This wasn’t about gathering tactical information, not really.
Now Shepard was inside the crowded coffee shop, one step behind them in line, close enough to smell the girl’s shampoo. She spoke brightly to the tattooed person behind the register, placing their order while the tall man stood with his back to the counter and looked restlessly around the room. They stood close to each other, and from time to time she would glance up at him, would touch his hand with hers. They had some kind of personal relationship. Whoever he was, he was not just hired security. She was concerned about him.
Shepard wanted to know them somehow, the girl and the tall man both. How it was done, to walk through the world with another person. To have someone touch your hand, to have it mean something. He told himself it was research, for his retirement. Maybe that was it. Maybe it was something else. Another deep signal from within.
He wondered if it was possible for him to live a different way than he did now, so separate from other human beings. Where his only moments of true human contact were with those whose lives he ended. This tug he felt, this urge for connection, to get inside another’s mind in a profound way, did other people feel it, too? If so, how did they accomplish those connections?
Now he noticed that the tall man was different inside the coffee shop. Like a dog with his hackles up. Shepard wondered if the man had the same radar that Shepard had so carefully cultivated, the ability to feel someone watching, someone behind him.
The tall man definitely felt something. He was on high alert, looking carefully around the room with a behavior that Shepard recognized in himself. Checking the exits, the lines of fire, each person and their positions and where their attention was directed. The tall man was following old habits, perhaps compulsively. But he didn’t look at Shepard longer than anyone else, didn’t appear to have identified Shepard as the source of his unease. Shepard was good at being invisible.
When it was Shepard’s turn in line, he ordered a simple coffee, because it would be faster than the tall man’s double espresso and the girl’s triple tall mocha. He killed time fussing with the cream and sugar so that he could walk out of the place right behind them.
He saw when it happened, in the open air. The tall man’s shoulders dropped and the slight flush fell from his face. He was still watchful outside, still ready for whatever might come, but he didn’t seem threatened in the busy urban environment, even though it had many more possible dangers. Even though Shepard was right behind him.
The man had felt threatened indoors.
That could be useful.
The couple walked back toward their car, Shepard just a few steps behind them. The man did have a slight limp in the medical boot, but Shepard noticed something else, too. He was left-handed, and obviously wanted that hand free, likely because he was carrying a weapon within easy reach. But holding his coffee in his right hand, he carried himself a little differently. Shepard could see it, the slight protection of the right side. Some injury there, a wound or pulled muscle.
Shepard felt an odd sense of relief.
Having seen the tall man close up, seen how he moved, how he assessed the room, Shepard knew he was extremely dangerous. Every bit as dangerous as Shepard.
But the tall man wasn’t at full strength.
They got back in the green minivan, and Shepard made his way more quickly to his own car.
He followed them downtown to Nordstrom. When they went inside, he took the opportunity to attach a small magnetized GPS beacon to the underside of their car.
It would simplify finding them again when necessary.
34
PETER
So Nicolet didn’t tell you anything?”
“Just that I’m in over my head,” he said. “Which I already knew.”
On a side street four blocks from the YMCA, Peter was trading license plates with an identical minivan while June watched for police cars. Most people didn’t even know their own plate number, so he figured it would be a while before the owner of the other van noticed his plates were wrong. With all the cameras, he and June were losing invisibility by the minute, and he didn’t want to buy another vehicle. He liked the Honda.
“At least you got to hit an attorney,” said June. “Check that off your life list.”
Peter shook his head as he screwed the stolen plate to their rear bumper. “I kind of liked him, actually. He was pretty tough.”
“I don’t think you get to Nicolet’s level without being tough.”
Peter stood and walked around to the passenger side. “Who’s first?”
Their next chore was to search the houses of the dead men.
“Alvarez is closest,” June said, and stepped on the gas. It was after three.
According to June’s research, the hunters’ driver’s licenses had their most recent addresses.