Hiding in the cover, waiting for their prey to arrive, took her back to the stakeouts of her own police days. It took her even further back than that, to the brisk Fall days when her father and her uncle would take her hunting when she was finally old enough to share the experience with them. It might not have been a “typical” activity for a teenaged girl, but she had loved it, even on the days when they had to return empty-handed. The year she was finally old enough to have her own gun and her own hunting license had been an extra thrill. She had bagged her first pheasant that year. The next year, she had brought down her first deer, a six-point buck, with one clean, killing shot.
***
Time passed. The half moon overhead slowly moved higher. The only movements Claudia made were small shi
