"Do you have a plan?"
"Working on it."
"May I make a suggestion?"
"Always."
I proposed we handle this as a two-man police raid, using a variation on standard procedures for infiltrating un-occupied buildings. Unlike an occupied area, here there was a good likelihood that our welcoming party wasn't at 510 H.G. Wells Boulevard at all, but in an adjoining town-house, or even across the road, watching for us through a sniper's sight.
The condos were row houses, with two basic styles--carport to the left and carport to the right. That meant we could investigate the one beside it, and expect to find the s
ame floor plan reversed at 510.
Jack removed his gold; I put away the blond wig and jewelry--things that could catch the light. Then I scooped up dirt from the unfinished roadway, added bottled water, and we daubed it on our faces. I would have loved a Kevlar vest, but apparently the wire in my push-up bra was all the body armor I was getting. So I donned my gloves, took a deep breath and opened the door.
"Forgetting something?" he said.
I looked at him.
"Gun." He reached under his jacket. "Here. Take my backup."
"That's okay--"
"Take it."
As he thrust the gun at me, I opened my jacket and showed him the Glock. "See? I didn't leave it back at the hotel."
"Yeah. Just in the car."
He got out. I followed.
Desolate. Some words evoke images; others, emotions. Desolate is a shivers-up-the-spine word, full of loneliness and emptiness. And, as we approached unit 510, the word sprang to mind and lodged there.
Empty houses stood stark against the darkness, looking not half finished, but half ruined. Tarps over the windows and roofs billowed like spirits chained to the houses, flapping and slapping in the wind as they struggled to fly free. Behind us lay the desert, sand blowing in to reclaim the subdivision.
I shivered. Jack glanced over at me.
"Cold?" he whispered.
"A little," I lied.
"It's the wind. Better inside."
The modern condos loomed around me, scarier than any moldering Victorian mansion. I knew they weren't haunted--stuff like that doesn't bother me. You have to believe in the supernatural to be frightened by it. What spooked me was the desolation, as if it were a force that could reach up and swallow me.
We started at the last house in the row, secreting ourselves in its rear shadows, and creeping toward unit 510. We stopped at the unit to the left, and slipped behind the tarp to the largest window. Like most of the others, the glass hadn't been installed yet and the frame stood open.
Jack laced his fingers to help me through.
* * *
THIRTY-NINE
Inside, I paused to let my vision adjust and give me time to focus, pushing past the frustration. My heart was thumping.
We had work to do, a solid lead to follow--a name even--but we were stuck here chasing down another would-be attacker. Somewhere out there, Wilkes was stalking his next mark and I would fail, again, to stop him. Fail to save another victim, not through my inexperience or ineptitude, but because some two-bit thug was holding me back. Well, this thug wouldn't walk away.
When my eyes adjusted, I looked around to locate all the entrances--all the ways someone could sneak in here and see me--but the whole main level was a big entry point. The interior walls were naked stud-work. There was one front door, one back door, a basement door, a half-dozen open windows and a stairwell leading to the second level.