhere in this area,” I say, looking up and down the street of shops and lofts. “Nothing gated.”

“Yes.”

I raise a brow.

Take ten or so more paces.

Sink my teeth into my bottom lip.

Hate myself for giving in, but finding it impossible not to care, just a little bit, I halt.

“Are you mad?”

She pauses.

“Not at all,” she says. “I have just come to the decision that the world at large is good—”

“It is not good. You above all people need to know that it is not good—”

“People are kind—”

“I literally watched someone run a pedestrian over for a parking spot the other day—”

“And at the end of the day, humanity wins.”

I stare at her.