hide, lowering the lid until it was flush with the ground. Slowly, he walked through the woods with the pack over his shoulder.
Because tomorrow was going to be a very busy day he would sleep tonight. In the morning, he would go into the house to collect the tape and he'd find out exactly what it was they had been arguing about. Their marriage was at the breaking point, and that gave Watcher a decidedly warm feeling. If things were allowed to run their natural course, the once perfect couple would break up and go their separate ways. Time was too short for that to happen.
TWENTY
After Dr. McCarty left the house at five A.M. on Tuesday morning, Watcher went into the garage and removed the GPS from under Ward's BMW and dropped it into his rucksack along with the stuffed bear. Inside the house he collected his recorder, since he wasn't going to need video going forward from here. He moved silently through the house collecting the other cameras and microphones that were tied into the recorder, leaving only the ones that transmitted so he could access them remotely.
He looked at the thrown- back covers and he leaned down so his face was inches above the sheets. Watcher drank in the scent of the doctor. Smiling, he made up the bed, pulling the sheets and spread tight enough to bounce a quarter on, and all the while wondering what it was going to be like to get a good look at her internal organs.
He looked at the curtains and couldn't see the microphone that was pinned into the top seam. There had been no need to visually record people sleeping.
He eased Dr. McCarty's door closed and crossed to the bedroom where Ward slept. He pressed his ear to the wood, and was rewarded with the sound of McCarty's light snoring. He pressed down the lever carefully, eased the door open. Watcher moved to the foot of the bed, studying the sleeping man's relaxed face. The man was still wearing the clothes he'd been wearing the evening before. Watcher put his hand to the hilt of the survival knife, and suppressed the desire to do something like slit the shirt off Ward's body. Watcher tensed when Ward suddenly rolled over onto his side, but he doubted he'd awaken yet. The Scotch should be good for another few hours.
It was odd, standing there studying a man sleeping like he didn't have a care in the world. And it was exhilarating to know you would be carving him up in forty hours, give or take. Deciding he should not do anything more, he left the room, closing the door behind him.
He went into the child's bedroom, opened the dresser, and placed a special object he'd fashioned under the child's folded underwear.
Outside, the heat hit him like a blast from an open oven door. Watcher made a beeline up through the woods, passing his hide. He kept going until he arrived at the back door of the small house in the subdivision that bordered the McCarty acres. He went to the guest bedroom, his media room, and listened to the audio of the dinner conversation he'd captured. He especially enjoyed the part about the baseball. Being in denial, not seeing themselves as evil people, they dismissed the idea that someone from the outside could violate their precious and expensive security system. The McCarty home was a house divided, and it was going to get much worse.
He looked at the stuffed bear, picked it up, and pressed the hand to hear the message a mother had put there for a child who could never hear it again. He laughed and, holding the animal by its arms, made the bear perform a dance of death.
TWENTY-ONE
At 7:43 A.M. Alice Palmer parked her battered Toyota in the student lot and walked away without locking it. Investigator Todd Hartman moved at an angle across a grassy knoll to intercept her on the walkway leading to the nearby campus buildings. Even if Todd hadn't seen her driver's license and student ID pictures on- line, he would have recognized her from Ward McCarty's description, accurate right down to her rainbow nails.
Head down and wearing a baggy tie- dyed T-shirt, cutoff denim shorts, and yellow flip- flops, she approached in a thin line of students trickling from the parking lot.
When she was ten feet away, Todd stepped into her path.
“Alice Palmer,” he said, turning on his warmest smile.
Blocked by the imposing stranger, she stopped and stared up at him. When she grimaced, her braces glittered.
“My name is Todd Hartman. I'm an investigator.”
“Good for you,” she said, her eyes suddenly suspicious, “I got a class. See ya.” But she didn't try to go around him.
“We need to talk for just a minute,” Todd said.
She looked down. “About what? You think I did something, Officer?”
“I'm a private investigator and my client has hired me to retrieve something for him he believes might be in your possession.”
“Who?” Her eyes looked right then left ner vously to take in the students walking past.
“There's something he may have left on a plane and he really hopes you were kind enough to pick up for him. You sat beside him Sunday on the flight from Las Vegas.”
Todd saw it register in her little kleptomaniac mind, and, almost as quickly she was weighing the various routes of escape open to her. He had given her plenty of wiggle room, and a way to save face. She wouldn't have to admit any wrongdoing.
“I didn't take his little toy car,” she said, cutting her eyes to the right.
“I didn't say it was a little toy car, Alice.”
“You sure did. So, I hope he finds it,” she said, skirting him.
“There's a reward,” Todd said to her back. “A rather substantial one, I suspect.”
She stopped and turned. “How substantial?”
“That model car meant a lot to his son. This is purely a sentimental item for him.”
“Well, he said he didn't have kids. Is he like a liar?”
“His son is dead. If you can help him, he would really appreciate it.” Todd took a card from his shirt pocket and held it out to her. “Maybe it fell into your bag and you didn't even realize it.”
“I'll check and if it somehow did, I'll call you. And you'll…”
“Pay you a cash reward of five hundred dollars. Everybody makes out. No questions asked, no police involvement.”
“Cool,” she said cheerfully, as she took the card. “You know, he said he'd give me a free toy car.”
“He'll be happy to do that. He asked me to talk to you because he just wants his son's car back.”
A slight smile blossomed in her eyes and she combed her hair back with short fingers. “Are you sure he didn't send you because he was like attracted to me? He was, you know.” She smiled at Todd, and walked away with a spring in her step that hadn't been there before.
Todd watched her, thinking.
Something about the odd- looking girl made him uneasy. History told him that big trouble often sprang from small boxes.
TWENTY-TWO
It took a concerted effort for Ward to open his eyes. Lying on the bed in his clothes, his body felt heavy. He could tell he'd overslept by the angle of the sun's rays stretched across the floor. He stood and went into the bathroom to shower, and after, as he shaved, he studied his face in the mirror. The still- young man staring back at
