A/N: I'd like to thank Breezi for point out the middle name mistake in the previous chapter. I can't BELIEVE I forgot about that!
Disclaimer: I don't own Red Eye or any other capitalized nouns in this story.
It wasn't until she crashed face-first into his chest that Jackson realized just who she was.
Lisa Reisert.
After the shock sank in, a little bit of annoyance flared in him. After all the hours he had spent yawning in his car while she sat at home and did nothing, she decided to leave the house the only time he actually left?
But then a slight smile curved his lips. So Little Leese was being a little unpredictable for once. It was cute, it really was. Even if it was just a trip to the grocery store. He had to be amused.
Although…he was glad that he had remembered to don his sunglasses before getting out of his car. At this time of night, the shades had earned him more than a couple of stares, but they certainly came in handy now. Suppose he hadn't worn his sunglasses, and she had seen his distinctly blue eyes? Bye bye, paycheck.
Leese had pulled back now. Her head was bent forward so that her silken curls bounced forward in front of her face and hid her expression. All he could see was her hand, cupped protectively over her nose as though it was broken.
Jackson wondered idly to himself if his chest were really that hard. To a self-admitted egotist like himself, the prospect was pleasing.
"You seemed to be thinking pretty hard," he said suddenly in a voice that was equal parts friendly and joking. He held up the box of doughnuts in his hand. "I figured I'd help you make your decision."
"I appreciate it," Lisa said politely, staring determinedly past him with her hand still pressed against her nose. A smile was on her face, but it was woefully obvious that it was forced. More forced, in fact, than any smile she had ever used on a hotel guest.
This irked Jackson like a fishing hook caught in his flesh. So the woman who threatened to sue the hotel received a warmer smile from Lisa Reisert than he did?
"Your nose is okay, isn't it?" Jackson took a step towards her, his pant leg brushing hers.
"Oh…it's fine, it's fine!" She took a hasty step backwards, removed the hand from hr nose. Jackson noted that it was still as small and smooth as ever. "Sorry. Um…bye."
She turned around hurriedly and bumped into her cart with her hip, losing her balance for a moment. Then she grabbed the cart quickly, balanced herself, and practically ran towards the produce section, the cart wheels squealing in protest of her speed.
Jackson watched her. A smile was curving his lips, and he didn't know why.
He glanced at the shelf of doughnuts. And his smile grew wider.
He picked up a box of glazed and caught up with Lisa in four long, easy strides (there was a reason he had been called 'Scarecrow' in high school).
Lisa did not notice his presence at first – or if she did, she pretended not to. Her back was tensely curved, and she was examining a nectarine with a studious intensity that was hardly plausible.
He cleared his throat and stepped further into her vision, forcing her to acknowledge him. His arm brushed hers. She stiffened. More perverse amusement lapped at the edges of his mind like a playful ocean tide.
"After all the work I did to help you decide, you went and forgot your doughnuts."
If it was possible, she stiffened further. Then she looked up and smiled at him. "Oh, I did. Whoops! Thanks!" She took the box, replaced the nectarine, and walked away again.
But if she thought to escape him that easily, she had another think coming. Jackson fell easily into step beside her.
"I was wondering," he began casually, noting the way her knuckles were white where they gripped the cart. Why did his presence unsettle/frighten her so much? He needed to find out. It could be an Achilles' heel, something he could exploit when the time came.
A portion of his brain pointed out that this seemed like an excuse and that he was trying very hard not to admit something to himself. Jackson quirked an eyebrow and shamelessly conceded that it was true.
What had he just said? Oh, yes. "You seem like a regular here. I was wondering if you knew whether they sell sunglasses here?"
She looked up without breaking her rather hurried stride. Looked pointedly at the pair of sunglasses already concealing his eyes. He gave her a sly grin and made his excuse: "My niece is coming to visit me tomorrow, and I want to buy a pair for her so she doesn't go blind from all this sun we're getting."
At this, Lisa seemed to relax slightly. Which had been Jackson's goal in inventing a fictitious niece.
"Oh. Yeah. Sure." She pulled her cart to a stop, glanced around. Then she pointed down an aisle. "Down there and then take a left. You'll see a shelf of romance novels, and the sunglasses are right beside those."
Jackson wondered why she used the trash novels as a reference point and not the self-help novels that sat on the same shelf. He knew, of course, where the damned sunglasses were; he saw them every time he followed Lisa on her weekly shopping trip. One question that had always nagged him was why he had never seen her reading a romance novel. Weren't those books required literature for the female race?
