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Watching.
Watching them all. Especially that little Barratt realtor and Gordon’s girl Hallie. Well, Haldyn now. She didn’t go by Hallie any longer.
Maybe she thought Haldyn sounded more professional or something.
But at least Heather was there.
He loved watching her. She had those two baby girls of hers with her now. He could just see little feet kicking in that baby carrier she held in one hand. She held her older girl on her hip with her other.
That one looked just like her momma. Even from a distance. Even wore her long dark hair just like her momma’s today.
Heather looked almost human. Far less snarly. Motherly and soft. Caring. Not like the cold, ruthless bitch she acted like at the TSP at all.
This wasn’t a complete waste of time or nothing.
Sol could spend hours watching Heather.
He liked it best when she was holding that baby of hers. It made her look womanly and sweet and beautiful. Madonna-like or something. Not quite as much a bitch as some men at the TSP said she was.
Now, she stood next to Gordon’s oldest girl. He’d seen Gordon’s youngest girl walking around the place, too, he thought. Gordon’s girls always had been tall, slim, pretty strawberry-blond things.
He missed his friend. Gordon had understood him. Had had his back. Sol would have to swing by Gordon’s place. Say hi or something.
The things they’d done together, back when Gordon’s eldest was no more than ten or eleven, they’d helped him remember what mattered besides the TSP. Hell, that must have been twenty years back. Before his ex had left him, long before.
When Sol had almost had half a decent life. Until he’d fucked it up.
Sol had his twenty in now. Maybe he should retire. Go to the private sector. There were uses for men like him out there. For hire. Or, he had enough money, he could volunteer or something. He didn’t have to work. He could live off his pension and stuff. His house was paid for and everything.
There was a youth shelter on Boethe and Forty-Third, he thought. Maybe he could do some actual good. Atone.
Maybe he could do something with his life now. Make Maribeth proud, if she was looking down from above. Watching her old man or something.
He flexed his hand. Bruises still stung, but they were fading a bit. Not visible at least. Hell, he was getting old. These damned bruises should have been gone by now.
Gordon looked for Hallie. To make sure she was doing okay.
There she was. Not that far from that sister of hers. Girls didn’t look much like their daddy now. He’d always wondered if Brenda hadn’t played Gordon false with those girls. Other than the red in their hair, they didn’t look much like Gordon at all. Especially that youngest one there. Hell, girl had to be five ten or eleven. Gordon was only around five nine or so, and burly with it. And the girls were so thin. Both Gordon’s girls had their mother’s bone structure, no denying that.
Sol didn’t know what made him do it, but he followed the elder Harris girl. Just to see where she was going.
Every time he saw her now the guilt threatened to do him in. Her, and that little sweetheart Madison.
They had been told to send a message to Charlie Fields.
That was it. Send a message.
Not fucking kill four women or nothing.
Taking that fourth woman, the one who had married MacNamara after, well, that hadn’t been something he had wanted to do at all.
But he’d done it. To protect his own hide.
And Sol knew how to keep his mouth shut.
He stepped onto the landscaped path, and followed.
He glanced over, toward Heather’s identical twin nieces. The teenage ones—he’d seen a pair of younger identical ones roaming around with all those Coleson kids, too.
