Chapter Eleven
Crimes, Coincidences, and Compulsive Cravings
Elliot
“Why are you smiling? Stop it. It’s creepy,” Sam says as I navigate the car through the light traffic.
Why am I smiling? On the rare occasions I had to break into our victims' apartments for a little recon during operations, I never particularly enjoyed it. They were tolerable experiences at best. But today? My body feels lighter, like I’m floating.
I’m almost giddy in anticipation. Sam’s right.
Must be creepy. “I’m not smiling.” I stretch my lips into a wider grin.
I catch Sam's eyes going wider in shock. “I didn’t even know your face could do that.” His voice is contemplative.
“What kind of friend gets creeped out by their friend’s smile?”
“The one who has to witness the creepy thing your eyes are doing. Why aren’t you blinking? You know we’re not killing anyone today, right? That looks like you're ready to kill face.”
I shrug. “Can’t kill anymore, remember?”
“Oh yeah, the promise to your wolfman. The number of loopholes you’ve found there, I’m one second away from slipping Adrian’s card to the poor guy. He can use better clauses.”
I nod. “Adrian is pretty good at his job. If he’s in touch with Raymond, we should be able to find something in the house for sure.”
“It’s just… I don’t like how excited you are by this. You know this is the last thing close to a mission we’ll do, right?”
“Yeah, obviously,” I say quickly. The last time I can be useful in any way that matters. After killing Raymond, I’ll go back to running my business.
I can organize more fairs. We ended up helping many animals. I can try taking care of plants too? I found a tutorial on turning your yard into a flower garden. It looked time-consuming. So, perfect.
Some of my excitement bleeds out as I reach Adrian’s street.
We researched the hell out of this neighborhood, one of those expensive ones that’s mostly occupied by lawyers and finance bros.
We studied the blueprints of Adrian’s house a thousand times.
Sam even dug out pictures of the interiors that the previous owner posted online to sell the place.
Two things were very clear. We can’t make any mistakes because one wrong step and we’ll be caught immediately. I don’t want to face Nicholas’s disappointed face. That is, if Adrian decided to get the authorities involved in the first place.
And the second, Sam will never be responsible for picking outfits for any of the future house break-ins. I adjust my coat for the thousandth time. Who even wears a suit in this weather?
I park my rental car in a small parking lot a few streets away, and we walk the rest of the way. We spot at least three men in suits before we can even see Adrian’s place.
“See, I told you we’d blend in,” Sam says as we walk past one mansion after another, each with a yard big enough to qualify as a park.
I pull my collar away from my sweaty skin. A kid and her mother wave at us, and we wave back with smiles of our own, keeping our pace leisurely.
Adrian is at a gala and isn’t expected to be back tonight. Sam had to dig into his email inbox to find the invite and Adrian’s RSVP. So, we have all the time in the world to check every nook and cranny of his expensive-ass house to find any evidence that he lied about not knowing his father.
When we reach a single-story cream-colored house with a gated driveway, we stop. We get lucky there’s no one on the street. Fewer witnesses mean fewer complications.
We walk towards the door, Sam holding a small black device.
“You’re sure there’s no one inside?” I ask as Sam waves his device at the keypad on the side of the door. It beeps, then turns off.
Sam slides the door open. “The camera across the street only showed Adrian getting in and out of the house for the entire week. Unless he’s homing a hermit, I think we’re clear.”
We walk through the empty driveway, climbing the steps leading to the house with exposed white brick. “What if he’s sheltering a criminal?”
Sam pulls his jacket away to show me the Glock underneath. “We’ll deal with it if it comes to that.” He uses his device again to deactivate the door lock.
I check if my gun is still where it’s supposed to be. “And you’re sure the cameras are not recording this?”
Sam sighs. “I showed you the feed after I replaced it with the frame of the empty street. It’ll play on a loop until I manually change it back. I thought you were a pro at this. The break has made you awfully anxious.” He pushes the door open.
We’re immediately swallowed by darkness as the door shuts behind us.
I hum in agreement. It must be the break and not the fact that this is the first time I’m doing this with Sam.
He wouldn’t let me come alone, and now he is putting his life in danger because of my stubbornness to find Raymond and end him.
I just hope I’m able to protect Sam if it comes to that.
