Privacy Code (Shatterproof) Read Online Free PDF Page A

the women he saw were experiencing while I was spending my Friday and Saturday nights watching movies and TV shows, or wrapped up in a blanket with a book.
    I was secure doing those things. Taking no chances. Living risk-free. Which was all fine, until I started to wonder just what I was missing with Watts.
    I had spent my entire life living by the old adage that you should hope for the best and prepare for the worst. I’d spent too much time doing that. It was only recently that I’d begun to look at it differently: Every day you don’t change dire ction is a wasted opportunity, another step closer to the day when you would wish you had taken more chances.
    When I woke up Friday morning, I was sure how I was going to answer him, and later that afternoon I sent him my answer.
     
    To: Watts
    From: Catherine
    Subj : Re: Meet
    Let’s do it.
    Catherine

 
     
    Chapter Six – Watts
     
     
    It was busier than usual in the bookshop for a Friday afternoon. A spring thunderstorm created a torrent on the streets, bent the trees, and brought lots of stragglers into the store.
    It was never particularly busy, and I always enjoyed when someone came in and we ended up discussing books. But that afternoon, all the patrons were simply looking for shelter until the spring storm settled down. I didn’t expect to do much business.
    It irked me. It threw the whole “rhythm” of the store off. I was accustomed to slow business, and using much of my free time to read.
    I stayed behind the counter, sitting on the stool, gently thumbing through a copy of Nabokov’s Lolita that bore a signature I was unable to authenticate. It looked real, which would be important in deciding how much it was worth, even though I’d paid nothing for it.
    Like many mornings, upon arrivin g to open the store that day, someone had left a box of books outside as if we were a Goodwill drop-off point.
    It happened all the time and usually it was a box of old paperbacks that we ren’t worth the paper they were printed on. Other times, people don’t know they have something valuable, and so they leave it outside the store and I’ll sell it for an amount that would have shocked them. It goes right into my “Go To Hell” fund, a stash of money I keep in a safe in my basement that I could grab if I had to flee the state or the country.
    . . . . .
     
    I had read Catherine’s response earlier, but I hadn’t yet written her back. I was deciding how to handle the situation.
    I wasn’t backing out, I just needed to set this up properly. I’d told her about never taking women to my house, and how I usually got a room at a mid-range hotel, sometimes even a cheap one, depending upon the circumstances. But I wasn’t going to do it like that with Catherine.
    Everything else would be the same, though. I’d never see her again. I couldn’t. Letting someone get too close to me meant danger. I had no way of explaining that to her without having her potentially freaking out, so early on I had planted the idea that I was simply a guy who avoided c ommitment for personal reasons.
    True? No. Fair? Yes.
    At least she knew up front.
    By four o’clock, with the spring storm coming to an end, people had already made their way out onto the humid post-storm sidewalks, none of them having made a single purchase, which didn’t surprise me.
    The day dragged on until it was time to close up and do my real work.
     
    . . . . .
     
    By 7 p.m. I was in position outside the house I was checking out in Laurel, Maryland. I sat in a rental car, listening to an Orioles game on the radio, watching the house.
    The stakeouts were the most annoying part of any operation I went on. They rarely went quickly, usually lasting a few hours. Sometimes an entire night, if the people were home, and that meant I couldn’t go in and get my job done until morning, when they left.
    As always, my car was packed for a long night. Charger for my phone. Binoculars. A small cooler bag with a sandwich and a