Crosscut by Archer Mayor

Author:Archer Mayor
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: St. Martin's Press

Read on for a preview of Bomber’s Moon

Coming in September 2019

Copyright 2019

BOMBER’S MOON

CHAPTER 1

It was cold, dark, and slightly breezy, causing a few dry snowflakes to scurry the length of Sally Kravitz’s windshield. Across the street from her parked car was an example of some urban set designer’s fantasy. Soaked in muted, indirect mood lighting, and displayed, as on a theater stage, behind two enormous plate-glass windows was an awkwardly arranged tableau of British pub, Old West watering hole, and Yuppie fern brew bar. The building housing it had been built long ago as a car dealership, however, and its windows intended not for picturesque intimacy, but to allow a full view of chrome-glazed behemoths within.

Sally shifted in her seat and adjusted her wool scarf, at once envying the contented patrons enjoying the warmth of a movie prop–perfect castiron stove, while sensitive to how it must feel to have those two huge sheets of black glass reflecting back at them, ironically forbidding any view of the outdoors, or, indeed, of her looking in.

She wasn’t watching all of them, of course. Only Tom Morris, suspected of philandering by his wife—who’d hired Sally to “catch him in the act,” as she’d quaintly put it.

That wasn’t happening right now, however. Tom Morris was eating nuts at the bar, chatting with a male neighbor, and drinking a craft beer.

Sally gently let out a puff of air, away from the windshield, so as not to fog it up. There were private investigators who liked surveillance jobs—preferred them, in fact. She wasn’t among them. But the wife in this situation was the mother of a friend, and from what Sally had been told, Tom—already an interloper because of being the stepfather—also wasn’t deemed very smart, and therefore was expected to misstep sooner than later, thereby ending Sally’s obligation.

She leveled her long-lens camera and took a picture of Tom and his companion, to have the latter on record. She’d been a PI for a few years only, but she already knew the value of keeping an open mind and collecting more than she might need. It was often the small, unexpected details that shifted the scales in a case’s favor.

While it didn’t apply to her, a large number of private eyes were retired police, given by their training to closing cases quickly, and with a prosecutorial outlook. Sally didn’t fault their past training under demanding bosses, in dangerous work environments, and at low wages for creating a certain narrow-minded efficiency.

But she’d developed a different style. To be fair, she’d never routinely been in harm’s way as had so many ex-cops. When things got dangerous for her, as they did occasionally, she could always take off. The freedom accompanying that option had encouraged a corresponding ability to frequently reflect and weigh her choices before acting.

Like now, watching Tom. He’d told his wife he’d be late getting home, as he’d be tied up in meetings. That much was a lie, although seemingly an innocent one, but where, to another

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