Текст книги "Lucas Davenport Novels 1-5"

Автор книги: John Sandford

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Текущая страница: 42 (всего у книги 105 страниц)

“Okay.”

There was a moment of silence. Lucas took another corner and went around the block. “Uh, there’s not much. Very small, barely see over the steering wheel. Indian. Maybe an older woman. She didn’t seem young. Green car, older, a wagon, with white sidewall tires.”

“Thanks. I’ll get back to you.”

He took another corner, then another, and came back up along the side of Gow’s house. As he did, a man walked out of the house across the street from Gow’s, leading a dog. Lucas stopped at the curb as the man strolled out to the sidewalk, looked both ways, then headed around the side of his house, the dog straining at the leash. Lucas thought about it, let the man get a full lot down the opposite block, then called Anderson.

“I need Del or a couple of narcs in plain cars.”

“I got a guy looking for Del; we should have him in a minute.”

“Soon as you can. I want them up the block from Gow’s place, watching the front.”

“I’ll pass the word.”

“And keep those squads on Chicago.”

The dog was peeing on a telephone pole when Lucas pulled up next to the night walker. He got out of the car, his badge case in hand.

“Excuse me. I’m Lucas Davenport, a lieutenant with the Minneapolis Police Department. I need a little help.”

“What d’you want?” the man asked curiously.

“Your neighbor across the street. Mrs. Gow. Does she live alone?”

“What’d she do?” the man asked.

“Maybe nothing at all . . .”

The man shrugged. “She usually does, but the last few days, there’s been other people around. I never seen them, really. But people are coming and going.”

“What kind of car does she drive?”

“Old Dodge wagon. Must be fifteen years old.”

“What color?”

“Apple green. Ugly color. Never seen anything like it, except in those Dodges.”

“Huh.” Lucas could feel his heart pounding harder. “White sidewalls?”

“Yep. You don’t see them like that anymore. Bet she don’t drive a couple thousand miles a year. The tires are probably originals. What’s she done?”

“Maybe nothing,” Lucas said. “Thanks for your help. I’d appreciate it if you’d keep this to yourself.”

As Lucas started back to the car, the man said, “Those other people . . . they left about five minutes ago. Somebody drove up in her car and somebody else opened the garage door, and one minute later, they left.”

Lucas called Anderson: “I got something,” he said. “I’m not sure what, but the Crows may be on the street.”

“Sonofabitch. You think they’re hitting somebody?”

“I don’t know. Don’t let those squads get away, though. I don’t care what happens. And get me Del’s man.”

“I got Del. He was maybe a mile away, he oughta be there anytime.”

“All right. Tell him I’ll wait at Twenty-fourth and Bloomington, right by Deaconess Hospital.”

Del was waiting when Lucas arrived. The street was empty, and Lucas crossed into the left lane until their cars were door to door. Both men rolled their windows down.

“Got something?”

“Could be heavy,” Lucas said. “I think I got the Crows’ hideout, but they’re on the street.”

“What do you want from me?”

“I was gonna ask for some surveillance help, but if the Crows are on the street . . . I’m going in. I need some backup.”

Del nodded. “Let’s do it.”

“Let me introduce you to Lucy,” Drake said. He turned toward the back and called, “Lucy? Darling?”

They were standing in front of the fireplace, glasses in their hands. A moment after he called, Lucy appeared from the back. She was tiny, blonde, shy, and wore a pink kimono.

“Come over here, darling, and meet a friend of mine,” Drake said.

• • •

“Cop,” Leo said.

“Shit. He’s going in,” Sam said.

Drake’s house was on a long loop road, to the left. The cop had just turned into the loop, then stayed to the right. If he continued along the loop, he’d pass Drake’s house on the way back out.

“We gotta wait,” Sam said. He pointed at a supermarket parking lot. “Pull in there. We can watch for him to come out.”

“What if Clay leaves?”

