A huge crash of water and the spray must have tickled the children. They seemed to giggle. The father gestured them to go some feet closer to the end. He aimed his Nikon and shot.

Grandmother remained on the trail, some distance. Mother was about twenty feet behind her husband and children. March noticed she was calling. But the roar of the ocean on this windy evening was loud. The man probably couldn’t hear.

Another huge wave, exploding on the gray-and-brown rocks. For a moment the children weren’t visible. He glanced at the screen and saw a rainbow in the angled sunlight.

Then there were the children once more, oblivious, looking down at the water as their father directed them closer yet to the terminus point of the rocks.

March now noted that out to sea a large wave was gaining strength.

The lens of his camera app was pointed their way but his concentration wasn’t on the video he was taking. He was looking at the swelling wave.

Fifty yards, forty.

Water travels fast even though it is, of course, the largest moving thing on earth. And this behemoth began to race.

Closer, closer, come on…

March’s palms sweated. His gut thudded as he thought: Please, I want this…

Thirty yards.

The wave beginning to sharpen into a peak at the crest, God’s palm to slap the family to their deaths.

Twenty-five yards.

Twenty…

It was then that the mother had had enough. She charged forward, unsteady on the slippery rocks, and stepped in front of her husband, who gestured angrily with his hands.

Would her husband ignore her? Stand up to the bitch, March thought. Please.

Fifteen yards away, that huge swell of water.

His breathing was coming fast. Just thirty more seconds. That’s all I need.

But the woman stepped stridently past her husband, her face dark, and strode up to her children.

Ten…

She took them by the hands and, raging at them too, dragged the bewildered youngsters back toward the trail. The husband followed, his face blank.

The wave struck the rocks and inundated the spot where the children had been standing seconds before. It had plenty of energy to sweep father and children into the water. Even more frustrating, March judged from the angle, they would have been slammed into the rocks just in front of him, then sucked into a churning mass of ocean nearby.

He lowered the phone.

The parents and children, their backs turned to the rocks, hadn’t seen the dramatic detonation of fiery water. Only the grandmother had. She said nothing but swiveled arthritically and followed her brood along the path.

March sighed. He was angry. One last glance at the foolish, oblivious family. He found his teeth jammed together.

The hollowness within him spread, like water melting salt.

Somebody’s not happy… Not happy at all.

He climbed into the car and started the engine. He’d return to the Cedar Hills Inn and continue his plans for the next event in the Monterey area. It would be even better than Solitude Creek. He had another task too, of course. In this business you had to be beyond cautious. Part of that was learning who was hunting for you.