Page 25

CHAPTER 25

BABY SLAMMED THE DRILL into the toolbox on top of the ladder, thumped the lid closed, and examined her work. The camera she’d just installed on the pillar of Arthur’s porch was big and encased in white, a glistening black eye with a view of the entire front of the property. It was a showy piece, the kind of camera designed to be seen, the kind hooked up in stores to discourage shoplifters. Baby and Rhonda had used them a couple of times in the exact type of operation that Baby was about to pull.

The night was quiet all around her. The frogs and crickets in the long grass must have been scared off by the sound of the drilling. Arthur had gone to bed. She got down, folded the ladder, leaned it against the porch, and carried the toolbox to the back of the property. She checked the Ubers in the area. Six minutes for a pickup. When she got home, she’d sneak back into the mansion, try to catch a few hours of shut-eye.

Baby rounded the corner of the back porch and saw a figure in the moonlight just off the steps, a big man with close-cropped hair. He stood poised, waiting, listening. Baby guessed he’d been planning to enter the house until he’d heard her drilling up front.

Baby thought about yelling. She didn’t. Instead, she stepped around the side of the house, intentionally dropped the toolbox, and cursed loudly. Then she crept forward and, as expected, saw the man had spooked and bolted for the back fence.

She silently followed, the tall grass brushing at her hips, prickles catching in her jeans. She vaulted the fence a few seconds after he did, then trailed him through the overgrown garden of the house behind Arthur’s. The man turned right and headed toward a strip of apartment buildings. She was ten yards behind.

As the man climbed into a small gray Honda, Baby stopped by a tree, slipped her phone from her pocket, and prepared to take a picture of the license plate. She growled in frustration as a call from Rhonda flashed onto the screen, making the camera vanish. By the time she’d declined the call and tried to snap a picture of the trespasser’s license plate, it was almost too late, and the photo was blurry.

“Where are you?” Rhonda demanded when Baby answered her second call.

“In my bedroom?”

“That’s funny.” Her older sister’s voice was strained. “ ’Cause I just killed a guy right outside your door. You didn’t hear anything? You didn’t think to come out and help?”

Baby’s mouth opened and shut, the words caught in her throat. The hairs on the back of her neck stood up when she heard sirens wail on the other end of the line. “You what ?”

“Get your ass home, Baby,” Rhonda snarled. “Right now.”