I darted out of my bedroom and down the hall. “Kyle!” I shouted as I approached Ryan’s room. I pounded the door twice as I passed by. “Someone’s in the tree!”
I didn’t bother waiting for a response and continued down the stairs. By the time I rounded the corner at the bottom, I saw that a light had been turned on toward the back of the house. Past the living room and through the dining room I continued until I hit the small hallway that led past the kitchen, Po Po’s room, and the guest room. Agent Knox stood near the door that opened up to the enclosed patio.
“What the hell?” He had his knees bent slightly and his hand near his side holster, ready to draw. His eyes were opened wide, a little buggy looking and blinking excessively as if he had been sharply woken from a deep sleep. Maybe he had fallen asleep on his watch. Or maybe it was because I was running toward him with my weapon drawn.
“Someone is in the tree. Move! Move!”
Knox spun and headed back into the patio. I ran past the guest room as the door opened. It was the other agent, Copeland. “Contain the front of the house!”
I grabbed the Maglite I kept in a small niche near the door and followed Knox into the backyard, flipping the switch for the lightbulb above the doorway. It helped a little.
I switched the Maglite on and held it in my left hand. My weapon rested on my wrist so the sights were aligned with the strong beam of light. “I saw someone on that branch,” I called out as I panned the light across it. Knox moved to secure the backyard, his weapon out front.
By then, Kang had appeared. He raised his weapon up to the tree, following the path of the flashlight. “What’s the situation?”
“I saw someone crouching on that limb.”
Kang looked around. “Where’s the other agent?”
“The front of the house,” I said.
Kang headed to the front of the house.
I continued to shine the light on the limb where I had seen the movement as well as the surrounding ones, but I knew whoever had been there had already disappeared. I helped Knox search the thick hedge, thinking maybe that person had managed to reach it and squeezed inside before we reached the backyard. Nothing.
We moved to the front of the house, and I spotted the outline of a tall person standing on the sidewalk. Copeland had height like Kang, but he also had a good amount of meat on his body—the opposite of Kang’s lanky physique. He turned as he heard our approach.
“The front of the house is clear. Detective Kang headed right, up the street,” he motioned with his thumb.
There was only one streetlight in that direction, leaving the area fairly dark—a likely direction for escape.
“You know I have to ask,” Knox started.
“I saw someone. I’m not imagining it.” I spoke fast. The thumping in my chest continued.
“Okay, that’s a problem. The property was breached without our knowledge.”
I looked Knox straight in the eye. “I think that person was in my room.”
I filled them both in on what had transpired upstairs.
Copeland opened his mouth first. “I’ll check for any signs of a forced entry.” He moved to search the exterior of the house.
The back door couldn’t be locked thanks to Team Favela’s break-in earlier. I sensed Knox had the same thought running through his head.
“It’s possible that door was used as an entry point while I performed a perimeter walk, but I doubt it. How could this person have known the lock was broken?” Knox pointed up toward the house. “Are there locks on those windows?”
Almost all of the original windows on the Victorian were double hung and equipped with a simple sash lock. Most wouldn’t open because they were painted shut, but I had cracked the coat covering mine when we first moved in. I liked fresh air. “They do. I can’t remember if Kyle locked mine when he shut it. I normally don’t since I’m on the second floor so…”
“Do you really think someone was in your room?”
I shrugged. “Pretty sure. I mean, maybe it might have been floaters I saw or a shadow from outside. What I do know is that someone was in that tree. I clearly saw a hand in the moonlight.”
“So maybe you woke just as this person tried to access your room. They got as far as opening the window then had to retreat.”
Why didn’t Castro catch that branch as an entry point into the house? “That’s possible. Maybe it’s another team playing the game.”
Kang had reappeared, slightly out of breath. “I searched all the way to the end of the block and didn’t see anyone.”
We brought Kang up to speed on our conversation. He confirmed that he hadn’t locked the window.
“Great. Seems like everyone caught the same flight to San Francisco.” Kang shook his head and let a defeated breath flap his lips.
“I know, right? Seems like that increased jackpot lit a fire under their butts.”
“Safe to say this person has been here long enough to know that was your bedroom,” Knox said. “Who knows how long he or she has been watching you, waiting for the right opportunity?”
