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BORNE ON A CHILL OCTOBER wind, ragged clouds scudded past the sliver of moon, shifting the patterns of shadows on the scene below.
Sara settled next to Harold on the blanket she’d brought, put a navy ball cap on her head to cover her light hair, then set up a small telescope at her side. With luck, no one would see her. If someone did, she was ready.
Anyone thinking a woman alone might be easy prey would learn differently soon enough. Years of self-defense training and the Beretta semiautomatic in the holster at the small of her back were good insurance. The retired K-9 Patrol dog at her side was even better.
Besides drug detection, Harold had been trained for building searches, tracking, apprehension, and personal protection. He’d be a formidable ally in any confrontation.
Pulling out her night-vision binoculars, Sara scanned the parking lots to the south and east of the buildings. A handful of cars remained, nosed up to one of the side doors of the largest building like pups at a food dish. These didn’t belong to overtime workers, whose cars would still be in an orderly position within the painted lines of the lot.
Light shone from windows on the third floor of the building, but even with her powerful binoculars, she couldn’t detect what was going on behind the closed vertical blinds.
A Lexus pulled up—black? Dark blue or green?—and stopped at the west entrance. The driver punched something on the keypad at the gate, and the gate slid open. He drove without hesitation toward the group of cars. Scanning the empty parking lot as he stepped out of his car, he paused, then hurried to the door and disappeared inside.
Interesting. A meeting could run late, but one still drawing attendees at midnight hardly seemed likely. Reaching into her backpack, she withdrew a tiny voice-activated tape recorder and began describing what she was looking at. Then she pulled out her digital camera, screwed on a 300-mm telephoto lens, and snapped a series of pictures.
The distance was probably too great to pick up anything significant on those license plates, even if the photos were enlarged, but this was still the best position for surveillance.
On the ground, she’d have to cross a wide stretch of barren field to get close to the well-lit perimeter fencing, and she’d still be too far away to pick up those numbers. Any security guy glancing out a window would easily see her.
So far, she’d logged arrivals and departures of delivery trucks during the day. Learned the hours of the formally attired office workers and of the more casually dressed employees in the manufacturing area or warehouse.
She’d need to start making frequent trips up here at night to log any activities that occurred after the employees left. Were there many late-night deliveries? Shipments? And she needed to gain access to the buildings without raising suspicion.
Despite the deputy’s warning about the local job market, it might not be too hard. Allen Larson’s report and her casual jaunts during the day had helped her identify some of the employees, and even though she’d been gone for more than twelve years, she’d recognized the names and faces of a few.
Small towns, she thought dryly as she stroked Harold’s soft fur. For good or for bad, everybody knew everybody else and everybody else’s business, as well.
Perhaps she could call in a favor from someone she’d known in the past.
* * * *
THE CARS DIDN’T START leaving until after two in the morning. Cold, stiff, and tired, she stowed her camera away and surveyed the ground at her feet.
The rocky ground was ideal—there was no crushed grass to reveal her presence—but she took one last look to make sure she hadn’t left any evidence behind.
Shouldering her backpack, she picked up Harold’s leash and started down the trail back to town.
She’d gone maybe a dozen yards when branches rustled behind her. Her heart thumping heavily in her chest, she warned Harold to stay quiet. Then she reached for her weapon and spun around.
A split second later, two does and a massive ten or twelve-point buck bounded across the trail. They froze at the other side, as if they sensed her presence. Then in a heartbeat they were gone.
Harold whined eagerly, his tail wagging, some remnant of primitive instinct drawing him to the hunt despite his life as a well-fed urban dog. “Sorry, buddy,” she whispered. “Not a good idea.”
The rest of the way down the hill, she moved with greater stealth, her senses trained on the dark undergrowth at either side of the trail. There were no wolves in this part of the country. Black bears prowled the deeper timber, but usually avoided humans and were rarely aggressive unless one inadvertently stepped between a mother and her cubs.
But there were other predators who were far less predictable—the two-legged variety. The deer had reminded her of her vulnerability. An awareness brought into sharper focus, because the farther she walked, the more she sensed that she wasn’t alone.
Someone—or something—was out here with her.
She felt it in the uneasy prickle at her nape. Knew it for a fact when Harold began walking closer to her, bumping her right leg, the hair raised along his back. Now and then a low growl rumbled through him.
Ahead, the timber thinned into an expanse of underbrush, then opened into the broad meadow she’d crossed on the way up. The open area offered no cover for anyone stalking her—but afforded her no protection, either.
She broke into a fast jog, Harold loping along beside her, then slowed as she entered the heavier darkness of the hardwoods and birch at the other side.
She looked back. There was no one on the trail behind her. For anyone to follow unseen, he or she would have had to skirt the perimeter of the meadow. Had it all been her imagination?
Her heart rate slowing, she followed the trail down to Dry Creek Road. Within a few hundred yards it intersected with Oak, the street running in front of the Sanderson plant, and soon the edge of Ryansville’s residential area came into view. In ten minutes she and Harold would be back in her snug little apartment.
