Chapter 18
Peter followed Manny down McGraw and parked across the street from KT’s little house. Peter locked the Tahoe and walked up to the big Semper Fi pickup as Ellie got out on the passenger side.
Manny rolled down his window. “I’ll keep an eye out here, just in case.”
She was a teenage girl, of course she wanted her phone. “Here’s the thing,” Peter said. “If you go with the social worker, I’ll give you the phone back. But otherwise, I have to keep it wrapped in tinfoil. The police can track the signal. They’ll know where you are and come get you.”
“You’re kidding,” she said. “They can do that?”
“They can. So it’s up to you, whatever you want to do.”
She sighed and glanced back at Manny and Carlotta for a moment.
“My mom always said it wasn’t good for me to spend so much time on my phone.
That I needed to learn how to turn it off.
” She swiped a forearm across her eyes. “I mean, I knew she was right. You spend four hours on TikTok and you feel like shit. But I never thought this was why I’d give it up. ”
He put an arm around her and gave her a squeeze. Then they climbed the porch steps and Ellie unlocked the front door.
It was a modest 1920s bungalow, with two small bedrooms tucked under the eaves and another on the main floor set up as an office.
Even from the front hall, Peter could tell that the police had been through the place.
The sofa cushions were askew, books replaced sloppily on the living room shelves.
But the searchers seemed to have made an effort to keep things relatively neat, which hopefully made seeing it easier on Ellie.
She stood uneasily with one foot on the stairs, keys in her hand, looking around at the only home she’d ever known. “I’m not coming back here, am I? Not to live, I mean.”
Peter didn’t answer. He knew it wasn’t really a question.
She went upstairs to pack. He went to the kitchen, planning to go through the fridge and put perishables into the garbage for pickup.
He noticed the Nespresso coffee maker was pulled out from the back of the counter, as if KT had just filled the water reservoir.
He put his hand on it to push it back into place and realized it was warm.
He opened the top and pulled out the spent coffee pod.
That was warm, too.
The cops wouldn’t use a coffee maker at a crime scene. Plus they’d likely cleared out hours ago.
The coffee maker should not be warm.
Peter pulled the .357 from his waistband and moved toward the front hall. “Ellie? You doing okay up there?”
No answer. Revolver up and ready, he stuck his head into the living room, then the dining room, saw nobody.
The front hall closet held only coats and boots.
KT’s office was in the back of the house, but it would have to wait.
He turned toward the stairs, his voice louder now. “Ellie? What’s taking you so long?”
Still no answer. He turned and began to ease up the steps.
Slow and smooth, his back to the wall. At the landing, he heard a voice.
It was coming from the front bedroom. The door was open.
He charged in and saw Ellie at the dresser, singing softly to something on the clock radio, dumping clothes into a giant suitcase open on her bed.
She looked at him. “What?”
He put a finger to his lips, peeked behind the door, then sidestepped to the closet. A chaos of clothes, but nobody hiding. He checked under the bed. Nothing. Her eyes were wide. He pointed to the far corner, out of the line of fire. She went.
He slipped past her and eased open the bathroom door. Nobody inside, nobody behind the shower curtain. He ghosted toward the rear bedroom. The door was ajar. The closet was open with clothes hung neatly. Nobody there. Nobody under the bed.
He went back to Ellie’s room. Over the radio, she whispered, “Dude, what the hell?”
“I think someone was here,” he said softly. “Might still be here. Stay put. I’m going to check the rest of the house.”
Then down the stairs to the kitchen again, where a doorway led to the half-bath and KT’s office.
The half-bath was empty. KT’s office was empty.
But it had clearly been searched, and not by the same people who had searched the rest of the house.
Some of the desk drawers and file cabinets were still open.
Papers and notepads and other desk litter lay scattered across the carpet.
Books had been pulled from the shelves. The trash can had been upended on the floor.
He went to the desk. On the glass top was a dark ring, maybe three inches across. The kind of thing the bottom of a coffee cup might leave behind. He put his knuckle to the ring. It was still wet.
