Stalking …

She turned on the TV, a commercial network with a lot of commercials, so the many random flickers from the screen on the window shade would suggest someone was inside. She pulled on the only night-op camouflage she had: a navy sport coat, black jeans and a burgundy T-shirt. The outfit would have to do. For shoes, Aldo pumps; she had no tactical boots.

Finally ready, Dance slipped outside and stepped into the parking lot.

Her mission was to find out who might be the person with the bad habits of nicotine and, possibly, espionage. She’d just seen the glow of the cigarette again, in nearly the same place that she’d seen it earlier, in the park across the road. The smoker was still there.

She glanced out from behind a Caravan filled with dog show paraphernalia and a bumper sticker bragging that the driver was the proud owner of a German shepherd smarter than your honor student.

Dance focused again on the tiny orange glow in a recess between two thick stands of pine.

Was the cigarette just a coincidence? Dance might have thought so except for the fact that Sheri Towne’s attacker had possibly been smoking. And that Edwin might still have the habit.

In any event, she wanted to get a glimpse of the person. If it was a teenage boy sharing a cigarette—or a joint—with his buddies, that would be that. If it was Edwin Sharp—or someone else she might have come in contact with recently—that would be a different matter.

Dance waited until a car entered the lot and drove past her, parking at the entrance. Then she stepped out of the shadows and made her way to the four-lane road and hurried across.

Very aware of the lightness on her hip where her pistol normally was, she circled wide and entered the park through one of the half dozen gaps in a rusty chain link fence.

She stayed close to the trees—the path through the playground would have offered a good view of her approach in the cool moonlight. She waved away lethargic but persistent late summer insects, and bats dipped close, dining on them. Keeping her eyes down to spot noisy vegetation and food wrappers, she moved forward steadily but slowed as she approached the cul-de-sac where the spy, or an innocent citizen, was ruining his health.

Twenty feet farther on she smelled cigarette smoke.

And she slowed even more, crouching.

She couldn’t see him yet but noted that the place where he was sitting seemed to be a picnic area; there were several tables nearby, all of them chained to thick concrete posts in the ground. Was table theft from public facilities a big problem in Fresno?

She moved closer yet, one careful step at a time.

The orange glow was evident but thick pine boughs completely obscured her view of the smoker, about twenty feet away.

She reached out and gripped the bough, moving it aside.

Squinting …

Oh, no! Dance gasped.