stayed in the car, behind the wheel. He kept the engine running. They weren’t planning on staying long.
The two men entered the austere lobby. It was deserted, which was expected. Framingham wasn’t exactly a hotbed of late-night merriment. They strode up to the reception desk. Behind it, a lone man of Latin origin and advancing years was huddled in a corner chair, watching a soccer match on a fuzzy screen. The lead man beckoned him over. His dark suit, surly expression, and sharp tone of voice got the receptionist on his feet in no time. The man reached into the breast pocket of his jacket and pulled out three items, which he spread out on the desk under the receptionist’s nose: two photographs—headshots of Matt and Jabba—and a fifty-dollar bill.
The receptionist scanned the items, looked up at the man, looked back down, and nodded. He then reached out and, with a trembling hand, swept back the fifty and pocketed it. Then the man got his answer, but it wasn’t the answer he wanted. They had checked in earlier that evening. Taken a room. Occupied it for a couple of hours. Then they’d paid and left. The guy behind the counter had figured something of a carnal nature was going down, and the mental picture it had inspired clearly wasn’t one he was comfortable with.
They’d just missed them.
The man from the 300C frowned. He studied the receptionist for a beat, decided there was nothing more to be gained, and walked out. They’d paid, which meant they weren’t coming back. Something about it didn’t sit well with him. Why take a room for just a couple of hours? He figured something unexpected must have come up. Something that didn’t come through on the fat guy’s cell phone. Which wasn’t good news. It meant they had some other way of communicating with the outside world, one that his own side wasn’t aware of.
He led the other man back out, paused by the car, and gave the parking lot an instinctive once-over. Nothing suspicious caught his eye. He pulled out his phone and made the call. Informed his boss what he’d been told. Heard the irritation and anger in his boss’s voice. And was ordered to head back to the safe house and wait for further instructions.
The two men climbed back into the 300C. Their driver waited for a passing car, then slid the beefy Chrysler onto the road and drove off, oblivious to the dark polo-green Pontiac Bonneville that pulled out a safe distance back and was now tailing them.
MATT AND JABBA kept their eyes peeled on the taillights of the 300C and didn’t say much. It was late, the traffic was sparse, the cars few and far between. It all made the risk of them being spotted that much greater. They had to be extra vigilant. No mouthing off or second-guessing their plan. No superfluous chitchat. Just total focus.
They’d baited them by lighting up Jabba’s iPhone. The Chrysler’s appearance had confirmed Matt’s suspicion that Maddox and his goons had been able to track them, despite Jabba’s precautions, what with the phone being switched on for such short bursts. Somehow, they had been doing it. Which gave Matt an opening to draw them in. And wait.
The 300C hung a right on Cochituate and curled around to meet the turnpike, which they rode east. There were more cars there, which ramped down the tension of getting spotted, but ramped it up as far as losing the 300C was concerned. Still, Matt had significantly better-than-average driving skills and a keen eye when it came to spotting subtle changes in the attitude of cars, which helped keep them in the game.
They weren’t in the least bit sure of what they’d find when the 300C got to wherever it was headed. As Matt had conceded to Jabba, he didn’t really think he’d find Danny there, but there was a small chance they’d find Rebecca Rydell. Maddox didn’t seem to have an entire brigade of thugs dedicated to this. They were running a lean, mean operation. It wasn’t beyond reason to think they weren’t running more than one safe house, and that they might be keeping her stashed away at the one. It would be the safest place to keep her, and saved resources. Matt started to reel back to what would have happened had he not moved the tracker over to Maddox’s car in the first place, but gave up after finding it was taking away from his concentration. He didn’t want to risk losing them. Beyond the possibility of finding Rebecca Rydell, this was also a chance to throw a wrench into Maddox’s plans, which, to Matt, sounded pretty satisfying right now
They dumped the turnpike for the 95, which they rode north for a couple of miles before getting off at Weston. Matt pulled back as the traffic got lighter. He stalked the big car and its distinctive, boxy taillights east, all the way to Bacon, where it turned left and headed into Waltham. The going got dicier. There were far fewer cars here, and Matt had to drop way back to avoid being noticed. He also switched from main beams to daytime running lamps at each change of direction to vary the front appearance of the Bonneville in the 300C’s mirrors.
The 300C threaded through some residential streets before finally turning into an unlit driveway. Matt already had his lights off and pulled over a couple of houses back. He killed the motor and watched. The three men emerged from the car and headed into the house. The last of them, the driver, beeped the car shut. He hung back and gave the street a cursory sweep before following the two other goons in.
Moments later, the 300C’s interior lights automatically faded to black and the car and the house were shrouded in darkness.
The house was a small, two-story structure. Matt knew those houses well—it wasn’t far from where he’d grown up, in Worcester, and the internal layouts in that stratum of the housing market were pretty standard. Front or side entrance to a front living room, kitchen at the back, stairs in the middle going up to two or three bedrooms and a bathroom or two upstairs. There was also a basement, and Matt was pretty sure that was where they’d be keeping any prisoners.
There were no lights on in the upper floor, and the front living room was also dark. Traces of light from the back of the ground floor filtered through the bay window of the living room and cast a faint glow on its ceiling.
Matt glanced at Jabba and nodded. There was another car in the driveway. The black Durango they’d seen at the airfield. The one Maddox’s goons had stuffed Rebecca Rydell into.
The easy part was over. It was time to crash that party.
Luckily, they hadn’t come empty-handed.
THE GUYS FROM THE CHRYSLER were in the kitchen at the back of the house, talking, having a smoke, sipping cold cans of Coke. Going over the events of the day. Winding down. Not really expecting to be called out again that night.
The loud crash changed things.
It blasted through the house and whipped them to attention. It came from the front, at ground level. From the living room. The distinctive sound of glass, exploding inward: something dense thumping heavily against the wall and landing in a dull thud while a shower of glass cascaded down onto the floor, where it exploded into tiny shards.
The guys moved as one, the lead guy from the hotel barking orders as he rushed to the front of the house, his gun already drawn and out in front. He got one guy to stay behind in the kitchen. Another followed him halfway through the house and stopped at the central staircase, positioning himself at a door that led to the basement. The third was hot on his heels as he burst into the front living room.
It had a wide bay window, and louvered half shutters ran a little over halfway up the glass, to a height of about five feet off the ground. In a defensive reflex, he didn’t turn on the lights, relying instead on the dim light that spilled in from the hallway. The room should have been empty, as the rental was unfurnished, and it still was, except for the glass shards that littered the wood floor. They crunched noisily under the man’s heels as he advanced into the room, sweeping his gun around. He stopped and looked up at the bay window and saw that its central portion had a huge hole punched out of it, the size of a large pumpkin. He glanced around, trying to make sense of what had happened, and spotted a rock, about the size of a football, at the foot of the back wall. His mind was still processing the idea of someone throwing a big rock through the window when something else came crashing in, something bigger and bulkier that clipped the edge of the broken glass, busted an ever wider gap through what was left of it, and narrowly missed him. It showered him with glass and splashed him with a sour- smelling liquid before it tumbled to the ground and clattered to a rest. He stared at it, dumbfounded for a nanosecond. It was a gas can. Lightweight polyethylene, red, threaded vent. Only its lid wasn’t screwed on. In fact, it didn’t have a lid. And it had spewed fuel like a Catherine wheel as it spun through the air on its inward flight,