He spun out of there and went toward the back hall, where a short flight of steps led down to the back door, a row of coat hooks, and more steps down to the basement.
Peering into the gloom, he realized that all the lights were off.
A bad bet to hide down there with no other way out.
He turned to check the back door. It was the original two-panel door, varnished pine, over a hundred years old.
It was standing open a half-inch. A cold breeze wafted through. The jamb was cracked where someone had pried it open.
He looked down at the floor. No trace of rain at the gap.
It hadn’t been open long, Peter was sure of that.
—
He took a deep breath, then yanked open the door and blew through the opening, checking left and right, then scanning the small yard.
No garage. No plantings big enough to hide behind.
Nobody waiting to kill him. Whoever this guy was, he’d had at least two chances at it.
If he’d heard them coming up the front steps, he could have pulled the trigger when Peter and Ellie first entered the house.
If he’d been in the back of the house, searching KT’s office, he could have killed Peter when he walked into the kitchen.
The yard was fenced, but there was a gate standing half-open to the neighbors behind.
That and the driveway were the only ways out.
Peter peered around the rear corner of the house, saw nobody, and jogged to the street with the pistol half-hidden behind his leg.
The rain was still holding off. Traffic was stopped at the light.
He looked both ways and saw nobody on foot.
Manny’s window rolled down again. Peter called, “You see anybody come out here?”
Manny shook his head. Peter forked his fingers at his eyes and pointed at the house. Manny nodded and got out of the truck, unzipping his jacket to reveal a pistol on his belt.
Peter turned back to the house and sprinted toward the rear gate.
He peeked through and saw nobody. The house was another bungalow, slightly larger, in serious need of paint.
He ran down an overgrown path toward the driveway and then to the sidewalk.
He looked south and saw nothing. He looked north and saw a figure toward the end of the block, walking away. He began to run, closing the distance.
Ahead of him, the figure glanced back, saw Peter coming. A man, and he held something in one hand. Like a coffee mug.
Peter turned up his kick and found another gear. He was wearing hiking boots, but they were a newer pair, light and flexible. The pistol in his hand put him off-balance, but he adjusted. It was a whole lot easier than running with an M4 carbine and full armor.
The figure’s face had been light, but his hands were dark. Peter realized he was wearing gloves. The guy moved his arm to the side and something fell. Then he turned the corner and disappeared from view behind a long row of lilac bushes.
Peter sprinted to the end, then slowed to see what had fallen.
It was a broken mug in a black puddle on the pale sidewalk.
The guy had taken his coffee to go, then dumped it.
Peter raised the Smith and peeked past the bushes, not wanting to get shot in the face, expecting to see the figure running hard.
Instead, the sidewalk was empty. Peter kept moving forward, hampered by the need to check behind every car along the curb. He saw nobody. Whoever the guy was, he was fast.
Before he reached the end of the block, a bright car peeled out of the last parking spot and cranked around the corner. Peter sprinted to get a better look. All he saw was a pair of streamlined taillights vanishing over a rise.
He hadn’t even heard an engine start. Seattle was filled with electric cars, sleek and silent.
Well, hell.
—
As Peter jogged back to the house, it began to rain. He waved to Carlotta, parked across the street. Heading up the front walk, he realized the front door was standing wide open. He raised his pistol and climbed the steps. “Are we good?”
“We’re good.” Manny stood in the front hall with his pistol held at low ready. From there he had sight lines to the kitchen and back entryway and all the way out front to Carlotta in the pickup. “Find anything?”
Peter shook his head.
Ellie was on the landing, her face pale. “What happened?”
“Someone was here. Looking through your mom’s office, I think.”
“Did he take anything?”
“I don’t know. I lost him. Are you okay?”
She gave him a pointed look. “I’m not the one who lost him.”
Peter snorted. “Next time, you chase him.”
“That’s the bodyguard’s job.” She clattered down the stairs. “We should go check my mom’s office. See if we can figure out what he was looking for.”
It was a good idea, Peter had to admit. “Manny, you’re on security.”
“Roger that.”
She led him through the kitchen to the office door, where she stopped and scanned the room. “What’s that?”