Aaron looked at his watch. “He’s only been there a half-hour. He usually stays two or three. This is not something you do quick. Not if you can help it.”

Lucas and Del left their cars just down the block, and Lucas led the way to the porch. Del took a short black automatic out of a hip holster and stood to one side of the door as Lucas knocked.

He knocked once, then again.

A woman’s voice: “Who is it?”

Before Lucas could answer, Del piped up, in a childish falsetto, “Star Tribune.”

There was a moment’s hesitation and then the door started to open. As it opened, Lucas realized that it was on a chain. A woman’s eye appeared in the crack. Lucas said, “Police,” and the woman screamed, “No,” and tried to push the door shut. She was small and dark and not young, and Lucas knew for sure. As she tried to push the door shut he rocked back and kicked it; the chain ripped off and they were inside, the woman running awkwardly toward the back. Lucas was on her, punching her between the shoulder blades, and she went down on her face in the hallway. Del was braced in the entrance to the living room, his gun in front of him, scanning.

“You don’t fuckin’ move,” Lucas snarled at the woman. “You don’t fuckin’ move, you hear?”

Lucas and Del went through the house in thirty seconds, rotating down the hallway, clearing out the two bedrooms, then taking the stairs, cautiously, ready . . . Nothing.

At the top, Lucas heard the woman on her feet, and as Del held the stairs, Lucas shouted, “Wait here,” and ran back down. Gow was headed for the front door when Lucas hit her again. She yelped and went down, and he dragged her to a radiator and cuffed her to it. Del was still waiting at the top of the stairs; Lucas came and they cleaned out the second floor. Nobody.

Downstairs they checked the bedrooms again, this time for any sign of the Crows. It was all there: a stack of unmailed press releases, letters, two different sets of men’s clothing.

“I’m gonna talk to this woman,” Lucas told Del. “You shut the front door and call Anderson, tell him what we’ve got. Get a warrant down here, maybe we can finesse things later. And tell him we may want an ERU team for when the Crows come back.”

While Del went to call, Lucas walked back to Barbara Gow, who was lying on her side with her knees up to her face, weeping. Lucas uncuffed her and prodded her back with his foot.

“Sit up,” he said.

“Don’t hurt me,” she wailed.

“Sit the fuck up,” Lucas said. “You’re under arrest. Seven counts of first-degree murder. You have the right to remain silent . . .”

“I didn’t do anything.”

“You’re an accomplice . . .” Lucas said, squatting next to her, his face two inches from hers. He was not quite shouting, and he deliberately let spittle rain on her face.

“I didn’t do anything.”

“Where are the Crows . . . ?”

“I don’t know any Crows . . . .”

“Bullshit. All their stuff is in back.” He grabbed her by the blouse and shook her.

“I don’t know,” she said. “I don’t know where they went. They took my car.”

“She’s lying,” Del said. Lucas looked up and found Del standing over them. His eyes were dilated and he hadn’t shaved for several days. “Stay with her for just a second. I wanna run down to the bathroom.”

Lucas waited, watching the woman’s face. A few seconds later, they heard the bath water running.

“What’re you going to do?” Lucas asked when Del returned. He tried to sound interested—curious—but not worried.

“She’s got nice hot water,” Del said. “So I thought maybe I’d give the bitch a bath.”

“Shit, I wish I’d thought of that,” Lucas said happily.

Gow tried to roll away from him but Del caught the old woman by the hair. “You know how many old women drown in the bathtub? Suck in that scalding hot water and can’t get out?”

“It’s a tragedy,” Lucas said.

“Let me go,” Gow screamed, struggling now. Del dragged her toward the hallway by the hair. She flailed at him, but he ignored it.

“There’s some coffee in the kitchen,” Del called. “Why don’t you go heat up some water, we can have a cup. This’ll only take a minute. She don’t look too strong.”

“They went to kill Clay,” Gow blurted.

“Jesus Christ.” Del let her go and the two men crouched over her.