“What are the odds that three teams would strike on the same day?” Copeland asked no one in particular.
“One Attraction. Winner takes all. That’s why,” I said, looking at him. “It’s a race. They don’t have the luxury of sitting back and taking their time.”
Knox scrutinized the houses across the street. “You’re not safe here,” he said, turning toward me. “These people know where you live. We’ll need to move you.”
“He’s right, Abby,” Kang said. “We don’t know who these teams are or what they look like. Anybody who comes in contact with you is a potential threat.”
“Hey, hey, let’s not overreact. All we need to do is adjust.” I held my palms out. “We know they’ll come here, so it’s easier to stay put. I know my neighbors and am familiar with all the faces on this street. If I move to another location, it creates more unknowns. It’ll be harder to spot a threat.”
The group fell silent for a moment.
“All right,” Knox said, “we’ll do it your way.” He placed a hand on my shoulder and gave it a soft squeeze. “I pray I never have to tell you, ‘I told you so.’”
Chapter 18
The sun had just begun to rise and peer through the sheer curtains that dressed the double-paned window in the small bedroom when bladder pressure in Zoric’s abdomen woke him. He rubbed the crust from his eyes and looked at the slender woman next to him. She was turned away, lying partially on her side and stomach. Her chestnut hair fanned across her creamy bare back. The white comforter only covered her up to her waist, where a tattoo of a unicorn on her lower back peeked out.
Her name was Adrijana Lilic, and she had always been by Zoric’s side until a year ago when they both fled Serbia separately. Zoric had been a high-ranking member of the Zemun Clan gang in Belgrade. The recently elected mayor had put the gang in his sights and vowed to eradicate their presence in the capital city. Zoric had no interest in seeing how determined the elected official was to demonstrate to his constituents his commitment to being tough on crime. He thought it best that he and Adrijana stay apart temporarily. Adrijana went west to the small town of Pristina in Kosovo while he and Petrovic fled east to Chisinau in Moldova.
He pulled the comforter up over her shoulders; the morning temperature outside had to be in the low teens, and it was not much warmer in the room. Even in the hottest month of summer, the mercury never rose above 65 degrees Fahrenheit.
Zoric slid his feet over the edge of the double bed and stood. He walked quietly across the cold tile floors, hugging himself for warmth. His half-erect penis swung with each step. He would wake Adrijana after he took a piss.
A few steps out of the bedroom, near the door to the toilet, Zoric stopped and peered into the living room. Tucked under a woolen blanket and sleeping soundly on an old futon was Petrovic. He had an arm resting across his eyes, shielding them from the penetrating light of the rising sun. He
still wore his grungy boots.
They had arrived at Adrijana’s apartment about a week ago. It was the only place Zoric thought they could be relatively safe and lie low. Killing those Greeks in Thessaloniki had been stupid, and he knew it. This hadn’t been the first time his lack of patience had gotten him in trouble. It had been a constant his whole life.
“One of these days, you’ll get us killed,” Petrovic would say to him.
Zoric would always reply, “Not today.”
Zoric had calmed Petrovic’s fears of retaliation by coming up with a plan. Well, it wasn’t much of a plan; mostly it involved convincing Adrijana to part with her stash of cash that he knew she always kept hidden from him. They could use that money to pay for their travel to San Francisco and continue playing the game. It was the only real solution they had. Plus, it would put them out of reach of the Greeks, and if they won, they could then go anywhere in the world.
However, there was a contingency—one Petrovic wouldn’t like—that Adrijana had laid down for funding their expedition west: Team Balkan would have a new member, and the take would be split three ways.
Chapter 19
Adaira Kilduff stared out the window of the seventh-floor hotel room located in San Francisco’s financial district. She particularly loved that hotel, having stayed once before. It wasn’t that the room was well appointed or that the hotel had outstanding customer service or that the amenities were top notch; no, it had actually been fairly lackluster in all departments. But what she had discovered during her last visit was a discreet way she could come and go without raising an eyebrow with the front desk staff.
