When dressed, they looked like poor, fashion-challenged college students.
They parked in the lot of the diner across the street from Spratt’s while they watched for Tidwell. The smell of burgers and fries made Tobias nauseated; he was too nervous to even think of lunch. Fortunately, Tidwell arrived and left right on schedule, sandwiches delivered, alarm reset, and Sullivan and Tobias were free to get started.
The most difficult part of the plan was ensuring the Buick stayed concealed; if any of the cops involved got a glimpse of the tag numbers, they were screwed. The day before they’d scouted out the best area to park in; Denver was lousy with one-way streets, and they ended up parking upriver, so to speak, within two blocks south of Spratt’s townhouse, and past an intersection with another one-way street. According to Sullivan, they couldn’t have gotten much luckier; if Spratt wanted to follow them by car from his property, he’d have to go around the block first, while Sullivan and Tobias could run up the sidewalk against traffic, climb into the car, and immediately hang a left and be out of view. It had the added benefit of being far enough out of sight of Spratt’s place that no matter what security system he had, there was no way he’d be able to identify the Buick.
Sullivan turned off the car. “Got the bag?”
Tobias not only had the bag, his fingers were locked around the strap so tightly they might never come loose. “Yeah.”
Sullivan was watching him, his brown eyes narrowed and thoughtful. “We don’t have to do this today.”
“Can you promise he’ll be safe until tomorrow?”
“You know I can’t.”
“Then give me a minute. I’ll be fine. Just...one minute.”
Sullivan nodded and Tobias concentrated on breathing. In and out, in and out, slow and steady.
He wished he was in Sullivan’s kitchen baking konparèt. Or cherry pie. He wouldn’t say no to making Baked Alaska at this point, and that was a nightmare waiting to happen. He didn’t know anyone who’d made Baked Alaska. He wasn’t sure it would be safe in Sullivan’s firetrap of a house. All it would take was tripping over a hammer while the kirsch was on fire and they’d both die.
Which was an idea ridiculous enough that he let out a low, grim laugh. He was as calm as he was going to get. “Okay. Let’s do this.”
Sullivan eyed him for a second, then got out of the car. Tobias followed suit, and they were—wow, they were doing this.
They walked down the street, turning right at the intersection so they could get to the alley running behind Spratt’s property. After a couple more minutes of walking, they could see the backyard, and Sullivan nodded. With shaking fingers, Tobias pulled down the hem of the thin polyester balaclava he was wearing so only his eyes showed, then pulled the latex gloves out of his other pocket and slid them on as well.
“Start your watch now,” Sullivan said, doing the same with the one he wore on his own wrist. “Four minutes.”
And then Tobias was numbly following him into the backyard. The chain-link gate creaked as Sullivan pushed it open. Tobias had to curtail the urge to flinch.
Sullivan didn’t waste any time. He walked directly to the window on the right side of the door and pulled the small emergency hammer from his pocket—the kind people kept in their cars to break their windows with in case they had to get out quickly and the door was jammed. The point was steel; the glass fractured in the sill instantly and without too much noise. Sullivan knocked enough of the pane out to make room for his arm, then reached through and flipped the latch, sliding the thing open and using the hammer again—this time the end meant to slice through a stuck seat belt—to get through the screen.
Then he was sliding inside, quiet and quick, and Tobias followed, if slightly less quiet and less quick.
They paused.
The townhouse was silent; the hardwood floors and high ceilings would make for an echoing sort of place, but there was no sound at all beyond the rush of traffic leaching through the front windows. They went through the main floor first, spending seconds only, because the place was laid out roughly in a circle—a huge living space on one side of the dividing wall, an expansive kitchen and dining room on the other. There was periwinkle blue button-tufted furniture with mahogany points and an impressive entertainment system in the living room, granite counters and stainless steel appliances in the kitchen, and the place was so pathologically neat as to be sterile, leapfrogging Tobias’s own compulsive neatness by miles. There wasn’t a crumb on the counter, not a flipped-up corner of a rug, not a single piece of mail or scrap paper on the island.
Still, he didn’t spare his surroundings more thought than that. Now that they’d determined that there was no place for Ghost to be hidden on the main floor—and they hadn’t expected otherwise, but it made sense to be sure since they hadn’t been able to discern the full layout of the place from outside—he focused on the stairwell tucked back beside the kitchen. Before he could do more than elbow Sullivan, they were moving again, clambering down the stairs to face a dark hallway T-junction.
Sullivan pushed Tobias to the right and they began opening doors, finding a couple of guest bedrooms—the nicer and larger of which was empty of the guest but
