“Or he’s being pushed,” Cabot said.
“We’ll treat it as compromised until proven otherwise,” Eamon said. “Site details inside the hour. Two-vehicle approach on separate routes.”
“Got it,” Dane said.
“One more thing.” A small, dry pause. “Samuel is settled. He’s eating breakfast. He sends his regards.”
Wiley’s hand left the trackpad. He pressed his thumb against the seam of his jeans, just above the knee, and held it there. “Tell him I’ll call at the time we said.”
“He knows. He verified the time with me.”
The line went dead.
None of us moved.
Chapter nine
Dane
Ihad the camera feed open on my phone, but I didn’t monitor it constantly. Michael’s crew in Seattle was watching it 24/7. They’d flagged two passes by the same dark sedan in the last forty minutes and a man on foot at seven-fifty who hadn’t reappeared.
Reed stood at the door in the same posture he’d held since I’d put him there at six. He didn’t shift when I crossed behind him.
Cabot was asleep on the sofa in the parlor, one arm flung across his stomach, with his legal pad resting on his chest. He had been cross-checking his wedding names list with what he found online when his eyes finally closed. His pen slid out of his hand and lodged between two cushions.
Above us, I could hear Wiley’s voice, not loud enough to make out the words. He’d taken Samuel’s call at eight on the dot.
Farrow was standing at the entrance to the parlor, half-turned toward the hall, watching Reed. He hadn’t gone upstairs yet for his six p.m. sleep break.
The Patterson meeting would take place in the morning, at ten a.m. We’d identified three different routes to a Guardians-vetted office in Cambridge.
I slipped my phone into my pocket. “Time for the basement check.”
Farrow passed close by me on his way to the basement door. He brushed the small of my back with his hand. It wasn’t accidental.
“You don’t need to do this,” I said. “You can get some sleep.”
“Do you really think I can sleep upstairs while you go poking around in the dark by yourself?” He didn’t look back.
I gave Farrow a three-second lead and followed him down.
The basement stairs were old wood over older stone. Farrow descended, making no sound. I matched him.
He went left at the bottom, toward the back of the house. I went right.
The basement was what you’d expect under a Federal-style townhome. The fieldstone walls were damp. A newer gas boiler hummed low in the corner, feeding the radiators upstairs. A single bare bulb at the bottom of the stairs lit ten feet of floor. Past that, it was dark.
On my side, I checked an old coal chute first. The bulkhead doors at the back were padlocked from the inside. Two basement windows at street grade had bars and alarms set by The Guardians.
Across the room, Farrow moved around stacked cardboard boxes labeled “Christmas.” Beyond that sat three old chairs and a threadbare loveseat.
He came up behind me as I finished checking the perimeter. “Clean,” he said, low.
“Clean,” I said back.
I led the way as we took the stairs back up. To me, the kitchen was the least secure part of the house. The back door openedonto a tiny brick courtyard with a gate to a service alley. The courtyard walls were only waist-high to a tall man.
I checked the alarm on a gate that was too short to keep an athletic person out. Green. I checked the deadbolt. Set.