At the top of the stairs, Mitch stood at the head of the first aisle. A pair of windows in the north wall directly admitted adequate light to assure him that no one crouched in any shallow niche among the boxes.
The second aisle proved darker than the first, although the intersecting passage at the end was brightened by unseen windows in the west wall, which faced the house. The light at the end would have silhouetted anyone standing boldly in the intervening space.
Because the boxes were not all the same size and were not in every instance stacked neatly, and because gaps existed here and there in the rows, nooks along each aisle offered places large enough for a man to hide.
Mitch had quietly ascended the stairs. The Honda below probably had not been running long enough to raise significant suspicion. Therefore, any sentinel stationed in the loft would be alert and listening, but most likely would not yet have realized the immediate need to be elusive.
The third aisle was brighter for having a window directly at the end of it. He checked out the fourth aisle, then the fifth and final, which lay along the south wall in the light of two dusty windows. He found no one.
The intersecting passage that paralleled the west wall, into which all the east-west aisles terminated, was the only length of the loft that he had not seen in its entirety. Every row of boxes hid a portion of that space.
Raising the lug wrench higher, he eased along the southernmost aisle, toward the front of the loft. He found that the entire length of the last passage was as deserted as the portions he had seen from the farther end of the building.
On the floor, however, against the end of a row of boxes, stood some equipment that should not be here.
More than half the stuff in the loft had belonged to Dorothy, Holly’s grandmother. She had collected ornaments and other decorative items for every major holiday.
At Christmas, she’d unpacked fifty or sixty ceramic snowmen of various kinds and sizes. She’d had more than a hundred ceramic Santa Clauses. Ceramic reindeer, Christmas trees, wreaths, ceramic bells and sleighs, groups of ceramic carolers, miniature ceramic houses that could be arranged to form a village.
The bungalow couldn’t accommodate Dorothy’s full collection for any holiday. She’d unpacked and set out as much as would fit.
Holly hadn’t wanted to sell any of the ceramics. She continued the tradition. Someday, she said, they would have a bigger house, and the full glory of each collection could be revealed.
Sleeping in hundreds of cardboard boxes were Valentine’s Day lovers, Easter bunnies and lambs and religious figures, July Fourth patriots, Halloween ghosts and black cats, Thanksgiving Pilgrims, and the legions of Christmas.
The gear on the floor in the final aisle was neither ceramic nor ornamental, nor festive. The electronic equipment included a receiver and a recorder, but he couldn’t identify the other three items.
They were plugged into a board of expansion receptacles, which was itself plugged into a nearby wall outlet. Indicator lights and LED readouts revealed the equipment to be engaged.
They had been maintaining surveillance of the house. Its rooms and phones were probably bugged.
Confident in his stealth, having seen no one in the loft, Mitch assumed, upon sight of the equipment, that it was not at the moment being monitored, that it must be set to automatic operation. Perhaps they could even access it and download it from a distance.
Simultaneously with that thought, the array of indicator lights changed patterns, and at least one of the LED displays began to keep a running count.
He heard a hissing distinct from the idling Honda in the garage below, and then the voice of Detective Taggart.
“I love these old neighborhoods. This was how southern California looked in its great years…”
Not just the rooms of the house but the front porch, too, had been bugged.
He knew that he had been outmaneuvered only an instant before he felt the muzzle of the handgun against the back of his neck.
Although he flinched, Mitch did not attempt to turn toward the gunman or to swing the lug wrench. He would not be able to move fast enough to succeed.
During the past five hours, he had become acutely aware of his limitations, which counted as an achievement, considering that he had been raised to believe he had no limitations.
He might be the architect of his life, but he could no longer believe that he was the master of his fate.
“… before they cut down all the orange groves and built a wasteland of stucco tract houses.”
Behind him, the gunman said, “Drop the lug wrench. Don’t stoop to put it down. Just drop it.”
The voice was not that of the man on the phone. This one sounded younger than the other, not as cold, but with a disturbing deadpan delivery that flattened every word and gave them all the same weight.
Mitch dropped the club.
“… more convenient. But I happened to be in your neighborhood.”
Apparently using a remote control, the gunman switched off the recorder.
He said to Mitch, “You must want her cut to pieces and left to die, the way he promised.”
“No.”
“Maybe we made a mistake, choosing you. Maybe you’d be happy to be rid of her.”
“Don’t say that.”
Every word matter-of-fact, all with the same emotional value, which was no value at all: “A large life-insurance policy. Another woman. You could have reasons.”
“There’s nothing like that.”
“Perhaps you’d do a better job for us if, as compensation, we promised to kill her for you.”
“No. I love her. I do.”
“You pull another stunt like this one, she’s dead.”
“I understand.”
“Let’s go back the way you came.”
Mitch turned, and the gunman also turned, staying behind him.
As he began to retrace his steps along the final aisle, past the first of the southern windows, Mitch heard the lug wrench scrape against the boards as the gunman scooped it off the floor.
He could have pivoted, kicked, and hoped to catch the man as he rose from a quick stoop. He feared the maneuver would be anticipated.
Thus far, he had thought of these nameless men as professional criminals. They probably were that, but they were something else, too. He did not know what else they might be, but something worse.
Criminals, kidnappers, murderers. He could not imagine what might be worse than what he already knew them to be.
Following him along the aisle, the gunman said, “Get in the Honda. Go for a ride.”
“All right.”
“Wait for the call at six o’clock.”
“All right. I will.”
As they neared the end of the aisle, at the back of the loft, where they needed to turn left and cross the width of the garage to the steps in the northeast corner, something like luck intervened by way of a cord, a knot in the cord, a loop in the knot.
At the moment it happened, Mitch didn’t perceive the cause, only the effect. A tower of cardboard boxes collapsed. Some tumbled into the aisle, and one or two fell