Naked Risk (Shatterproof #3) Read Online Free PDF Page A

gave him only the basics—how we met, how we finally actually met in person, how much time we’d been spending together, and most importantly, just her first name.
    It was late afternoon, going on toward four o’clock. The neighborhood had been bustling an hour earlier with the arrival of several school buses. Parents waited on street corners. Kids got off the buses and ran, their too-large backpacks weighing them down. A couple of young boys had started tossing a plastic football. All of that had cleared up inside of five or so minutes, as I told him about Catherine, and the neighborhood had quieted down once again.
    “Daniel Watts, you sneaky fuck.”
    “I get paid to be sneaky,” I said. “And let me remind you that you do as well. This stays between us.”
    “No problem. I’m sure our fine Mr. McDowell knows?”
    I was silent for a moment , drifting away in thought. I watched two cars go down the street. One was a real estate agent, the other a minivan with those little white stickers on the rear window indicating how many people were in their family. An exterminator truck rounded the corner, heading my way.
    “You there, Watts?”
    “Yeah, McDowell knows. He knows it all, just like he always does. And he doesn’t approve.”
    “Fuck him.”
    I didn’t respond. Instead, I watched a woman walking a dog down the sidewalk, letting the animal stop and squat in one of her neighbor’s yards. The woman had put her hand into a plastic bag and used it to pick up after the dog. Another woman, a younger one several doors down, walked down her driveway to the mailbox, talking on the phone as she went.
    Just a normal day in suburban America. Nice lawns. People out for a walk and getting some exercise. Others in their cars on the way to the grocery store, perhaps. And a house full of Chechen terrorists right down the block. Jesus, the things people don’t know about their neighbors. Or anyone, really, which brought me back to Catherine.
    “There’s more to this,” I said to Spencer. “She works at the FBI.”
    Now there was silence on his end, but only long enough for him to come up with the question that I knew he would. “Are you using her for inside information?”
    I laughed. “No. I knew you’d ask that, though, which is why I didn’t tell you what she does there.” I explained her job to him.
    “That sounds boring as all hell, but I can see why McDowell’s pressing you. So what’s the plan? What are you going to do?”
    I didn’t respond.
    “Hello, hello? Damn cheap phones.”
    I said, “I’m here. Hang on a second.”
    I sank down in my seat, lifting the camera, zooming in to make sure I was really seeing what I thought I was. A Fed-Ex delivery guy rang the doorbell, then knocked, and got no response. He went back to his truck and stacked several boxes on the front porch.
    “What’s going on?” Spencer asked. “Everything okay?”
    “Give me a minute.”
    I got out of the van with clipboard in hand, wearing work boots, navy blue pants, matching shirt and jacket and a baseball cap. If anyone tried to talk to me, I was prepared to launch into a sales pitch for satellite TV.
    I had my shoulder holster concealed beneath a blue jacket, my gun ready.
    I walked up the sidewalk to the front porch, got the name of the company off the label and returned to the van. I quickly Googled the company name and confirmed what I’d been thinking on the walk back.
    I knew what was inside the boxes from the ir shape and the obvious weight of them from watching the Fed-Ex guy lift them.
    “We’re not going to find any bom b-making materials in the house,” I said into the phone.
    “What do you mean?”
    The six boxes contained ammunition. “They’re not going to blow up anything. It’s going to be a mass shooting.”
    “Christ,” Spencer said. “Two houses, and now this method? Yo ur team is going to walk into a virtual ammunition depot. How complicated is this going to get?”
    It didn’t have to get