“Where is Forgotten Homes?”
“A Northeast neighborhood roughly bounded by Prospect Avenue on the east, Paseo Boulevard on the west, Fifteenth Street on the south, and Ninth Street on the north. All pretty rundown but a few worth rehabbing and renting if you can get decent tenants. I tried to talk Nick out of buying them, but the prices were right and he saw the houses as a way of paying for his retirement.”
“The houses are in foreclosure, but the bank hasn’t taken them over yet. I think Brett is hiding in one of them.”
“I’ll get you the addresses,” Lilly said, getting up from the table. “Terry, come with me.”
Terry shoved away from the table and followed her. A moment later, Lilly came back in the kitchen, Terry right behind her carrying a gun at his side. I came out of my chair, reaching for my gun, knowing I was too late.
“Relax, Jack,” Terry said. “It’s Lilly’s gun. She wants me to go with you.”
“I don’t doubt your desire to help Roni,” Lilly said, “but I can’t leave my granddaughter’s safety in the hands of a man who shakes. I’m sure you understand.”
Chapter Seventy-two
The houses were next door to one another on Eleventh Street east of Brooklyn, narrow, deep, and close, brick resting on exposed limestone foundations. They shared a driveway, one smaller, on the corner and sitting in the shadow of the other, its second-story windows shuttered with plywood. The lots across the street were vacant, the houses that once filled them long since decayed, destroyed, and bulldozed. A lone streetlight cast dim light on the pavement, the rest of the block dipped in pitch.
There were no cars parked in front of Nick Staley’s houses. The records I’d seen on Roni’s computer showed that they were vacant. The greater surprise would have been if the lights had been on and the driveway full.
I told Terry, “Circle the block. If they’re here, they probably parked and walked.”
He made two circles, the second one covering a two-block radius. We passed apartment buildings, a church, an elementary school, and houses alternating with vacant lots like jack-o’-lantern teeth. Dozens of cars were parked on the street, in driveways and parking lots.
We found a Ford Fusion in an alley behind an apartment building that looked like the one I’d seen Brett driving when he left Roni’s office on Monday, a Staley’s Market bag on the floor of the backseat enough confirmation for me. A Toyota Highlander was parked on the street a block away, the license tag a close match to my memory of the one on Roni’s car.
I told Terry to park on Brooklyn. He rolled to a stop fifty feet from the intersection with Eleventh beneath a heavily branched elm tree that hid us while providing a decent view of both houses. He settled back in his seat, drawing his gun from his belt and resting it against his thigh.
I pointed at the gun. “You know how to use that?”
He racked the slide, confirmed there was a round in the chamber, put the safety in the on position, and returned it to his lap, the muzzle pointed at the gas pedal.
“Learned in the Army. It’s like riding a bike.”
“Range practice is a lot different than hitting a moving target in the dark, especially when the target is someone that’s shooting back at you.”
“Don’t doubt that for a minute. Must be even harder if you’re shaking.”
“Everybody shakes when the shooting starts.”
“Some more than others, I imagine. You been in a shooting fight since you got the shakes?”
“No. I’ve been shot at, but haven’t had to shoot back.”
“You scared what’ll happen if you do?” Terry asked.
“Never been a time when I wasn’t before or since.”
“If that’s supposed to make me feel better, it don’t.”
I nodded. “Me neither.”
We had a better view of the house on the corner, the one with the boarded-up second-story windows. Ten minutes in, the front door opened. A man slipped out, trotting to the house next door and letting himself in. I couldn’t see his face, but his size and shape matched Brett Staley.
“Let’s go,” Terry said.
“Not yet. Let’s wait and see if he’s coming or going.”
A minute later, the man left the second house, carrying two large duffel bags, straining under the weight.
“What do you figure is in the bags?” Terry asked.
“Something heavy, the way he’s carrying them.”
“Guns?”
“Seems likely.”
“Why move them from one house to the other? Reminds me of being in the Army and having to move a sand pile.”
“We’ll have to ask him.”
A woman opened the door to the corner house, letting the man in, enough light behind them for me to recognize Roni Chase and Brett Staley. We watched as they repeated their routine three more times.
All I could think was that God sometimes gives us second chances. When I met Lucy, I thought she was my second chance to make up for not having saved my daughter, Wendy. Things turned out well for Lucy, but it wasn’t enough for me, my debt growing faster than I could repay the principal, a leg-breaker’s interest rate keeping me forever in the red. I knew now that saving Roni wouldn’t bail me out either, that no one could, that I was the only one who could forgive my debt.
“You still think that girl is just looking out for her boyfriend?” Terry asked.
“To tell you the truth, she reminds me of someone else who got sucked into something she never would have done on her own because she thought she was in love with a guy that was no good.”
“How’d that turn out?”
My body trembled, my head twisting as far as it would go.
“They both died. The girl was my daughter.”
Terry had the decency not to tell me how sorry he was, keeping the focus on Roni.
“You think that’s what happened to Roni, that her boyfriend sucked her in?”
“We’ll see.”
We waited another five minutes. Neither Roni nor Brett left the corner house.
“Now?” Terry asked.
“Now. Careful and quiet.”
We crossed the street, surveying the front of the house from the curb. A light glowed from behind a shade.
“Must be a back door,” Terry said. “How about if I go around and come in that way?”
“I don’t think so. I know what I’m doing, and you don’t. I’d rather have you right behind me than not know where you are or what you’re doing.”
“I’d rather sneak up on them. No reason to make it a fair fight. You start shooting, and I’ll start ducking,” he said and took off before I could stop him.
Chapter Seventy-three
There was a small porch on the front of the house, a V-shaped portico above the door the only protection from the elements. The windows on either side were far enough from the porch that I could hide between one of them and the door after I knocked, giving me some protection if my greeting was answered with gunfire.
