4th of July

Chapter 39

THE WATCHER NERVOUSLY STROKED the steering wheel as he waited for Lorelei O’Malley to leave the house. It was bad news that he had to go in again.

At last, the silly-ass woman exited her house in her shopping outfit du jour and locked the door behind her. She gunned her little red Mercedes down Ocean Colony Road without looking back.

The Watcher got out of his car. He was wearing a blue sport jacket and slacks, dark sunglasses—what a field supervisor from the telephone company might wear. He walked quickly toward the house.

As he had before, the Watcher stooped at the basement window well and pulled on gloves. Then, slicing through the caulking with the blade of his hunting knife, he removed the pane of glass and dropped into the basement.

He moved swiftly through the house, up the stairs to the O’Malleys’ bedroom. Once there, he opened the closet, pushed aside a raft of dresses, and examined the video camera on the shelf attached to the back wall.

The Watcher took the tape out of the camera and slipped it into a pocket. He took another tape at random from a messy stack of tapes on the same shelf, resisting the impulse to tidy the rest. Then he took a packet of photos from the nightstand drawer.

He’d only been in the house for two minutes and twenty seconds when he heard the front door slam.

His mouth went dry. In all his days of watching this house, no one had ever come back after leaving for the morning. The Watcher went to the closet and crouched beneath a shimmying curtain of skirts. He reached up and closed the door.

The carpet dampened the sound of footsteps, and the Watcher was startled when the doorknob turned. He had no time to think. The closet door opened, the clothing parted—and the Watcher was revealed, crouching like a thief.

Lorelei O’Malley gasped out loud and clutched at her breast, then her face darkened.

“I know you,” she said. “What are you doing here?”

The knife was already in his hand. Lorelei saw it and let out a piercing scream. The Watcher felt he had no choice. He lunged forward, the long blade popping buttons off her blue silk dress as it slid into her belly.

Lorelei twisted, trying to escape the knife, but the Watcher held her tightly in what could have passed for a lover’s embrace.

“Oh. God. Why are you doing this?” she moaned, her eyes rolling back, her voice fading to a sigh.

Pressing his hand against the small of her back, the Watcher sliced the blade up through the soft tissues of Lorelei’s abdominal cavity, severing her aorta. The blood didn’t spray; it poured from the woman’s body like water from a bucket until her knees gave and she fell onto the shoes lining the closet floor.

The Watcher knelt and touched two fingers to her carotid artery. Her eyelids flickered faintly. She would be dead in seconds.

He had just enough time to do what needed to be done. He pushed up her blue skirt, took off his belt, and whipped Lorelei O’Malley’s buttocks until she was dead in her clothes closet.