Deceived (Private Justice Book #3): A Novel by Irene Hannon

the car in seconds.
    He sent her a rueful look. “Sorry. Doing surveillance in theheat—or cold—is one of the less glamorous aspects of being a PI.”
    “It’s not too bad yet.” She regarded his window. “You’re leaving that closed?”
    “To keep out prying eyes. I’ll lower it partway to take pictures—after the camera’s in front of my face.”
    “Seems very clandestine.”
    “Careful.”
    She conceded his point with a bob of her head, then motioned to the fast-food restaurant off to the side behind them. “At least this lot was conveniently located for our purposes.”
    “Yeah. I scoped the area out on my way home last night, and believe me, this is better than some of the places I’ve had to hole up.” Far better. He reached back, grabbed two cases from the backseat, and handed her one. “Binoculars. Go ahead and adjust them to your eyes.”
    “There are a few cars pulling into the lot already.” She gestured toward the daycare center as she opened the case.
    “That’s why I wanted to get here early.” He removed his own binoculars from the case, set them on the console between their seats, and reached into the back again for his camera.
    She fitted the binoculars to her eyes as he took the digital camera out of its case, twisted on the 100–300 mm zoom, and verified that the glare filter was in place. The last thing he wanted was a beam of sunlight bouncing off the glass in the lens. A careless sniper could lose his life that way—and a PI could lose the tactical advantage of covert surveillance. Once you were made, the job got a whole lot harder.
    Not going to happen on his watch.
    “These are really powerful.” Kate lowered the binoculars and inspected the camera. “And that’s an impressive piece of equipment.”
    “Let’s hope we need it.” He set it beside him. “Here’s howI’d like to work this. We’ll both watch the arrivals with our binoculars. If either of us has any suspicion a particular child might be the boy you saw, I’ll snap some shots. We can evaluate them later.”
    “Sounds reasonable.”
    “Then get set, because the rush is about to start.” He motioned toward the parking lot in front of the center, where cars were beginning to disgorge adults toting babies, toddlers, and young children.
    Kate leaned forward, planted her right elbow on the dash, and angled sideways to aim the binoculars at the entrance. That posture was going to get old fast, and she’d end up with a crick in her neck, but there wasn’t much he could do about it. He needed his window positioned for photography.
    As silence fell in the car, Connor put his own binoculars to use and settled in for the duration of the rush period.
    Ten minutes passed.
    “Blond boy at seven o’clock.”
    He felt Kate shift beside him as he spoke. “That’s not him.”
    Several more minutes ticked by as the sun rose and the pink hue of the sky began to morph into blue.
    “Another blond boy at eleven o’clock.” Kate’s tone was taut. “I’m waiting for him to move into a spot where I can see him better . . . he’s the right height, and . . . no. It’s not him.” Disappointment etched her voice. “Wrong hair color. And he’s heavier than the boy I saw.”
    For the next hour and a half, as the sun continued to climb and sweat beaded on his forehead, Connor counted ten boys who could have been the youngster in the video grab. He would have taken photos of them all, except Kate was certain eight of the ten weren’t the boy she’d seen—and she was very skeptical about the other two.
    As daycare traffic began to slow around seven-thirty, she setthe binoculars in her lap, rotated her neck, and brushed back some strands of hair that were clinging to her forehead.
    “How are you holding up?” He lowered his own binoculars and sized her up. The faint shadows under her eyes, hidden earlier in the dim morning light, told him she hadn’t slept well last night. Or, more likely, hadn’t slept well