4th of July

Chapter 45

THE WATCHER WALKED ALONG the path through the dune grass under a slender crescent moon. He was wearing a wool cap and black sweats, and had his microcamera with the 103 zoom in hand.

He used it to watch a couple making out at the end of the beach, then he turned the lens toward the houses a hundred yards away on the outer loop of Sea View Avenue.

He narrowed his focus to one particular house: a blue Cape Cod with a lot of windows and a double set of sliders leading out to the deck. He could see Lieutenant Lindsay Boxer walking around in the living room.

Her hair was pinned up off her neck, and she was wearing a thin white T-shirt. Twirling a chain around her neck as she talked on the phone. He could see the outline of her breasts under that shirt.

Full but perky.

Nice tits, Lieutenant, sir.

The Watcher knew exactly who Lindsay was, what kind of work she did, and why she said she was in Half Moon Bay. But he wanted to know a lot more.

He wondered who she was talking to on the phone. Maybe the dark-haired guy who’d stayed over last night and had left in a black government-issue Town Car. He wondered about that guy: who he was and if he was coming back.

And he wondered where Lindsay kept her gun.

The Watcher took some pictures of Boxer, smiling, frowning, taking down her hair. Holding the phone between her shoulder and her chin, reaching, breasts moving as she did so, to put up her hair again.

As he watched, the dog crossed the room and lay down near the sliders, staring out through them—almost as if she were looking directly at him.

The Watcher walked a ways down the beach, toward the smooching lovers, then cut across the dune grass to a parking area where he’d left his car. Once inside, he took his notebook out of the glove box and turned to the tab with Lindsay’s name written in meticulous script.

Lieutenant Lindsay Boxer.

There was just enough glow from the streetlights to add to his notes.

He wrote: Wounded. Alone. Armed and dangerous.