Tucker nodded, silently watching.
The men slipped toward the building, some going around to the sides and back. They all seemed to be wearing black, or at least dark colors, and Sarah strained to see whether the tall watcher was among them.
“Do you see him?” she asked Tucker, still whispering.
“No.”
“Neither do—Oh. That isn’t…that can’t be…”
“But it is,” Tucker responded grimly.
One of the men had paused for a moment at the end of the walkway, and the light from a nearby streetlamp shone full on his face. Then he was moving with two others toward the stairs that led to the apartment.
“I don’t understand,” Sarah said. “Why would he be here? Why would he be doing this?”
“I don’t think we want to stick around and ask right now.” Tucker released the emergency brake, and since the car was out of gear and only the brake held it stationary on the slight incline where he had deliberately parked, it immediately began to roll forward silently.
They were well down the street when Tucker finally started the engine, but even then Sarah couldn’t help looking back over her shoulder. Already, the shop was lost to sight, and no screaming engines followed them as Tucker turned a corner and headed for the highway. But what Sarah had seen was branded in her mind.
How could she trust anyone when even cops came sneaking in the middle of the night to kill her?
“Son of a bitch.” Sergeant Lewis stood at the foot of the stairs and watched his breath mist with the curse. He was vaguely aware of one of the men coolly disabling the shop’s security system and going inside, but he didn’t bother to follow.
They wouldn’t be there. They were long gone.
And he was anxious to get out of here. If one of the neighbors happened to wake up and look out a window, he’d have to answer some very uncomfortable questions in the morning.
His cell phone rang just then, and he swiftly drew it out of an inner pocket and answered before it could ring again. “Yeah?” Of course, he knew who it would be. Who else would it be at four o’clock in the fucking morning?
“Well?”
“We missed them.”
“I know that.”
Lewis looked around at darkness and shadows and felt his heart thud a bit faster. You bastard—where are you?
“What I want to know,” the cool voice continued, “is how you intend to find them now that you’ve lost them.”
Lewis gritted his teeth and spoke between them. “I’m sure you have a suggestion.”
“I have several. You won’t like any of them.”
So what else is new.
“Meet me in one hour. The usual place.”
Lewis opened his mouth to object, but the line went dead. Slowly, he closed the phone and returned it to his pocket. He had a hollow feeling about the coming meeting.
A very hollow feeling.
SIX
“Very clever, our Mr. Mackenzie.” Brodie lowered the infrared binoculars and glanced aside to meet Cait’s gaze. “He kept Gallagher out of harm’s way and still managed to take a look at the presumed enemy.”
Cait sniffed and then rubbed her nose. It was cold on the roof of the building across from the antiques shop, and they had been up here for hours. Her nose was beginning to run. “He was too close, if you ask me. If he knew they were coming, why not just take her and run?”
“Maybe he didn’t know they were coming, just thought they might. Or maybe she knew and he wasn’t sure.”
“Even so, they could have been seen sneaking back to the car. We saw them.”
“Umm. But the others didn’t, did they.” Brodie frowned. “Odd, that. They’re usually Johnny-on-the-spot whenever something like this goes down. Wonder who fell asleep at the switch.”
“Maybe that cop. Jeez, how many does that make?”
“Too many. At the local and state levels so far. And impossible to guess who’ll show their face next. Be a lot easier on us if they’d just wear a sign. But at least we have one more name to add to the list.”
Cait rested her chin on her hand as she peered across the street and watched silent men getting silently into weirdly silent cars. “Think he’s a major player?”
“Hell, I don’t know. I’ve never seen him before, but this was our first case in Richmond, so that doesn’t mean much. I’d give a lot to know who called him just now. He didn’t look very happy about it.”
“You think he removed the evidence I couldn’t find from the shop yesterday, don’t you?”
“I’d bet money on it. Nobody’d expect a cop—probably the first at the scene—to pocket a piece of evidence. At least, nobody but a suspicious bastard like me.”
“Think he did the same thing at Sarah Gallagher’s house? The fire marshal suspected arson, but so far he can’t find any proof.”