Dryden watched the security officer escort Holly to the front door. She went in alone, and the man took up his position again.
Dryden thought of what Rachel had said the other night: how tricky it was to get useful information from a person’s thoughts. How often were thoughts even arranged into coherent sentences? How often were they just fragments of recent conversations, random images?
For five minutes Rachel said nothing. Sometimes she closed her eyes and seemed to concentrate harder.
“She’s writing an e-mail,” Rachel said. “It’s medical stuff about someone named Laney. I don’t know what half the words mean. I think some of them are the names of drugs.”
Dryden felt the cool sensation at his temples spike again. No doubt a result of Rachel’s intense focus. He said nothing about it—hardly thought about it, even. All his attention went to wondering what the next hour might tell them.
“Sent,” Rachel said.
She was quiet for another minute. Her concentration seemed almost to put her in a trance. Her eyelids slipped halfway shut.
Then they opened wide. She startled as if someone had prodded her.
Dryden didn’t ask. He waited.
Rachel got her feet under her and stood. She went to the east wall as if pulled there by whatever she was hearing in Holly Ferrel’s head.
“What the hell?” Rachel whispered.
Dryden stood, too. He was about to step away from the wall when he heard a sound: creaking wood.
Floorboards.
Someone was outside the apartment’s door.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
Rachel heard it, too. Her fix on Holly’s thoughts broke. She spun fast and stared at the door, then at Dryden.
Dryden stooped and took the SIG SAUER from where he’d set it on the floor. He moved out from the wall, putting himself diagonal to the door, ten feet away. Rachel came to his side.
Dryden’s eyes went to the gap where the door met the threshold. The dim stairwell light, just visible through the crack, was interrupted in two places.
Shadows of feet. Someone standing there. Not proceeding to higher floors or descending to the exit. Just standing right there on the landing, trying to be quiet.
For less than half a second Dryden considered the possibilities. Then he pushed all the questions away. No time.
He thought, Rachel, go to the back bedroom. Open the slider. I’m right behind you.
She didn’t hesitate. She turned and vanished into the darkness of the hall. Dryden followed, walking backward, keeping his eyes and the SIG trained on the door.
He heard the slider drag open as he entered the bedroom. Behind him, Rachel’s shoes padded onto the metal surface of the balcony—it was more like a fire escape without a ladder.
Dryden reached behind himself, felt the edge of the slider’s door frame, and backed through it. Across the bedroom and down the length of the hall, he could still see the apartment’s front door. Could still see the double shadow in the gap.
The doorknob rattled. Rachel flinched at the sound.
Dryden swung his head around and took in the space behind the row of town houses, the layout he’d studied earlier. He considered the buildings on the opposite side, and the offshoot alleys leading away between them. One alley was darker than the rest: a narrow passage between a four-story house and a two-story brick building. Dryden liked the look of it as an escape route. He’d liked it when he’d first seen it, hours before, and by force of habit had considered it repeatedly since then.
Forty feet away through the depth of the apartment, the knob rattled again.
Dryden put a leg over the rail and planted his foot at the balcony’s edge, pointed inward between the balusters. He followed with the other leg, then gestured for Rachel to do the same. He held her good arm with his free hand as she swung herself over.
Something—a shoulder or a foot—thudded hard against the apartment’s front door.
Dryden looked down: flat, empty pavement beneath the balcony, ten feet below them.
He stuffed the SIG in his rear waistband and took hold of Rachel’s wrist.
“Know what I’m doing?” he whispered.
She nodded, nervous but ready.
He lifted her clear of the balcony by the wrist, his other hand gripping the rail. He crouched fast, bringing his seat down onto his ankles, his arm extending as far down as he could reach, until Rachel’s feet were no more than eighteen inches above the pavement. He let go and heard her land lightly; her balance faltered and then she regained it and stepped back, clearing his way. He rose, pushed off the edge with his feet, swung down, and dropped to the ground.
Rachel was already moving, heading for the narrow channel Dryden had visualized. He drew the SIG again and caught up with her, nearly sprinting. They’d just rounded the corner of the brick building, into the alley beside it, when he heard the apartment’s door crash inward far behind them. He looked back over his shoulder toward the sound, and in the same instant he heard another, much closer: