The Liberation of Alice Love - Abby McDonald [122]
“Good.” Nathan yawned again, tugging her toward the bedroom. “I was getting lonely in there without you.”
Alice laughed. “Uh-oh. It’s too soon for you to be getting clingy…”
“Yup, that’s me. In fact”—he turned, pressing her up against the doorway with a dark grin—“I’m surprised you haven’t got tired of how needy I am.”
“Right,” Alice agreed, letting her head fall to one side as he kissed his way up her neck. “What with the constant travel, erratic schedule, stubborn streak—”
“Are we still talking about me?” Nathan reached her lips, kissing her for a long moment before pulling away. “Because I’m hearing a lot of you in there too…”
Alice wrapped her arms around his neck, savoring the weight of his body against her and the soft slide of fabric as her blanket slowly fell to the floor. Kate Jackson wasn’t going anywhere tonight.
Chapter Twenty-seven
Kate Jackson’s brother was named Carl: thirty-two years old, single, and—as Alice’s extensive online investigations had revealed—a senior market research analyst at a company in Kilburn. With a new focus, Alice quickly threw herself into the research: learning everything she could about the man, no matter how superficially trivial. The data never lie, after all, and soon she discovered that he liked sci-fi movies, Neil Gaiman books, and old episodes of Battlestar Galactica; he lived in a house on Bellevue Road with two other men who seemed similarly unencumbered by responsibility or female companionship.
It was almost surprising to Alice how little time or effort it took to assemble a profile of Carl’s every taste, using what she had gleaned from Cassie’s many stalking expeditions and her own new research skills. Abandoned MySpace pages, little-used LinkedIn profiles—the information was all there, waiting to be found. It helped that he was clearly active in several online communities, rich with past messages and profiles just brimming with helpful information—from his preferred refreshment (Starbucks vanilla lattes) to his opinion on the latest 3-D movie technology (Avatar was, apparently, the mark of things to come). Soon, after some careful cross-searching of user names and email addresses, she had acquired all his contact information, including mobile phone number, and—most important—his address.
Which was where Alice found herself one Thursday morning, having pulled herself from bed at a painfully early hour, just to cross the city and wait at a bus stop just up the road from Carl’s house. She’d located three Starbucks branches on his likely route to work, but Alice couldn’t just leave it to chance; if she was going to find a way of meeting this man, then she had to be certain of his routine. Sure enough, at eight thirty-two, he emerged from the front door and hoisted a nylon backpack up onto his shoulder. Alice readied herself for action, but Carl clearly wasn’t as prepared: he was barely five steps down the front path when he paused, patting his pockets and checking through his bag in a familiar panic. Turning back, he lifted a potted plant beside the door, fished out the spare key, and let himself back in. A moment later, he reemerged, setting off toward the Tube.
Alice followed, a careful twenty meters behind.
It was easy. She’d been worried about appearing suspicious or attracting his attention, but Carl remained entirely oblivious all the way to Kilburn, earbuds plugged in, and his attention entirely commanded by the thick, dog-eared novel he pulled from the pocket of his windbreaker. Clutching a newspaper as her own disguise, Alice was able to close the distance between them to a mere fifteen feet as he swiped through the barriers and headed up the road, stopping first, she was gratified to see, at the café on the corner. Option number three it was, then.
Alice pushed through the doors and took a place behind him in the busy morning queue, close enough to touch. Her heart was skipping at the prospect of perhaps being so close to the truth about