“They can’t get to him. He’s got round-the-clock bodyguards,” Lucas argued.

“He sneaks out,” Gow said. “He has sex with little girls, so he sneaks out.”

Lucas looked at Del: “Motherfucker. They don’t crack the security. They get Clay to come out. Call Anderson and have him get onto the feebs. Find out where Clay is. And get Daniel.”

Del dashed down the hall toward the telephone and Lucas gripped the old woman’s hair.

“Tell me the rest. I’ll testify in court for you. I’ll tell them you helped; it might get you off. Where’d they go?”

Tears ran down her face and she sobbed, unable to talk.

“Talk to me,” Lucas screamed, shaking the old woman’s head.

“There’s a man named Christopher Drake. Corky Drake. He lives up in Kenwood somewhere,” Barbara Gow sobbed. “Clay goes to his house for the girls.”

Lucas let her go and ran into the kitchen, where Del was on the phone. “I gotta go,” he shouted. “Stay with her. Tell Anderson I’ll call in ten seconds, tell him I’ll need those squads.”

Lucas sprinted to the Porsche, cranked it, picked up the handset and called Dispatch.

“A Christopher Drake,” he told the dispatcher. “In Kenwood. I need the address now.”

Twenty seconds later, as he turned onto Franklin Avenue, he had it.

“I need everything you’ve got. No sirens, but make it fast,” he told Dispatch.

Anderson came on: “I’m talking to Del, we’re going out to the FBI now. How long before you make this Drake’s place?”

Lucas ran a red light and calculated. “If I don’t hit anything, about two minutes,” he said. He crossed the center line into the left lane and blew past two cars, the speedometer nudging sixty.

The squad car came out of the loop road, turned away from them and kept going. Aaron grunted, checked his watch again and said, “Let’s go.”

Drake’s house was a quarter-mile down the lane. They did a U-turn in front of the house, so the car would be pointed out, and left it on the street. The yards were wooded, and the brush would screen them as they approached the house.

“Let’s get the tie,” Sam said as they climbed out of the car.

Aaron looked up at the sky as Sam popped the tailgate. “Good moon for a killing,” Aaron said.

In the soundproofed privacy of the bedroom, the girl dropped the kimono around her feet and slipped onto the bed. Lawrence Duberville Clay peeled off his underwear and slipped in beside her, and she put her arm over her chest.

“Smell so good,” she said. He looked over her shoulder at the video camera and the monitor screen. The light was just right. It would be an evening to remember.

Leo held the cut-down shotgun by his side as they pulled the railroad tie out of the car and held it by the handles. A battering ram. Nearly a hundred pounds, swung hard, focused on a point no bigger than a hammerhead. Better than any sledgehammer made.

Swinging the tie, they moved swiftly through the dark into Drake’s yard.

“Go through it one more time,” Leo said.

Sam recited in a monotone. “Aaron and I swing it. When the door goes down, we drop it and you run right over it, freeze anyone inside. Aaron takes the ground floor, blocking anyone out, and you and I go up the stairs. There are four bedrooms up the stairs, and they’ll be in one of them.”

“Drop the tie, go in, freeze anyone, then Aaron takes over and we go up the stairs.”

“Clay carries a gun; you’ve seen the pictures,” Aaron said. He looked up at the moon. “So be careful.”

They stayed in a screen of trees as they came up the drive, then broke across an open space to a lilac bush, paused to adjust their holds on the railroad tie.

“You got it?” Aaron asked.

“Let’s go,” said Sam.

Running awkwardly, they rushed at the door, then stopped at the last second and swung the tie as hard as they could. It hit the door two inches from the knob and blew it open as effectively as a stick of dynamite. They let go as the door flew open; the tie fell half inside, and Leo was in the living room. Drake was there, coming off the couch, a pearl-gray suit and pink open-necked shirt, his mouth open. Leo, his face twisted into a mask of hate, shoved the shotgun at him and said in a coarse whisper:

“Where is he?”

