Chapter 8
TYLER
The house looks unassuming from a distance.
Tucked into the woods, at the end of a long dirt driveway, a warm glow from a first-floor window cuts through the oppressive darkness of the overcast night.
Slender trees planted on either side of the front porch bend slightly in the wind.
An old metal milk box at the base of it catches the faint moonlight breaking through the clouds.
If I were just driving by it, I wouldn’t give the house a second thought. Or if I did, I certainly wouldn’t think a violent criminal lived there.
But one does, or at least, I’m ninety-nine point nine percent sure of it.
That’s why we’re here, after all, on the outskirts of Edinburg, a small town five miles east of Northville. After four frustrating days of inaction, I finally got a hit on the identity of Melissa’s attacker. And in only minutes, Webb, Indy, and I are going to break into his house and confront him.
Is what we’re about to do legal? No.
Do I care? Not really.
Under normal circumstances, I’m a law-abiding citizen.
I follow the speed limit, mostly. I’ve never stolen, aside from the candy I took from the bin by the register at the local grocery store when I was six—which I felt so guilty about, I ended up confessing to my parents before we even got back home.
For the record, they marched me back to the store and made me apologize.
Then I had to dust the house every weekend for a month to earn money to pay the store back for my theft.
At the time, I thought the punishment was harsh.
But now? I think it was fair. And I’m glad my parents did it, because I never even considered stealing again.
I wouldn’t consider what I’m about to do, either, if there wasn’t a good reason for it.
But the man who lives inside that house hurt Melissa.
He broke her wrist. Punched her. Kicked her.
Shit, he could have killed her. So I think, in the scheme of things, it’s okay to break a few laws if it ensures justice is served.
Just thinking about the man I’m about to face makes me angry all over again.
My jaw clenches. My hands tighten into fists.
I imagine—as I have many times since I first saw Melissa’s injuries—smashing my fist into Jake Margolin’s nose and hearing the satisfying crunch of it breaking.
A grim smile tugs at my lips as I envision the fear in his eyes when he realizes he’s faced with a battle he can’t win.
He won’t win. That I’m sure of. First off, Jake Margolin—thirty, single, works in a warehouse in nearby Amsterdam—might be a big guy, but he’s untrained.
He might think, just because he lifts weights a few times a week and guzzles protein shakes, that he’s a tough guy.
But weights and protein shakes don’t bring real strength.
It doesn’t give someone the skills my teammates and I have.
During my research on Jake Margolin, I also discovered he’s a hothead with a years-long drug problem, which didn’t come as a surprise.
No major criminal charges—yet—but he’s been arrested on drug possession and first-degree assault after a bar brawl.
So it’s not a stretch that he’d escalate to the violence he inflicted on Mel, especially when he believed she’d stolen from him.
Why he believed that, I’m still not sure. Which is frustrating as shit, because I should have been able to figure it out already. It’s my damn job, investigating stuff like this. And now, when it involves a woman I care about, I’m failing miserably.
At least I found Margolin, though. It took some doing, but I was able to get my hands on a sample of his blood that was found in her house.
Just a tiny sample, no more than a droplet, but enough to get a rush order on DNA testing.
The police have the same info, but it’ll take days or weeks for forensics to get to it, and I’m not willing to wait.
Plus, Margolin’s DNA isn’t in the system, so even when the police do get the results back, it won’t give them anything useful.
Me, on the other hand…
One of the projects I’ve been working on is a program that uses AI to generate a reconstruction of a person’s face based on their DNA.
And this was the perfect time to test it out.
So I fed the data into my program, and in only a few hours, I had a scarily accurate image of Jake Margolin’s face.
Then I cross-matched it with the images I took from the closest traffic camera to Melissa’s house right around the time she was attacked. And bingo—I got a hit.
From there, it was just putting together the rest of the pieces.
Once I hacked into his computer, I found evidence of him arranging drug deals using online messaging platforms and using crypto to make the payments.
“What happened to drug deals in back alleys?” Rafe asked during our conference call earlier today.
“Wads of cash in envelopes? Whispered conversations in bathrooms?”
“Everything’s high tech now,” Webb grumbled. “Especially criminal activity.”
