CHAPTER SIXTY-TWO

Tyler watched from his Xterra as Jennifer left the church and walked half a block toward home. He saw Lila Walden’s blue Nissan pull over to the curb and Jennifer get in the car. Tyler had installed a listening device in Lila’s car, but he couldn’t access it from the Xterra. This working as a one-man operation was a real handicap. At the FBI, he’d have had backup. Someone would have been monitoring all this shit for him. He slapped his hand on the steering wheel. “Crap!”

The exclamation made him grin. Lori had been hounding him not to swear in front of the kids, so he’d been trying to break the habit. Perhaps better curses had abandoned his vocabulary. Lori would be glad to know it.

Tyler followed Lila Walden to a rundown house on Davis Islands. The street lacked a satisfactory surveillance point, so he watched from the corner as Lila parked the car and the two women entered the unkempt house. Then he drove around the block seeking to park and wait.

Ronald Walden’s truck was not in the immediate area. When the truck had fallen off the radar, Tyler had had a tough choice to make. He’d picked Lila as the one most likely to lead him to Ronald. So Tyler had been following Lila for days, but Ronald’s old red truck never returned home. Tyler hadn’t caught sight of it, even once. Maybe he’d get lucky here on Como Street.

When Jennifer and Lila left the house about an hour later, the truck still had not appeared, dashing Tyler’s hopes. “Crap!” he said again. He started the car and followed Lila back to Jennifer’s apartment. After that, he followed Lila home.

Once back in her neighborhood, he settled into his favorite spot on North C, down a couple of blocks from the Waldens’ but with a clear view of the front of the house and the driveway. He was almost invisible there, he knew. And he was a patient man. He could wait.

An old drunk like Ronald Walden wouldn’t find it easy to start a new life. He’d come home eventually. Tyler was a patient man.