Integrity had never been one of Drake’s burdens. “Up the stairs,” he blurted. “First door on the left.”

“If he’s not there, motherfucker, you gonna be sucking on this shotgun,” Leo snarled.

“He’s there . . . .”

Aaron held Drake as Leo and Sam took the stairs, struggling with the railroad tie as they went, their footfalls muffled by the thick carpet. At the top, they looked at each other, and Leo held the shotgun over his head. They went at the bedroom door with the tie. The bedroom door was no more match for the ram than the front door had been. It blew open and Leo went through.

Music was playing from a stereo; the lights were low enough for comfort, bright enough for spectating. A video camera was mounted on a steel tripod, with a television flickering beside it. Clay was there, his flesh obscenely white, sluglike, on the red satin sheet. The girl was beside him, nearly as pale as he was, except for a streak of scarlet lipstick.

“Get away,” Leo said to the girl, gesturing with the shotgun.

“Wait,” said Clay. The girl rolled away from him and off the bed.

“Wait, for Christ’s sakes,” Clay said.

“On your feet,” Leo said. “This is a citizen’s arrest.”

“What?”

“On your feet and turn around, Mr. Clay,” Leo said. “If you don’t, I swear to God I’ll blow you to pieces.”

Clay, frightened, crawled off the bed and turned. Sam slipped his pistol into his pocket, took out his obsidian knife and stepped behind him.

“We’re going to handcuff you, Mr. Clay,” Sam said. “Put your hands behind your back . . . .”

“You’re the Crows . . . .”

“Yeah. We’re the Crows.”

“Do I know you? I’ve seen you? Your faces . . .”

Clay was facing curtains that covered windows overlooking the driveway. A set of headlights swept into the drive, then a set of red flashers.

“Cops,” said Leo.

“We met a long time ago,” Sam said. “In Phoenix.”

Clay started to turn his head, recognition lighting his eyes, and Sam reached up from the other side, grabbed his hair and dragged the knife across his throat. Clay twisted away screaming, and the girl broke for the door. Blood pumped through Clay’s hands and he fell faceup on the bed, trying to hold himself together. Sam shouted, “Let’s go.”

Leo shouted, “Run,” and as Sam went, he stepped close to the supine Clay and fired the shotgun into his chest.

Lucas turned into the loop road fifty yards in front of the first cruiser. He had to slow to find the address, then saw Barbara Gow’s wagon in the street and the open door of the white Colonial house. He slid into the circular drive, stood on the brake and piled out, the P7 in his hand. The cruiser was just behind him, and then there were more lights on the lane, more cops coming in. He waited just a second for the first cruiser and heard the shotgun roar . . . .

“Cops,” Sam screamed from the top of the stairs, his scream punctuated by the shotgun blast. Both he and Aaron favored old-model .45s, and had them in their hands. The girl, nude, ran down the stairs, saw Aaron waiting and stopped. Sam pushed past her, with Leo just behind.

Drake had his hands on his head and began to back away. “Fucker,” Aaron said, and shot him in the chest. Drake flipped back over a sofa and disappeared.

“Try the back?” Leo shouted.

“Fuck it,” said Aaron. “Clean the driveway out with the shotgun, then get out of the way.”

Leo ran to the door. The car’s headlights were focused on it but he could see figures behind the lights. He fired three quick shots, emptying the gun, and ducked back inside as a hail of bullets tore through the doorway into the living room.

“Go out the back,” Aaron said to him. He kissed Leo on the cheek, looked at his cousin.

“Time to die, you flatheaded motherfucker,” Sam shouted.

The return fire from outside had stopped. There were shouts, and Sam lifted his head, smelling the perfume of the house. Then Aaron was out the door at a dead run, Sam a step behind, the .45s jumping in their hands.

• • •

Lucas looked at the cop and said, “Get somebody around back. They’re in there, I just heard . . .”