But what better way to defeat criminals than to best them at their own game? That’s what we’re doing now. And by the end of the night, Jake Margolin won’t get the chance to hurt another woman again.
“How long before breach?” Indy whispers, drawing my attention to him.
He’s tucked into the shadows alongside me, to my right, and Webb is to my left.
The house is about two hundred yards ahead, a short run across a yard speckled with trees.
As I quickly assess the best route of approach, unease snakes through me.
This is my least favorite part of any op—the part where I have to keep up with my teammates.
It’s not that I can’t run well. I can. Up against the average person, I’d easily pass them.
But with my prosthetic, I know I’m not as fast as Indy and Webb.
If I mentioned it to them, they’d both say I’m too hard on myself.
That I can run perfectly fast. But to me…
it’s just another reminder that I’m not the same person I was before losing my leg.
Stop it, my inner voice insists, choosing to be helpful instead of annoying for once. Now’s not the time for insecurity. You should be focused on getting the job done.
The voice is right. So I pull out my thermal imaging camera and check the house again, searching for the heat signature of the man inside. He’s still on the first floor, just like the last time I checked. It looks like he hasn’t moved, which means he’s probably watching TV or sleeping.
“He’s still in the front of the house,” I reply. “No movement since the last time. So I think we’re good to go, if you are.”
Webb nods. “I’m good. Ready to teach this piece of shit a lesson.” His voice dips dangerously. “He thinks it’s okay to beat up a woman? I can’t wait to show him what I think about that.”
“Let’s try to keep the bloodshed to a minimum,” Indy warns. “Remember what we talked about. Keep it as simple as possible. Get the confession on record and find any additional evidence.”
And break some bones, like he did to Mel, I mentally add. Just a few. Nothing life threatening. Just enough for it to hurt.
“He hurt Melissa,” Webb retorts in an angry whisper. “After everything she’s been through… It’s fucking wrong.”
“I know,” Indy agrees quietly. Then he glances at me. Despite the shadows hiding most of his face, I don’t miss the tiny twitch of his lips. “I’m just reminding Tyler not to go too crazy on this asshole. Since he and Melissa—”
I kick Indy’s leg with my prosthetic, a trick I learned from him. He winces, then mutters, “Shit, Ty. That fucking hurt.”
“Did it?” I ask innocently. “I must have tripped.” Shoving the thermal camera back into my vest pocket, I jerk my chin in the direction of the house.
“Let’s do this. Since he’s in the front, I think we should head to the back.
According to the real estate photos I found online, the best point of entry should be the patio doors in the rear. ”
“Tripped, my ass,” Indy mumbles, rubbing his shin. Then he stands straight and lifts his chin at me. “Okay. To the back it is. You taking point, Ty?”
“Yes,” I reply without hesitation. Normally, I wouldn’t care about taking point or not. But Melissa’s attacker is inside. And I’m itching to face him. “Once we get to the patio doors, we’ll reassess. Hopefully, they’ll still have the original lock.”
“Patio doors,” Webb says, shaking his head. “You couldn’t pay me enough to have them. Talk about a security risk.”
Lifting my hand in the hold position, I say, “On my signal. Keep to the trees as much as possible.”
Shifting into battle mode, Indy and Webb both reply quietly, “Roger.”
Taking a deep breath to prepare myself, I let it out at the same time as I lower my hand. Then I spring into action, running across the yard in a crouch, keeping to the shadows as much as I can.
Thanks to the upgraded prosthetic Yara made me, my speed is much faster than it used to be. As I run, I’m once again filled with gratitude for the incredible gift she spent nearly a year working on.
In less than twenty seconds, we reach the exterior of the house.
Hugging the wall, we slow our pace as we creep around to the back and over to the patio.
Once we get close to the sliding glass doors, I hold my hand up again.
I don’t see a motion-activated light nearby, but I want to check before we move any further.
But there’s nothing on the siding or soffits, so I lower my hand and move forward again.
At the edge of the doors, I carefully peer around the corner into the kitchen beyond.
An oven clock glows blue, and a tiny red light shows the coffee maker is plugged in.
Aside from that, the room is empty and dark.