WATCHERS by Dean R. Koontz

watching him.”

“Garrison would know,” she said firmly.

Travis nodded. “Yeah, I’m sure he would.”

“So it’s safe to call him.”

She was halfway to the phone when it rang.

The operator said, “I have a collect call for anyone from a Mr. Garrison

Dilworth in Santa Barbara. Will you accept the charges?”

A few minutes before ten o’clock, after conducting a thorough but fruitless

search of the park and beach, Lem reluctantly admitted that Garrison Dilworth

had somehow gotten past him. He sent his men back to the courthouse and harbor.

He and Cliff also drove back to the harbor to the sport yacht from which they

had based their surveillance of Dilworth. When they put in a call to the Coast

Guard cutter pursuing the Amazing Grace, they learned that the attorney’s lady

had turned around well short of Ventura and was heading north along the coast,

back to Santa Barbara.

She entered the harbor at ten thirty-six.

At the empty slip belonging to Garrison, Lem and Cliff huddled in the crisp

wind, watching her bring the Hinckley smoothly and gently into its mooring. It

was a beautiful boat, beautifully handled.

She had the gall to shout at them, “Don’t just stand there! Grab the lines and

help tie her up!”

They obliged primarily because they were anxious to speak with her and could not

do so until the Amazing Grace was secured.

Once their assistance had been rendered, they stepped through the railing gate.

Cliff was wearing Top-Siders as part of his boater’s disguise, but Lem was in

street shoes and not at all sure-footed on the wet deck, especially as the boat

was rocking slightly.

Before they could say a word to the woman, a voice behind them said, “Excuse me,

gentlemen—”

Lem turned and saw Garrison Dilworth in the glow of a dock lamp, just boarding

the boat behind them. He was wearing someone else’s clothes. His pants were much

too big in the waist, cinched in with a belt. They were too short in the legs,

so his bare ankles were revealed. He wore a voluminous shirt.

“—please excuse me, but I’ve got to get into some warm clothes of my own and

have a pot of coffee—”

Lem said, “God damn it.”

“—to thaw out these old bones.”

After a gasp of astonishment, Cliff Soames let out a hard bark of laughter, then

glanced at Lem and said, “Sorry.”

Lem’s stomach cramped and burned with an incipient ulcer. He did not wince with

pain, did not double over, did not even put a hand on his gut, gave no

indication of discomfort because any such sign from him might increase

Dilworth’s satisfaction. Lem just glared at the attorney, at the woman, then

left without saying a word.

“That damn dog,” Cliff said as he fell into step at Lem’s side on the dock,

“sure inspires one hell of a lot of loyalty.”

Later, bedding down in a motel because he was too tired to close the temporary

field office tonight and go home to Orange County, Lem Johnson thought about

what Cliff had said. Loyalty. One hell of a lot of loyalty.

Lem wondered if he had ever felt such a strong bond of loyalty to anyone as the

Cornells and Garrison Dilworth apparently felt toward the retriever. He tossed

and turned, unable to sleep, and he finally realized there was no use trying to

switch off his inner lights until he satisfied himself that he was capable of

the degree of loyalty and commitment that he had seen in the Cornells and their

attorney.

He sat up in the darkness, leaning against the headboard.

Well, sure, he was damn loyal to his country, which he loved and honored.

And he was loyal to the Agency. But to another person? All right, Karen.

His wife. He was loyal to Karen in every way—in his heart, mind, and gonads.

He loved Karen. He had loved her deeply for almost twenty years.

“Yeah,” he said aloud in the empty motel room at two o’clock in the morning,

“yeah, if you’re so loyal to Karen, why aren’t you with her now?”

But he wasn’t being fair to himself. After all, he had a job to do, an important

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