He never finished the sentence. There was a shot inside the house, a pause, and then a shotgun opened from the doorway. The muzzle blast flickered like lightning in the dark and the cop who’d started for the back went down. More squads were roaring into the driveway, one sliding sideways as another cop went down.

Lucas fired a quick three shots at the doorway and started toward it as the gunner ducked inside. Then the Crows were there, coming out the door at a run, their pistols firing wildly. Lucas fired twice at the first one as the other cops opened up. The Crows were down a half-second later, bullets kicking up dirt around them, plucking at their shirts, their jeans, enough lead to kill a half-dozen men.

And then there was silence.

Then a few words, like morning birds outside a bedroom window. “Jesus God,” somebody was saying. “Jesus God.”

Sirens. Static from the radios. More sirens. Lots of them. Lucas crouched behind the car.

“Where’s the shotgun?” he screamed. “Anybody see the shotgun?”

A cop was crying for help, the pain on him. Another was a lump in the dirt.

“Who’s around back?” somebody called.

“Nobody. Get somebody around back.”

A uniform dashed into the headlights, stopped next to the cop who was lying still in the dirt, and began tugging him out of the light. Lucas stood, aiming his pistol through the doorway, and squeezed off two suppression shots.

“He’s gone,” the uniform screamed, holding the dead cop in his arms. “Jesus, where are the paramedics?”

More lights in the lane, then Sloan coming up the driveway.

“Heard you on the radio,” he grunted. “What have we got?”

“Maybe a shotgun inside.”

There was a figure at the door, and two or three separate voices screamed warnings.

“Hold it, hold it,” somebody shouted.

The girl appeared in the doorway, her eyes as wide as a deer’s, shambling out of the wreckage.

“Who’s in there?” Lucas called as she came across the driveway.

“Nobody,” she wailed. She half turned to the house as though she couldn’t believe it. “Everybody’s dead.”

CHAPTER

28

“I don’t know what else we could have done,” Lucas said. In his own ears, the words sounded like excuses, quick and chattery as if tumbling out of a teletype, harsh with guilt. “If we hadn’t gone straight in, we’d have lost Clay for sure. We knew they weren’t far in front of us.”

“You did okay,” Daniel said grimly. “It was that fuckin’ Clay, sneaking out like that. The Crows must have known. They set him up, slicker’n shit. Fuckin’ Wilson is dead, Belloo’s maybe crippled, it’s that fuckin’ Clay’s fault.”

“It must have been Shadow Love with the shotgun,” Lucas said. He was leaning against the wall, his hands in his pockets and his head down. His shirt was covered with blood. He thought it might be Belloo’s. He was missing the heel of one shoe. Shot off? He wasn’t sure. That foot hurt, but there were no wounds. Not a scratch. A uniformed captain, his face pale as the moon, stood down the hall and watched them talk. “He did Clay and Wilson and Belloo, all three. One of the Crows must have shot Drake. But that motherfucker Shadow Love, he caught us with that shotgun . . . .”

“The whole thing lasted no more than eight seconds,” Daniel said. “That’s what they’re getting from the tapes . . . .”

“Christ . . .”

“The main thing is Shadow Love,” Daniel said. “He must have gone out the back. We’ve got the neighborhood blocked off. We’ll get him in the morning; I just hope he didn’t get out before we set up the line.”

“What if he’s in somebody’s house? What if he went in somewhere and he’s got somebody’s family on the wall?”

“We’ll be going door to door.”

“Motherfucker’s a fruitcake and he’s carrying a shotgun and we just killed his fathers . . . .”

They were standing in the antiseptic hallways of Hennepin Medical Center, outside the surgical suite, one set of doors closer to the operating rooms than was usually permitted. Two dozen family members, friends and cops were corralled one set of doors farther out, waiting for news.