Here was his chance to find out.
"You're familiar with the location of the romance novels, then?" he said in a teasing voice.
She had the grace to smile timidly at him, looping a curl of glossy hair behind her ear. "One time when I was little, my family went camping. It started raining and all the wood was too wet to catch fire, so me and Dad broke into Mom's stash of harlequins. It's been a tradition rather since."
"Nice." He laughed for the sake of laughing – although he did find the story genuinely amusing. "So you gave a new meaning to fiery passion."
"Yeah..." She went back to being shy again, scuffing the toe of her high heel against the tile. But she still wore that small smile, and it was genuine. That was enough to pacify his pride.
Which meant that he could leave now.
But as he stared down at her silky curls, he found that he didn't really want to.
His eyes slid down her curls to the gentle slope of her neck before he registered the repercussions of what he had just thought.
Oh, damn.
Lisa smiled bashfully down at the linoleum. The warm, content feeling like a golden cloud within her was caused partially by the memory of those happier, more innocent years, and partially by the light charm of the man standing in front of her.
Obviously, she had at first thought that maybe he was another one of them. Especially when he followed her. But then he had mentioned his niece, and it had reminded Lisa of her own father's doting. The association inevitably summoned positive emotions. Someone virtuous enough to worry over their niece would certainly never even consider doing…that.
So now…what to say? It had been literally years since Lisa had a non-business-related conversation with any man under fifty.
She was saved the agony of trying to say something witty when the man – she didn't even know his name, she realized belatedly! Oh, God, what had she been about to do? – suddenly mumbled something and spun on his heel, striding purposefully down the aisle.
Speechless, she watched his back receding, then forced her mouth shut. She forced away the rising emotions of sadness and loss inside her. God, Leese, one guy talks to you after two years and you're already contemplating bridesmaid dresses, she thought disgustedly at herself.
Maybe…
Uncertainty, like the cobra, slithered into her stomach. Maybe he saw the scar? Her eyes flew down to her chest – but no, the skin was safely covered by her jacket.
Maybe he –
Enough, ordered her mind. He's gone, get over it. You didn't even know his name. You couldn't even see his eyes. Now finish shopping.
Lisa docilely obeyed. It was probably for the best, anyways. If he had gotten to know her, he wouldn't have wanted her. Not once he saw the scar…
She moved on to the caned goods aisle. Passed the vegetables with a grimace and picked up some tomato soup, then some clam chowder because Dad always liked to eat that whenever he came to visit.
It was as she was placing these provisions into her cart that the back of her neck prickled. She froze, her hair falling in front of her face. She moved her head infinitesimally to one side, her eyes straining to see through the hair concealing her vision.
You're being paranoid, paranoid, paranoid, paranoid, chanted her mind. But then her eyes landed on the man in the striped shirt. He was looking at her, a greedy little grin on his face. Their gazes snagged for only a millisecond, but it was enough to cause him to avert his eyes quickly and for her to feel dirty and violated, like a rag dragged through mud.
She grabbed the cart and hurried, almost running, out of the aisle and away from the man in the polo shirt.
Deep breaths. Deep breaths, Lisa. Maybe you just have cabbage stuck in your teeth, and he was staring at it in horror.
Yeah, and maybe she was the Queen of England.
Deep breaths. Calm down. Don't act like anything's wrong. You're in the middle of a grocery store, there's people here. Nothing's going to happen to you.
Lisa fought back the panicked temptation to look over her shoulder and see if he was following. Deep breaths. Deep breaths.
She knew that she shouldn't have left home.
She was distracted by something. That was the only explanation.
She had been distracted by him. That was the only explanation.
Despite the situation, Jackson felt obscure pleasure from this. From the fact that he could affect her so profoundly that she had not noticed the man following her.
The man other than him, that was.
The man was short by most standards. Wore baggy jeans and a striped polo shirt that had seen better days. (Although that may just have been Jackson's metrosexual side – the one that he denied the existence of – speaking. He would personally never be seen in public in anything less than a crisply-ironed dress shirt and slacks. And stripes were unacceptable.) Was carrying one of the green plastic baskets instead of a cart. Within it, Jackson had been able to make out a six-pack, some Slim Jim, and a paring knife.
Jackson had first taken note of the man in the soup aisle. While Lisa had been picking up some cans of tomato (her favorite comfort food, Jackson had discovered during his stalking, as she usually made it after a displeased hotel patron was particularly vicious in their veiled insults) the man had been standing in front of the canned beef stew as though trying to decide which flavor to buy.