He might look confident with his suit and his gadgets and his guns, but I know he’s never killed a fly.
Sam finds the light switch with the help of his phone light and switches it on, bathing every surface in warm yellow light. A pristine white couch set sits in the middle of a spacious living room, with an electric fireplace at the front. The walls have big windows overlooking the street.
I grab Sam’s sleeve and move him away from the range of the windows. “Oh god, are those quartz countertops? I was considering it for my apartment…” he blabbers as I pull him away from the kitchen, too.
“Focus.” I drop his sleeve as he crankily pats his coat. “Let’s stick together until we’re sure we’re the only ones here.”
We walk into the master bedroom, which is just as white and pristine as the rest of the place. How is he maintaining this? Doesn’t he have a dog?
There are no files or computers in the room. After a cursory glance at the side table drawers and the walk-in closet filled with suits and shoes, I drag Sam out of the room before he can sneak into the bathroom.
“You’re the worst snoop in the world,” he says, following me out.
I roll my eyes. “We don’t have the time to care about what drugs he’s on or the brand of shampoo he likes.”
“Wouldn’t have hurt to know anyway. He has good hair,” Sam murmurs.
I turn to look at his face with an eyebrow up.
“What? He does. That’s a very normal observation.”
“Mm-hmm.”
We come across a closed door next to the bedroom. I push my ear against it. Sam follows my lead. “What are we doing?” he whispers.
“Shhhh.” I shush him.
“Rude. You were never this mean to me when I was on the other side of the call on your missions.”
I sigh. “If you keep blabbering, I can’t… oh for fuck’s sake.” I push the door open. If there were a werewolf on the other side of the door, they’d have known about our arrival as soon as we entered the house. No point in giving them more time to prepare.
I keep a hand on my gun, ready to act as I enter the dark room, Sam right behind me. Scanning the place carefully, I try to make out if something is hiding behind the shadows tha—
Sam switches on the light. I throw him a glare. “Be careful! God.”
He rolls his eyes. A glance around the room confirms we’re not about to die in the next two seconds. We’re just greeted by an empty study with a wall full of shelves containing books with plain covers, a desk with a glass tabletop and—
“Ooooh, computer,” Sam squeaks from behind me and runs towards the desk.
I shake my head, letting him do his thing. This is the entire reason he tagged along. He wanted to copy everything from Adrian’s system, and he was worried their law firm might have put some serious theft-proofing measures in place because of the confidential nature of the documents he deals with.
I scan through the books while Sam does his thing with the computer.
“I’m making this system my bitch,” he announces. Yep that.
They appear to be legal reports and statutes. I pull one out to check and immediately shove it back in when tiny words stare back at me. I read enough books with tiny words for my career. Can't have them infiltrate my side gig too, thank you very much.
I give the other titles a cursory glance without touching them. Then check the drawers in the desk. Ignoring Sam’s grumbles claiming I’m disturbing him, I shuffle through all of them.
I find a couple of case files at the bottom, along with some items I don’t recognize.
Other than that, it’s just pens, Post-its, a surprisingly heavy box marked with the name of some university, and some papers with scribbling I can barely decipher.
Probably case notes. No mention of Raymond or his two aliases that we are aware of.
When I’m done, I look expectantly at Sam, who seems too immersed in the computer. “How much longer?”
“Huh?” He frowns up at me. “Oh, right, I’m inside. So, like two more minutes. I’m just checking if there are any hidden files. And there it is.” He smiles maniacally. “You can’t hide from me.”
I wander out of the room, glancing around, staying close enough to run inside if needed.
We don’t even need to check the house now that Sam has hacked into Adrian’s computer.
With how much everyone relies on technology these days, everything we do in the real world leaves a trace in our virtual lives.
Big tech knows everything about you and all that.
Can’t hurt to check if he has another one hidden somewhere else, though. I walk to the other open door down the hall. This one is smaller than the master, but the layout and decoration are pretty much the same. Must have been professionally designed.
I prowl around the bed and yank open the drawers under the table. Empty. I check them for false bottoms as I did with all of them. Nothing.
I check the closet, under the bed, and stomp on the floor for hidden floorboards. Nothing.
When I go back to the office, Sam’s smile has grown psychotic. “What are you doing to that poor computer?” I ask.