And beyond the next set, a hundred newsmen, maybe more. Doctors and nurses shuttled in and out of the operating suite, half of them with no business there, but officiously correct in demeanor. They wanted to see what was going on.

Clay had been taken in, but he was gone; so was Drake, shot in the heart. The first cop shot was brain dead, but they had him on a respirator; the hospital was talking to his family about organ donations. The second cop was still on the table. A nurse had pointed out the doc working on Belloo, the same redheaded surgeon who’d done Lily. Two more surgeons joined her, and an hour after Belloo went on the table, she came through the doors into the waiting area.

“You guys are giving me more business than I need,” she said grimly.

“What’s the story?”

“It’ll be a while before we know. We’ve got a neurosurgeon looking at some crap around his spinal cord. There’s some bone splinters in there but he’s still got function . . . .”

“He can walk?”

The surgeon shrugged. “He’s going to lose something but not all of it. And we had to get a urologist down. A couple pellets went through a testicle.”

Lucas and Daniel both winced. “Is he going to lose . . . ?”

“We’re evaluating that. I don’t know. He’d still be functional, even with one, but there’s some plumbing in there . . . . Do you know if he has kids?”

“Yeah, three or four,” said Daniel.

“Good,” said the surgeon. She looked tired as she dumped her mask and gloves in the discard bin. “I better go talk to the family.”

She was headed toward the family waiting area when the automatic doors swung open. The mayor and one of his aides came through, followed by the FBI’s agent in charge.

“We gotta do something for the TV,” the mayor snapped.

“I think we need more investigation . . .” the AIC said urgently.

“Bullshit, we got Davenport and a half-dozen cops saw the girl and we’ve got her statement and his body. There’s no question . . . .”

“There’s always a question,” said the AIC.

“There’s a videotape,” said Daniel.

“Aw, Jesus,” said the AIC. He turned to a hospital wall and leaned his head against it.

“We could deal,” the mayor said to Daniel. “He was one of the administration’s point men on crime. I don’t know what we could get, but it’d be a lot. More urban renewal; new sewage treatment; our own air force; you name it.”

Daniel shook his head. “No.”

“Why not?” the AIC asked heatedly. “Why the fuck not? We stood down in that surveillance post after the fuckup with Bill Hood and we cut a deal. Remember what you said? You said, ‘You always deal. Always.’ ”

“There’s a corollary to that rule,” Daniel said.

“What’s that?”

“You always deal, except sometimes,” Daniel said. He looked at the mayor. “This is one of those times.”

The mayor nodded. “First, it just wouldn’t be right.”

“And second, we’d get caught,” said Daniel. “You want to tell the TV, or you want me to?”

“You do it; I’m going to call somebody in the White House,” the mayor said. “It’s going to be bad, but there are levels of badness. Maybe I can cut a deal to make it less bad . . . .”

The AIC argued that the mayor should talk to the president before any announcement; the aide suggested that they had nothing to lose. Daniel pointed out that the discussion they were having could already bring big political trouble: they were talking about a conspiracy to cover up a crime. The politicians began backing away. The AIC still wanted to talk. As tempers got hotter, the night seemed to close in on Lucas, until he felt he might suffocate.

“I’m going,” he told Daniel. “You don’t need me and I need to sit down somewhere.”

“All right,” Daniel nodded. “But if you can’t help thinking about it, think about Shadow Love.”

Sloan was coming in as Lucas left.

“You okay?” Sloan asked.

“Yeah,” Lucas said wearily. “Considering.”

“How’s Wilson?”

“Dead. They’re selling off his heart and lungs and liver and kidneys and probably his dick . . . .”

“Jesus fuckin’ Christ,” Sloan blurted, appalled.

“Belloo’s gonna make it. Might lose one of his balls.”

“Jesus . . .” Sloan ran a hand through his hair. “You stop to see Lily?”

“No . . .”

“Look, man . . .” Sloan started.

He hesitated, and Lucas said, “What?”

“Do you feel bad about her now? With her husband here and all?”

