Damon was a routine and organized man by nature.
Landscaping had taught him that.
You don’t walk a property blind you scan the area first.
You identify the problem areas before you put a tool in the ground.
You move with purpose or you waste time and make things worse.
So when he decided to find out who this woman was, he didn’t rush it.
He built a plan the same way he built everything else quietly, carefully, from the foundation up.
He started with the mornings.
Going to different stores, different gas stations, and taking different routes.
He was mapping her whereabouts the same way she’s been mapping his.
Tuesday. 7:40 a.m.
Damon stopped at a convenience store on Briar Road where he hadn’t been to in months.
He grabbed an energy drink from the cooler and moved toward the register.
That’s when he felt it.
Eyes.
Not from the casual look a who’s waiting in line.
Something with weight behind it.
He had noticed long enough to know the difference between a person looking and a person watching your every move.
He turned his head toward the eyes that were staring at him.
A young woman in her early twenties.
Standing near the snack aisle with a bag of chips she wasn’t actually reading the label on the bag.
The second his eyes moved in her direction, hers cut away.
It’s too obvious and it seemed practiced — too practiced.
The redirect of someone trained to look like they weren’t looking.
Damon turned back to the counter. Paid for his drink.
He had a little conversation with the cashier about the weather, unhurried, giving nothing away.
He walked outside.
And there it was.
The black Hyundai Sonata rolling slow through the far end of the parking lot.
Damon stood at his truck and watched it roll out onto Briar Road and disappear.
He looked back at the store entrance.
The young woman from the snack aisle was standing just inside the glass door with the phone to her ear and eyes on him.
He held her stare for three full seconds.
She looked away first and walked out the store.
He sat in his truck and didn’t move for a few minutes.
Two of them.
The woman in the black Sonata had a lookout person.
Someone inside the store to confirm his presence, track his movements, relay information in real time so the car outside could be in the right position.
They were planning and communicating as they go.
Running what it seems to be a two-person surveillance operation on a man who never met them or did anything to either of them.
Damon thought about the girl next door on Calhoun Street. Thought about the equipment she was using.
The projector, the heating device, the phone hack through Bluetooth. None of that was cheap.
None of it was simple.
This wasn’t a lonely young woman with an unhealthy fixation.
This was a woman that did this stuff before.
Which meant somewhere underneath all of it is a reason.
Because obsession at this moment, with this many moving parts and this many people involved, didn’t grow from nothing.
Somebody wanted something from him.
Or wanted something done to him.
He pulled out his phone and called Terrell in Atlanta.
His cousin picked up on the second ring.
“What’s up cuz I need you to come up here,” Damon said.
“How bad?”
Damon watched the spot where the Sonata had disappeared onto the main road.
“There’s at least two of them now.”
A pause on the line.
“I’ll be there Friday,” Terrell said.