“Don’t stare at me like that,” she snapped. “I always come back before dawn.”
“You don’t always go to a place like this one. It’s dangerous, Ravyn. I’m worried.”
Cree was always worried. As a foster kid he’d worried about when one or both foster parents were either going to hit him, verbally abuse him or just kick him out of their house. As a scraggly sixteen-year-old who’d run as far and fast from the foster care system as he could, he’d worried that one day Ravyn would change her mind about taking a chance on him and fire him from his job at her bookstore. And when he was nineteen and that bookstore burned to the ground, he’d been worried about not only himself, but Ravyn, as well. His last name should have been Worrier, instead of Evanston.
“The size of the house doesn’t matter. It’s what’s in it that counts, and we desperately need what’s in that house.” When he didn’t respond she sighed. “You’ve seen the storeroom. It’s getting to be pretty slim pickings and we’ve got a little over fifty mouths to feed. Plus, winter’s coming and you know how sparse things get then. We’ve gotta stock up to be prepared for those cold nights and possible blizzard conditions.”
She felt like she was preaching to him and hated herself for it. Cree was a good kid who’d gotten a rough break. She’d been there and done that, so she could totally relate. But she’d sworn to help him find better, to be better, and she was damn sure gonna keep trying until she couldn’t try anymore.
“We need this, Cree. I wouldn’t do it otherwise.”
He pushed away from the door and took a few steps until he was standing just on the other side of her desk. “You’re doing it too much. You’re gonna get caught. Didn’t you say you thought somebody was watching you? Another enforcer or something like that?”
She had told him that, only because she’d needed to vocalize the thoughts. If they’d sounded ridiculous, she would have let it go and chalked the feeling up to paranoia, something else she’d learned to deal with long ago.
“I don’t know for sure that he’s an enforcer. I’ve never seen him in the navy-blue uniform they wear or carrying any type of weapon.”
“But you’ve seen him more than once.” Cree touched his fingers to the top of the desk and leaned over. “If you’re being followed, this definitely isn’t a good idea. What if he’s like a private investigator, or worse, somebody you’ve already robbed who’s looking to catch you in the act.”
She moved around the chair and planted her palms on the desk to lean over and get in his face. “No worries,” she said slowly. “I’ve got this.”
But an hour later as she stepped out of the rideshare she’d hired to drop her off in Sodesto—Burgess’s version of a high-society neighborhood—she did a double canvas of her surroundings before walking down the street toward the house she intended to rob.
Every house on this street looked like a throwback from some old horror flick. There were Victorians with soaring turrets and colonials with wraparound porches. They were each separated by sprawling lawns and curving driveways. Some had stone walls around the land like a guarded fortress and others had iron gates that were most likely wired to produce electric shocks to anyone trying to gain entrance without permission. She walked slowly down to the very end of the street, her footfalls silent in the light tennis shoes she wore.
The shoes were black and matched the catsuit she’d shimmied into an hour ago. Her shoulder-length hair—the side that wasn’t cut low to her scalp—was pulled back and hidden beneath a black skull cap. A brisk breeze blew, reminding her that it was late September in Burgess and that winter was coming soon. She hadn’t bothered with a jacket because it would have only hampered her movement. The pitter-pat of her heart increased when she stopped at the corner, the droning sound echoed in her mind, annoying the crap out of her. She wasn’t nervous or afraid. She’d done this many times before, so tonight was just routine.
I’m worried.
Those were Cree’s words not hers. She wasn’t worried, she couldn’t afford to be. Her fingers flexed at her sides and she stared at the house that she’d been studying for the past three months. A brick colonial sitting on two acres of land that would have managed to look stately and regal in the daylight if its red bricks weren’t so grungy they looked gray in some areas and a chalky black in others. The shutters on all windows were intact, but the roof was lifting in some spots. Shrubs around the front of the house were cut regularly, as was the grass that rolled out to cover the land surrounding the house. Around the back there was a sunroom, a new addition as of last year, the weakness that would allow her to penetrate the fortress.
Now, she sprinted across the street, flattening her back against the brick columns that held the iron gate allowing entrance to the front of the house. The gate was controlled by an electric box mounted on the column across from where she stood. Once the button on that box was pressed, a computerized voice would ask a variety of questions, and answers were displayed on a computer screen at a security company in a completely different state. It was a ridiculous setup and one she was certain was meant to keep people out. Fortunately, Ravyn wasn’t like ordinary people. Her father had told her that often enough.
“Here we go,” she whispered.
She moved slowly, keeping her back against the brick wall that circled around to the back of the house. There was no camera surveillance, another chink in the armor of security for this place, but a car could drive by at any moment, a neighbor could come out of their