Then, two aisles later, he had been a few feet away from Lisa in the confectionary aisle while she grabbed some coffee creamer. This in itself was not overly suspicious – at least, not until Jackson had seen that no canned beef stew was in the man's basket.
That was when he went on full alarm. And sure enough, five aisles later, here in the freezer section, the man was examining packages of bologna while Lisa picked out bagels (cinnamon raisin, another of her comfort foods. Actually, most of the food Lisa ate was comfort food. Hmm. He should write that down when he got back in the car) and fudge royale ice cream.
He decided that unless the man made a move, he really did not need to do anything.
But to sit back and do nothing was not very exciting – or gratifying.
So Jackson's devious mind conjured a whim. And he followed it.
"Hey…!" His voice held surprise as he rounded the corner and came face-to-face with Lisa. "Long time, no see!"
"Huh?" Lisa looked up. And a blush crept beneath her tan cheeks. Yet at the same time, her face seemed to loosen in something like relief.
Maybe she hadn't been as unaware of the man following her as Jackson had thought.
"Oh…hi! Did you find some sunglasses for your niece?"
"Actually, there weren't any girly enough for her." He spread his hands in a 'what are you going to do?' gesture and sighed. "She's in the princess stage – unless it's pink and has rhinestones, she won't wear it. So I guess we'll be going on a shopping expedition tomorrow."
Rather amusing how easily this pretending-he-had-a-family thing seemed to come to him. Must be all the books he had read as a kid. So the Hardy Boys had been good for something after all.
"Ooh, shopping." Lisa nodded. "Fun. You might want to pick up some caffeine while you're here. And some aspirin, too!"
She laughed, but her voice stilled sounded forced. And rather high. Jackson flicked a casual glance over her shoulder. His eyes zoomed in on a greedy gaze, and he lowered his sunglasses just slightly enough to let the man's eyes lock on his. Startled, the other stepped backwards – right into a display table.
Bottles of strawberry syrup and jars of maraschino cherries clattered to the floor and shattered open. Red liquid spilled glutinously across the floor, and the man slipped and fell into it.
"Oh, my," murmured Jackson as Lisa spun around with a gasp to see what had caused the racket.
One of his hands hand fluttered down to land on her shoulder. She cringed beneath it, but he pretended not to notice, keeping his touch light.
"Don't go near it, there's glass all over."
"What about…that man?" Lisa's voice wisped out, weak and unsure.
He felt some disgust for her words. He was sure that she had been aware of the man following her, yet she was still concerned for his welfare?
"I'm sure he's alright." Jackson paused. "He was more likely to get cut by that knife in his basket than by any of those glass shards."
The words hung in the air a moment. Even as they faded into silence, he was mentally gutting himself. Of all the idiotic, clumsy things to say – just come out and announce he had been following her, why didn't he…
Then Lisa looked up at him. Her lip was white from where she was biting it. Her lips moved soundlessly for a minute, as though trying to tell him something.
Then she fled.
Later that night, Jackson pulled up into the familiar residential neighborhood again. His sunglasses were gone; in their place was a pair of binoculars.
The living room curtains were drawn tightly. As were the kitchen shutters.
He had expected this.
He leaned over, tugged a laptop out from under the passenger seat. Pressed the 'on' button. A few minutes later, a video feed of Lisa's bedroom dominated the computer's screen.
She was back in her pajama pants and a t-shirt, her hair loose and curtaining her face. Yet another one of her 'protection' attempts?
But what was she so desperately trying to protect herself from?
She had a blanket wrapped around her shoulders like a shaman. She was burrowed down in the covers, pillows stacked around her like fortress walls. Jackson had not invaded the privacy of her bedroom often with this video feed, but when he had, her pillows had been at the head of the bed, not stacked up around her.
Leese had definitely been affected by the night's events.
He pulled a nacho from the bag he had bought and crunched down on it, thinking. As he chewed, he watched Lisa hugging one of her pillows tightly.
She would be easy. Easy to scare, easy to manipulate.
Easy to fall for.
Jackson brushed the salt from his fingers, fished out his cell phone. Dialed a number. Kept his eyes on Lisa the whole time.
A voice answered on the first ring. Jackson spoke softly and quickly.
"The target's ready. You can take care of Granny Henrietta now."
He listened for a moment, eyes narrowing as they rested on Lisa. "No. Just make sure it looks natural."
He hung up. Smiled humorlessly. "Time to dig out your black dress, Leese."
A/N: I know it's nothing new, but please review, even just a 'good' or 'bad!'