Lucas thought about it for a second before he shook his head. “No,” he said.

“Good,” said Sloan. “ ’Cause you shouldn’t.”

“Got my goddamn car shot up,” Lucas said. “My fuckin’ insurance agent is gonna jump out a window when he hears about it.”

“I got no sympathy for you,” Sloan said. “You’re the luckiest motherfucker on the face of the earth. Cothron said you walked right into the Crows’ guns, like Jesus walking across the water, and never anything happened.”

“I can’t remember too well,” Lucas said. “It’s just all fucked up in my head.”

“Yeah. Well, take it easy.”

“Sure.” Lucas nodded and limped away down the hall.

The Porsche had three bullet holes in it, each in a separate piece of sheet metal. Lucas shook his head and climbed in.

The night was not quite cold. He ran down through the Loop, in sync with traffic lights, and made it out to the interstate without stopping. He was flying on automatic: east across the river, off at the Cretin Avenue exit, south down Cretin, right to Mississippi River Boulevard, south to home.

Jennifer was waiting.

Her car was in the driveway, a light was on in a window of the house. He pulled into the drive and jabbed the transmitter for the garage door opener. As he waited for the door to open, she came to the window and looked out. She had the baby on her arm.

“I freaked out,” she said simply.

“I’m all right,” he said. He was limping from the lost heel.

“How about the other guys?”

“One dead. One pretty busted up. The Crows are dead.”

“So it’s over.”

“Not quite. Shadow Love got away.”

They were staring at each other across the narrow space of the kitchen, Jennifer unconsciously bouncing the baby on her arm.

“We’ve got to talk. I can’t just walk away from you. I thought I could, but I can’t,” she said.

“Man, Jen, I’m fuckin’ crazy right now. I don’t know what’s going on . . . .” He looked around wildly, the peaceful neighborhood hovering around them like a joke. “Come on,” he said. “Come on and talk . . . .”

Shadow Love had heard about the shootout on his radio, and now he waited in a thicket just over the lip of the slope that went down to the river. He’d planned to take Davenport when he got out of the car, but he hadn’t counted on the automatic garage door opener. The door rolled up with Davenport still in the car, waiting. Shadow Love crouched, considered a dash across the street, but Davenport’s house was set too far back from the road. He’d never make it.

When the door went down, Shadow Love walked fifty feet down the street, into the shadow of a spreading oak, and hurried across the street, through a corner of another yard and into the dark space beside Davenport’s garage. Front doors were usually stout. Back doors, on garages, usually were not, since they didn’t lead directly into the house. Shadow Love slipped around the garage to the back door and tested the knob. Locked.

The door had two panes of inset glass. Shadow Love peeled off his jacket, wrapped a sleeve around the middle joints of his fingers and pressed on the glass, hard, harder, until it cracked. There was almost no noise, but he paused, counted to three, then put more pressure along the crack. Another crack radiated out from the pressure point, then another. Two small pieces of glass fell almost noiselessly into the garage. Shadow Love stopped and checked the night around him: nothing moving, no sense of anything. Still using the jacket as padding, he pushed his little finger through the hole and carefully pulled two of the larger shards of glass from the door. In another minute, he had a hole large enough to reach through. He turned the lock knob and eased the door open.

The garage was not quite pitch dark: some light filtered in from the neighbor’s house in back, enough that he could see large shapes, such as the car. With his left hand on the Porsche’s warm hood, he moved carefully toward the door that led into the house. His right hand was wrapped around the pistol grip of the M-15. Once he was lined up on it, he would blow the knob off the door, and he’d be inside in a matter of a second or two . . . .

He never saw the shovel hanging from a nail on the garage wall. His sleeve hooked the blade and the shovel came down like a thunderclap, hammering into a garbage can, rattling off the car and onto the floor.

“What?” said Jennifer, starting at the noise.

Lucas knew. “Shadow Love,” he whispered.