The grounds around the front had been cleared, and the road had been widened into a little parking lot with a wide section at the end, probably to give delivery trucks room to turn around. At the moment, the lot was filled with cars, all pointed toward the gate. I saw another BMW to match the one by the truck, a pair of black Yukons, a black Mercedes, and finally a Passat, of all things. At the far end of the lot the asphalt narrowed again into a path leading to a multicar garage.
I stared at the cars, searching for movement or a human shape inside. The X6 had to-go coffee lids on the dash, and the Yukons had bright red-and-white cards in the front windows, but otherwise they were empty.
I moved close to Catherine. “Do we circle around?”
“To where?” She pointed toward the near side of the house, where there were twenty-five yards of lawn separating the tree line from the building. There appeared to be even more space around back. “Do you see any people?”
“Yeah.” I pointed toward the door, where a man in a heavy wool coat and a furry Russian hat stood just out of the porch light. I thought he was dressed too warmly for the weather, but I’d been jogging up a long hill and he’d been standing around. Still, bulky coats made me nervous.
“Crap.” Catherine pulled me back from the edge of the hill to a stand of trees. When we were out of sight, she let go of me quickly, as if she was afraid I’d take it as a gesture of friendship. “We need photos of the license plates.”
“What if they’re all rentals, like the one down the hill?”
“I still want them,” she said. “But what’s more, I don’t want to kill anyone. Not everyone we meet is going to be part of some plot to bring predators here to eat our spleens, and I would like to kill as few of them as possible. Can we agree on that?”
I stared at her. Had the society told her what I’d done? I felt a sudden flush of shame, but not for the people I’d killed. I hadn’t killed any innocent bystanders. At least, I didn’t think I had. Annalise may not have cared about collateral damage, but I had been more careful.
But I still felt ashamed, because I knew the society was, at the core, vigilantes. I believed they had good reason for doing what they did, but their day-to-day work was finding people and killing them.
And not only had I taken part, I’d been eager to drop everything to come on this job, eager for the adrenaline rush, and I couldn’t honestly say I didn’t know what we’d be doing.
And I liked Catherine. Her heart and her head were in the right place, and if she was a little weird and distant with me, well, she was right to be.
“Agreed,” I said. Standing still in this wind was giving me chills. “Around the side?”
“Not this side,” she said. “I’d rather enter from the garage, in case there are more plates to photograph there.”
We circled around the property. The ground near the garage was thick with trees and brambles, which gave us more cover but also slowed us down. And we made more noise than I would have liked. There didn’t seem to be anyone to notice.
We moved toward the side of the garage. There were no footprints in the mud. There was a single window in the wall, but it was dark. I hoped no one was inside, watching us approach.
The backyard was even larger and more open than the front. The ground still sloped upward, but it was mostly a gentle rise. A bungalow sat well away from the house, in the middle of the meadow. Heavy black power lines ran out to it from the main building.
A guesthouse for a home this large? Maybe there was no such thing as “big enough” for some people.
I led the way toward the back door of the garage. More than one trail of footprints went back and forth from the house, so I couldn’t tell if someone was inside. Fair enough. I turned the knob and pulled the door open.
Very little light shone through the dirty windows, leaving the inside nearly pitch-black. Catherine handed me her flashlight, and I flicked it on. There were four cars parked here, all packed close. Right beside me was a fifteen- year-old Civic hatchback. Next to that was a white Audi SUV, a Q7, with tinted windows, then a long black Fleetwood—maybe a ’54, but I’m not an expert on vintage cars. Beyond that was a modern sedan, but all I could see was the line of the roof and back windshield. Huh. Maybe the Civic belonged to a servant.
Catherine took a camera from her bag. She focused on the license plate of the Civic. A little orange light illuminated the back bumper, and she snapped a photo. The flash lit up the room.
I moved away from her, wishing she had waited—maybe the windows had curtains I could draw or something. I understood her urgency, though. The predator, whatever it was, was on the loose.
She went around the car to snap a photo of the front plate, too. I walked to the far end of the room. The sedan was a BMW 745i. All of the cars were empty, thank God. There were garden tools along the walls and ladders, canoes, and ski equipment up in the rafters.
Meanwhile, Catherine snapped the front and back plates of the Audi. I crouched beside the BMW to cut the fuel lines. If we had to run, it would be a huge help if the cars were disabled.
The back door clicked open. I dropped to the floor.
“Um, excuse me?” a man said. His voice was high-pitched and gentle. “Who is in here?”
“Nothing’s getting stolen!” Catherine said, taking an angry tone. The change in her personality was startling. “I just have a job to do, so you go ahead and go back where you came from.” She sounded so offended that I half expected him to apologize, but he didn’t.
“Ma’am, I have to ask you to look at my hands.”
Catherine’s voice became low. “You put that gun away.”
“Ma’am,” he said, his voice just as gentle, “I purchased this weapon not knowing whether I would have the chance to use it. Frankly, I find the prospect thrilling.”
“Now, you just wait a minute …” Catherine sounded less sure of herself.
