Chapter 22 Compartmentalized #2
The only real problem left was distance. The compound sat eight miles from campus—twelve by the back roads I needed to use. Too far to run with the full kit and still arrive sharp. Too far to escape on foot if something went wrong.
A rental car solved both problems at once.
I leaned back and stared at the screen. The plan was clean. The timing worked. The only variable left was me.
I spent the next hour preparing with the same care I always used.
Black layers first, then the tac pants and soft-soled boots.
Climbing gloves went on over the titanium inserts.
I packed the compact hand drill with spare bits and color-matched filler, six freshly wiped pinhole cameras with new SIM cards, and my phone set to airplane mode.
Scent neutralizer went in last. Everything that needed to stay hidden went into the bag.
When the kit was ready I sat down and forced myself to eat. The food had no taste. I finished it anyway. Fuel was fuel.
At seven forty I took a rideshare thirty minutes east to a regional rental lot I hadn’t used before.
I used the second of Brian’s fake IDs, kept my face angled down under the cap, and handed over a prepaid card for the deposit.
The clerk barely glanced up from the screen.
Ten minutes later I was driving out in a plain midsized sedan.
I drove east toward the ridge. Eight miles on the state route, then onto the county road. Four miles in, I pulled off onto a logging spur I’d scouted weeks earlier, tucked the car deep into the trees until it was invisible from the road, and killed the engine.
The forest was already dark, but my eyes adjusted within seconds.
I sprayed scent neutralizer on my throat, wrists, the back of my neck, and the soles of my boots. I secured the knife against my thigh, swung the pack into place, and started walking.
Three miles on foot.
I stayed low through the creek bed, climbed the steep gully on the far side, and skirted the two known patrol loops. The shift change was underway, and both loops were down to a single walker each, if that.
By nine forty, I reached the wall from the cover of the woods. Fifteen feet of stone on the east stretch, right between the corner tower and the next camera.
I pulled on the gloves and started up, keeping three points of contact wherever I could. The stone was cold and slightly damp under my fingers. At the top I stretched flat along the capstone and held still for a slow count of ten, listening.
Nothing moved. No voices. No footsteps.
I dropped silently onto the inside and crouched in the deep shadow of a hedge.
From here the route was simple. Three streets in.
Second right at the junction. Cross the open green without lingering.
Slip through the narrow gap between the two houses with matching pickups. John’s place was the third on the left.
I moved fast and low, keeping to the shadow lines of every hedge and skirting the edges of the streetlight cones.
Two houses had kitchen lights on. A third had a man standing on the porch with a cigarette.
I cut wide behind that one and stayed in the dark until I was well past him. He never looked up.
John’s house was completely dark.
I approached the back slider from an angle that kept me out of any residual light. The pin tumbler took less than thirty seconds. I eased the door open just far enough to slip through and closed it behind me without a sound.
Quiet.
I stood still for a full fifteen seconds, listening. Refrigerator hum. The soft tick of a wall clock. Nothing else.
Clear.
I had six cameras to place and no time to waste. I moved through the house methodically. Living room smoke detector first. Then the bookshelf by the front door. Kitchen vent above the stove. Bedroom lamp opposite the bed. Office desk. Bathroom last, for audio only.
The process never changed. Drill the small hole. Seat the camera. Pack the color-matched filler. Wipe away every trace of dust. Once I was in position, each placement took under three minutes.
The bedroom took the longest. I spent a full ninety seconds memorizing the exact placement of every item on his dresser before I drilled into the base of the lamp. When the camera was seated and the filler smoothed, I put every object back in its original position. Nothing looked disturbed.
I finished with the office. Twenty-six minutes from the moment I stepped inside.
I made one final slow pass through the house, checking each room one last time. Then I left the way I had come, locking the slider behind me with a thin pick. I scaled the wall again, dropped into the cover of the trees, and was gone by half past ten.
Clean.
The three-mile walk back to the car was quiet. I let myself ease the pace a little. The forest around me stayed still.
A mile out from the wall, moving through the dark, the memory came without warning.
Crying somewhere in the room. A heavy hand locking onto the back of my neck. The full weight of a grown man pinning me face-down against the floorboards I had helped wax the summer before. The crack in the leather at the toe of his right boot, right in front of my eyes. John had been first.
Brian’s voice cut through the memory.
Memories aren’t dogs you can kick, kid. You let them come. You let them go through you. Then you keep going.
So I did. My boots crunched softly over dry pine needles. I let the memory run all the way to the end, then forced it back down the way Brian had taught me.
I walked until the dark shape of the car finally came into view between the trees.
I drove east and dropped the sedan back at the rental lot just before midnight. Then I ordered a rideshare, kept my hood up the whole way, and got out three blocks from the house. I walked the rest under the dark streetlights, bag over one shoulder, the night quiet around me.
Some lights were still on when I reached the house.
I let myself in through the back door, moved quietly down the hall, and shut my bedroom door behind me with a soft click.
Upstairs I could hear one of the roommates moving around, the soft thud of footsteps and the low murmur of a TV.
For a long moment I just stood in the middle of the room with my eyes closed, breathing, letting the last of the night’s tension settle.
Then I crossed to the desk and opened the laptop. The cameras came online one after another. Six clean feeds. No lag. No static. I left John’s bedroom on the main screen. His bed was still empty.
I sat in the dark and watched the feed. After a few minutes, I took my phone off airplane mode. It vibrated almost immediately.
Jackson: apparently when cats knead you it means they're happy and claiming you as theirs
Me: bold assumption
Jackson: are you saying the internet lied to me?
Me: first time?
Jackson: i'm starting to think you enjoy making fun of me
It was absurd. Texting with Jackson while I waited for my next target to come home.
I exhaled slowly.
My cat thought it all made perfect sense.
Maybe I really was psychotic.