Ness sat up in bed, completely drenched in sweat. She was out of breath, and her heart drummed in her ears. So much for not dreaming, Ness thought as swung her legs off the bed and drank the water from the glass next to her bed. The coolness of the water calmed her nerves. She picked up her phone and saw that it was 5:15 A.M. There’s no way I can go back to sleep now, Ness got up and grabbed a change of clothes and her toiletries before heading to the bathroom. The hot shower felt invigorating against Ness’ skin, and all of the negative emotions that she experienced in the dream seemed to dissipate with each passing moment in the shower.
Once she was finished, Ness got dressed, returned to her bedroom, and stretched for a while. She needed her muscles to be ready for whatever the day—or Eddie—threw at her. When she was finished, she saw that it was just before six, and she decided to leave for Chicago early. She wrote a note for Wyatt and Lindsay and left it by the table at the front door and got in her car.
The drive to Chicago was peaceful. Because it was a Sunday morning, there wasn’t much traffic at this time of day. Ness rolled her window down, and she could feel the cool air rush over her face as she was on the freeway. At 7:45 A.M., Ness pulled up outside of Eddie’s and walked up to the front door and knocked. Eddie opened the door. “I’m glad that you’re early. We have plenty of work to do,” Eddie said as he closed the door behind Ness, and he led her into the living room. “What did you find out?”
“The car is registered to Travis Jones, and his friends are Jarrod Hastings and Nathan Lewis. They’re all studying business degrees at the Illinois Institute of Technology. They have separate apartments in the same apartment block close to campus on West 33rd Street. They have had multiple run-ins with the law, but it seems that their parents are in a position of power,” Ness read the details from her notes.
“Is that all?” Eddie narrowed his eyes. “What do you mean, ‘is that all?’” Ness looked offended.
Eddie bent down and picked up a thick folder filled with documents and placed it on the table between them: “Open it.”
Ness did as she was instructed, and she was at a loss for words. Inside the document were not only records of the trio, there were current pictures, class schedules, apartment cleaning schedules, and copies of the blueprints and schematics of their apartment block.
“How did you get all of this?”
“What did you do yesterday? Sleep?” Eddie ignored her question.
Ness’ eyes widened in embarrassment. “Well . . .” Eddie held up his hand to stop her, “Ness, do you know why I’ve been able to do what I do for almost three decades without being caught?”
“Because you’re always prepared.”
“Exactly. Just knowing where someone lives and what car they drive isn’t going to help you in the long run—you will inevitably get caught . . . or killed. Taking the time to truly learn your victims—what they do on a daily basis, who they see, why they go out, if they have an alarm system and the possibility of needing to bypass said system, how many locks they have on their doors, how many pets they have, the possibility of a gardener coming past and seeing the scene prematurely, etc. There are countless possibilities of things that can go wrong when you’re hunting a victim, and you need to prepare for every scenario.”
Ness bit her lip and nodded.
“Now, we need to get to work. We don’t have a lot of time before our window of opportunity runs out.”
“Window of opportunity?”
“Yes, Jarrod and Nathan are away with their families for the day and will only be back tomorrow because they have late classes; however, dear old Travis decided to stay in his apartment and nurse his hangover. We’re going to kill him today.”
“What? But we haven’t prepared for it.” Ness exclaimed. “No, you haven’t, but I have.” Eddie closed the folder. “Today is going to be your next lesson. After this, the planning comes down to you.”
Ness went pale and started shuffling her feet. “Have a seat.” Eddie pointed at the chair at the table across from him and pulled out a blueprint of the apartment block.
“Practically all of the apartments in this block are the same or are mirror images of one another. This is an expensive block and all of the apartments come equipped with alarm systems and deadbolts on the doors.”
“So, how do we get in?” Ness asked.
“Well, there are alarm scramblers that one can use to decode the alarm before it goes off, but those are pretty difficult to come by, and deadbolts can be picked with the right tools.”
“Do you have these types of tools?” “Of course,” Eddie laughed. “But we’re not going to be using them to get into Jones’ apartment.”
“Why not?” Eddie narrowed his eyes at her, “This is why preparation is always the most important aspect of this game. If you do it right, you won’t get it wrong. You see I quickly found that Travis will never pass up an opportunity for sex. And that’s where you come in.”
“I’m listening.”
“All you need to do is knock on his door.”
“Oh, is that all?” Ness scoffed.
“Yep. There are of course a few cameras in the building that we’ll need to be careful of, but those can be easily negotiated around. Are you ready for this, Ness?”
“There’s no turning back now.” She answered.
“Good. Take the time to go over everything in these files and start planning
