Chapter 4 #2
Storm answered from the other vehicle. “Would you?” I didn't bother responding because we both knew the answer, and that was precisely the problem.
By the time Edinburgh appeared beneath a sky that had finally surrendered to rain, Maverick's local contact had confirmed Skye remained near Alderwick House.
The man hadn't approached her and knew better than to make himself noticeable.
He had seen her arrive carrying what looked like a professional work bag, circle the block once, photograph the building from across the street, and disappear toward the rear lane twenty minutes later.
"Rear entrance?" I asked.
Maverick nodded. "Looks that way."
"Security?"
"At least two cameras on the front. One overlooking the service lane. Local contact spotted a man leaving ten minutes before Fraser arrived. Dark coat. No umbrella despite the rain. Walked two blocks, got into a black Audi with cloned plates."
Trigger glanced at me. "Order?"
"Maybe."
"Maybe's enough."
We didn't take the SUVs directly into the neighborhood.
Maverick had already arranged a temporary safe location several streets away, an empty flat above a business owned by a man who apparently owed him money after losing three poker games and one exceptionally foolish football wager.
We left Raze and Storm there to establish communications with Cipher while Trigger and Hawkeye took separate observation positions around the district.
Maverick headed toward a contact who had access to nearby CCTV. I went alone.
Edinburgh's stone held rain differently from the cities I'd known in America.
Water darkened the facades, sharpened the smell of pavement and old masonry, and turned every window into another reflective surface.
Tourists moved beneath umbrellas while locals walked as though rain were something too ordinary to acknowledge.
I let the crowd carry me toward Alderwick House without approaching it directly, crossing the street twice, entering a shop through one door and leaving through another, then using the reflection in a bus shelter to check behind me. Nobody obvious followed.
The townhouse appeared exactly as the photographs suggested—beautiful and respectable enough to reassure almost anyone who looked at it, yet something about the place felt unmistakably wrong.
Three stories of pale Georgian stone stood behind black iron railings, every window proportioned carefully enough to satisfy the architectural obsession of whichever man had designed it two centuries earlier.
Fresh mortar marked several sections near the rear corner.
One camera beneath the eaves had been painted to match the stone. Another watched the service gate.
I spotted Skye's route almost immediately in the faint wet footprint near the gate, the freshly disturbed gravel, and the service door that had not completely settled back into its frame.
I crossed the lane when nobody was watching and slipped through.
Inside, the rear portion of Alderwick House smelled of plaster dust, damp timber, and recently cut wood. Plastic sheeting hung across one doorway, though the renovation appeared too complete elsewhere for the mess to make sense. Somebody wanted this section to look unfinished.
Then I heard measured movement farther inside, lighter than I would have expected from one of the guards and pausing every few steps as though whoever was there was examining the building rather than patrolling it.
I moved silently down the corridor until I saw her.
Skye Fraser stood with her back partly toward me beneath the weak light of a temporary work lamp, a tablet balanced in one hand and a laser measure in the other.
Her hair was pulled into a loose knot at the nape of her neck, several dark auburn strands already escaping around her face.
She wore a fitted dark coat over trousers and practical boots rather than the polished clothes I had expected from the photograph Cipher showed us.
Her attention remained completely fixed on the wall in front of her.
She measured the wall, checked the figure against her tablet, measured it again, and then stepped backward to study the ceiling.
Most people entering an unfamiliar property would have been looking for movement.
Skye was looking for geometry.
She crossed to the opposite wall, crouched beside the skirting board, and ran two fingers along a section of molding before sitting back on her heels.
"That's new," she whispered.
She wasn't speaking to anyone at all; she was reading the building as naturally as I read a surveillance route.
I stayed where I was, watching her follow the line of the baseboard toward a section of fresh plaster. She noticed the floorboards changed direction before I did. Then she found a slight discrepancy in the molding profile and lifted her phone to photograph it.
The files had told me Skye was good at what she did, but they had undersold her.
I might have continued watching if a soft click overhead hadn't pulled my attention toward the staircase.
Skye didn't react, but I recognized the sound of approaching footsteps immediately, at least one person and possibly two moving down from the upper floor.
Coming from the front staircase.
I moved closer to the doorway just as Skye shifted toward the concealed section of wall.
Another footstep that seemed to be closer now. She finally heard it and turned sharply as her gaze found me. For half a second, neither of us moved.
Surprise flashed across her face first, followed almost instantly by calculation.
She took in the leather cut beneath my jacket, my position near the doorway, the fact that I had gotten this close without her hearing me, and whatever else she could read from my expression.
Fear came last, and even then it never gained much ground.
Her hand tightened around the laser measure.
"You've been following me."
Not who are you?
Not what are you doing here?
An accusation.
Despite everything, I almost smiled.
"You've been making it easier than it should be."
Her eyes narrowed.
The footsteps above us stopped.
I looked toward the ceiling.
Skye followed my gaze, finally understanding that she and I were not the only people inside Alderwick House.
When I looked back at her, I kept my voice low.
"You can decide whether you hate me in about five minutes."
She opened her mouth.
Another floorboard creaked directly above us.
I crossed the space between us before she could argue.
"Right now, lass, you need to move."