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Gathering her purse, she slipped on her sunglasses and strolled down the asphalt path toward the parking lot, forcing herself not to look back.
Ever since a defense technology reporter leaked the news two weeks ago that Williams Advanced Avionics incorporated adaptive AI into its new cockpit software design, she’d had the feeling she was being watched. It was breakthrough technology, and she’d been busting her butt to get the proof-of-concept demonstration ready to present to the Department of Defense in two weeks.
Once she made her presentation and, hopefully, secured a contract, she’d have to take a proper vacation for the first time in…
Her brows knitted. How long?
Eight years, actually. How sad was that?
Watching the clock tick on her father’s health with each passing year. Eight years of single-minded devotion to her work brought them closer to breakthrough avionics technology, but never quite there, until advances in artificial intelligence had made it possible.
And during that time, she’d let her friendships wither and die on the vine of neglect.
Now that she had time to go on vacation, she didn’t have anyone to take along. No one to help her celebrate. Maybe she’d take her mom. They could celebrate together. Just like her father would have wanted.
Once she reached the parking lot, she unlocked the cherry red Mazda Miata—her one indulgence—and slid onto the tan upholstery. Exiting the cemetery, she frowned at the black Ford Explorer in her rearview mirror, tailgating her onto the George Washington Parkway. The windows were tinted, making it hard to see the person driving, but it looked like the man in the ball cap.
The parkway followed the Potomac River, skirting the line between the District of Columbia and Virginia. Past Theodore Roosevelt Island, past Key Bridge, leading to Georgetown. It became less urban, more bucolic in setting, disguising the densely populated Northern Virginia suburbs on her left and the banks of the Potomac on her right.
Any other time, she found it soothing.
Now, she counted every car in the two lanes on her side and the lanes in the opposite direction, grateful for the traffic as the SUV stayed behind her.
She moved to the left lane and edged her speedometer up to seventy. Her pulse tapped out a frantic rhythm in her ears.
Please don’t let me get a ticket.
Damned SUV was still behind her.
Her exit was up ahead. Nathalie flipped on her signal, moved to the right, and exited the parkway at Chain Bridge Road, white-knuckling the cloverleaf interchange as she took the loop at a higher rate of speed than she liked before it merged onto Route 123 in McLean.
The Explorer followed.
Now what?
Call the police? Drive around so she didn’t lead whoever was in the other vehicle to her home? Her palms dampened, sliding over the leather wrap on her steering wheel.She held her breath at every stoplight, waiting for the Explorer to turn or get lost in the traffic.
There.Across the intersection on her right was a gas station full of cars.
Safety in numbers. If she turned in, and the SUV pulled in behind her, she’d call the police. Whoever was in the Explorer wouldn’t dare make a move with so many witnesses.
The light went green. She hit the accelerator through the intersection to zip in front of the car in the right lane, then tapped her brakes just enough to whip the Miata into the station, the person she cut off laying on their horn to let her know what they thought of the move.
The Explorer continued past.
Heart racing, Nathalie circled her car around the gas pumps to face the road. She scanned the traffic flowing past, waiting to see if the SUV did a U-turn and came back. One minute became five, became ten. There was no sign of the Explorer.
Relief had her sagging in her seat. “Nope. It’s just you, Nat, hallucinating being stalked because you need more sleep.” It’s not like the route she’d taken wasn’t taken by thousands of other cars.
Between work and adjusting to her role as president of Williams, she was exhausted.
And, apparently, paranoid.
It only took another ten minutes before she pulled into the garage of her three-story Vienna, Virginia, townhome.
She climbed the narrow, beige carpeted stairs to her main living area. Her townhome was part of a row of homes built into an embankment, placing her living, kitchen, and dining rooms on the second floor.
Opening the door, she toed off her navy slip-on sneakers, then flipped down the cover of the alarm panel on the adjacent wall, her finger poised to punch in the code to cut off the beeping that told her she had thirty seconds before sirens wailed.