I measured, taking mental notes until I was reasonably sure I could find him in a crowd.

So I could follow him. But could I kill him? Here? Now?

My free hand slid under my jacket, finding the gun I’d taken from the car. I pulled it out, getting a feel for the unfamiliar weapon. Tested the weight and slid my hand around the grip, my gaze still on my target, cell phone still at my ear, my mind only half focused on the gun, but automatically running through the details—how close I’d need to get, the quirks of this particular model. My fingers were as keen as a wine connoisseur’s nose, recognizing the gun by feel, regurgitating everything I knew about this model.

There was a perfectly placed pickup in the front row, but with no vehicle on either side, it was too exposed. Next best location? The SUV one row away, with a minivan on the other side. Dark tinted windows meant I could creep up the side of the vehicle and take the shot over the hood, hidden behind the cab.

I slid the cell phone into my pocket and the gun into the holster. Then I set out, darting from oversized vehicle to oversized vehicle, leapfrogging across three rows. I slipped up along the SUV and checked my trajectory. Perfect. Target in sight and in line.

As I watched him, the world around seemed to constrict, like looking through a spyglass, everything focused on that one patch of the universe. The rumble of conversation from the smoking pit fell to a whisper. The bright sun faded, my eyes opening wider behind my sunglasses. The smell of cigarettes and exhaust disappeared. All I saw, all I cared about, was him.

I let myself hang there, in that pocket. One moment to revel in the exhilaration of total focus. Then, slowly, I closed my eyes, inhaled and shifted out of the bubble. As blissful as it was, I couldn’t stay there. Too cut off from the world, too unaware of my surroundings.

I traced my finger over the gun grip, but didn’t unholster it. Finding the perfect shot was step one. Deciding whether to take it was another.

This man still posed a threat. A hitman doesn’t drop a job when the first attempt fails, not unless he’s been made. So he’d try again, which was reason enough to kill him.

But killing him here was risky. Although I saw no cameras, this was a prison. There would be armed guards nearby. Yet should I decide he needed to die, all that would be merely obstacles, not barriers.

If I did this, though, I might never know who he was. A hitman hired by Evelyn? Someone sent by the Nikolaevs? Or the Helter Skelter killer himself?

I needed answers, and I wouldn’t get them by killing him. So I closed my jacket and withdrew to my first hiding place. I watched him for another twenty minutes. Then after one lingering look at his watch, he took keys from his pocket and started walking. I hurried back to my car.

He pulled out of the lot in a gray rental. I noted his license number and details of the vehicle itself, then waited until he was nearly out of sight before pursuing.

I followed the car along the highway, up the off-ramp and through the city streets. I stayed far enough back that he never saw me, but close enough that I never lost sight of him.

Finally, the car turned into a city-run parking lot. I pulled down a side alley, only to discover that I couldn’t see the sidewalk or the parking lot. No time to find a better place. I hurried from the car and crept alongside the building.

Near the end of the alley I dug into my purse and found what I wanted. Then I eased as close as I dared to the end of the alley, lifted the open makeup compact and angled the mirror.

The only people I saw were two elderly men heading toward me and a trio of teenage boys skateboarding in the opposite direction.

I was thinking of circling back when I caught a movement at the parking lot exit. A middle-aged executive, silver-haired, clean-shaven and bespectacled, briefcase swinging purposefully at his side. I sized him up against the man from the jail…then stepped back into the alley. Now I knew why he’d lingered in his car.

As I watched through my mirror, he crossed the road and marched away from me. A scant twenty feet later,