It had been gray and miserable all day, and now, with evening approaching, a fraction of sunlight was beginning to pierce through the gloom. But that bit of light didn’t concern him. Noise was his enemy at the moment. And so far he hadn’t made a sound.
Excellent.
He couldn’t risk even the tiniest of noises. The person whom he was slipping past had superb hearing.
The individual wasn’t another member of Lukas Burton’s gang. With Glover’s execution a half hour earlier, all of those people had been eliminated. Except Burton himself.
No, the person he was trying to elude wasn’t nearly as dangerous as Burton’s contingent. She wasn’t dangerous at all.
She was, in fact, a little, old, blind woman.
And she was Silence’s only companion in this new life he’d been given. She was his next-door neighbor.
The only threat she posed was the fact that she monitored his drinking, and this watchdog quality of hers was an issue at the moment, because Silence most definitely needed a beverage after what had happened a half hour earlier.
And what was still to come that evening.
His mind was reeling, not from finishing off Glover—which should have been profound enough, should have been a monumental, delectable moment for him—but because of the intel he’d squeezed from Glover before putting two rounds through the man’s skull.
The information was staggering, something that sent Silence’s assignment careening precipitously into the dark unknown, proving that Burton’s plan was much grander than anyone could have possibly imagined.
The implications were unthinkable.
The scale, massive.
Which, along with the fact that Silence just killed the second to last of the men who had stolen his fiancée from him, was the reason Silence held a plastic sack with a six-pack of beer.
One drink. Nothing that could impair him. Just something to smooth the edges.
Or, as his next-door neighbor would see it, something to feed Silence’s habit, the monster that had emerged in his life since he lost C.C.
She meant well.
Silence would sip his beer while he pondered what he was to do next, how he could solve the new threat that Burton posed.
Because Glover had said that Burton was making his move.
Tonight.
At 8 p.m.
That gave Silence three hours to figure out where to find the man.
But if Silence was going to consume an alcoholic tonic to calm his pulsating, confused brain, he first had to escape the old woman next-door and make it into his house.
She sat only a few feet away, in the shadows of her front porch, her white eyes shining from the darkness like a pair of tiny judgmental searchlights.
He made it to the front door, slowly put his hand on the doorknob, noticed blood on his fingers.
His?
Glover’s?
It didn’t matter. He’d find out when he washed.
He eased the key into the deadbolt cylinder, turned. No sound. So far so good. The lock was new and well-oiled. While his house was built in the 1950s, many of the details, including most of the hardware, had been updated.
Another quarter turn. The brushed nickel beauty continued to work noiselessly. But Silence wasn’t optimistic, because he knew there would be that inevitable noise, the clunk, when the deadbolt fully retracted into the unlocked position. There was no avoiding it. A person with normal hearing would easily discern that sound, let alone a blind individual to whom hearing was amplified. But maybe Silence could lessen the sound if he—
The beer bottles clanked together.
“Silence?” Mrs. Enfield’s little wavering voice called.
Shit.
Silence exhaled. He stepped to the far side of his porch, which terminated only a few feet from Mrs. Enfield’s, separated by the gravel drive that ran between the two houses. His neighbor’s tiny figure was on the green cushion of her porch swing, the empty white orbs of her eyes looking but not looking in his direction.
“Yes, ma’am?”
“Come over.” She waved her hand.
Silence looked at the plastic sack, felt its comforting weight. Sighed. “One moment.”
There was a twinge in his throat with that last word, moment, a sting substantial enough to make him grimace. Every syllable he spoke brought pain, little movements from what felt like a permanently lodged knife, dulled with time and rust, but still effective. The more he spoke, the more it hurt, but sometimes the pain simply spiked for no apparent reason, as it had with moment.
He crossed the porch again, back to the front door. When he opened it, a pleasant gust of chilly air struck him. Humidity bothered him, and he lived in the most humid region of the continental U.S., so he kept his air conditioning cranked.
He headed for the kitchen, which lay right beyond the living room area, in the house’s long, shotgun-style layout. The house was built in 1955, and some aspects showed their age, like the floorboards squeaking beneath his feet, but the Watchers had renovated the interior shortly before they moved him in two weeks ago. While Silence had been surprised that they’d been able to locate such a perfect location for him, what really amazed him were the renovations. They’d gone to great lengths to consider Silence’s personal tastes—the palette was all black and grays and whites, and the design touches were modern and chic.
He caught a whiff of fresh rubber and plastics as he opened the refrigerator, a glossy black, state-of-the-art model, so new that it still felt unnaturally clean. The other kitchen appliances were also updated and also black, all the same brand. For whatever reason, the Watchers hadn’t taken down the old cabinetry, but they’d still continued with their policy of utilizing his tastes and covered the cabinets with dark gray paint. He found this detail charming.
A nice notion, yes, but he would replace the cabinets soon enough.
He took the six-pack from the plastic sack, placed it on the top shelf. Heineken. Six green bottles in a green cardboard carrier, a