If she entered the stairwell from the second floor and made her way to the ground level, a door opened into a small hallway that led to another door that opened into the pub next door. From all sides, the door looked as though it led to an unremarkable broom closet, so the only people who trafficked the corridor were hotel employees fulfilling in-room dining orders. The doors were never locked, and the pub was always busy.
She had been in town for two days and was aware of Team Militant’s unsuccessful attempt at fulfilling the game’s singular Attraction. The sniper shooting topped every news broadcast, though none of the media mentioned the game or the alias used by the gunman. That told her they had no clue or the FBI had issued a gag order. Either way, it worked in her favor. Team Militant just came off as a nutty, one-man militia bent on sticking it to the U.S. government, and the game was free to continue.
Adaira had already figured out where Agent Kane lived and still hadn’t decided if attacking her there was a viable option. If a heavy security detail were present, it would be problematic. Adaira wasn’t a bust-down-the-door-and-shoot-’em-up kind of person. Her victims in the past had been people she knew, most of them intimately. It allowed her to plot out every step, to think through every repercussion that could arise from the act. It was the real reason she had gotten away with her previous murders.
This method, however, slowed her advancement in the game. So far, she had sacrificed two of her pay pigs for the game. Their generosity had been waning, and she didn’t think she’d lost much by disposing of them.
Adaira had always thought she hadn’t been right for the game and had seriously thought about dropping out because of the difficulty of finding victims, not to mention the themed kills required by the game, but the draw of the prize was too much to ignore. She had to try. With the latest change in the game dynamics, Adaira had become much more hopeful. “One kill and the winner takes all” gave her an honest chance at winning.
A swoosh of water could be heard coming from the bathroom before the door opened. Out walked a stocky woman with a buzz cut. Her face was adorned with a labret, a nasal septum piercing, and a third-eye piercing, and her earlobes were stretched and outfitted with black flesh tunnels.
She wore a white button-down shirt that she was busy tucking into the waistband of her slung jeans. A pair of black combat boots anchored the ensemble. The sleeves were rolled up to her elbows, revealing tribal tattooing on her forearms. Inked right below the knuckles of her right hand was the word BORN. On the other hand was the word BUTCH.
Adaira turned around and smiled. She had met Alex in an after-hours club during her last visit to the city. Alex had taken a liking to Adaira, and the bulldog had quickly become a puppy following her around during her stay. Adaira cozied up to the butch boi and learned that she had a questionable past that included a stretch of time in the Central California Women’s Facility for burglary, the illegal sale of firearms, and unintentional manslaughter. “Unintentional” was Alex’s take on the incident.
Adaira’s gut had told her to stay clear, but it was that very thing about Alex that kept her engaged. That, and every now and then, Adaira enjoyed being piledriven by a dyke.
“So, babe, what’s the plan?” Alex took a swig from an open bottle of Jack Daniel’s before wrapping her arms around the tall redhead and sucking on her neck.
Adaira pulled back immediately. “No marks. Remember?”
“Man, I’m just trying to snack on you.”
“You can snack, just not there.”
A crooked smile formed on Alex’s face, revealing her nicotine-stained teeth. “I know what you want.” She flicked her tongue like a serpent before dropping to her knees.
Adaira leaned back against the window, turning her head sideways to admire the city lights once again. The fog was minimal that night. To the south was the Embarcadero Center, whose four buildings were outlined with lights year round. To the north, in the direction of the Golden Gate Bridge, was North Beach’s camel hump: Telegraph Hill. Protruding from the very top of it like an icy-blue glow stick was the famous Coit Tower. It was always beautifully illuminated at night, with exterior lighting that changed to suit the city’s tastes. The last time Adaira was in town, the tower had been drenched in orange to celebrate the San Francisco Giants’ win of the World Series.
Adaira rested both hands on Alex’s head, gently guiding her. She had yet to figure out a workable, themed kill for the game, but she had enlisted a sidekick. Adaira was well aware that she hadn’t the means to kill Agent Kane the way she needed to, but she knew Alex could. Convincing her to go along couldn’t have been any easier, and Adaira didn’t even have to mention the game. She simply told Alex that the FBI agent had been working with Scottish authorities to have her extradited back to Scotland, and if that happened, Alex could forget about eating her ever again.
That’s all Alex needed to hear. “Man, fuck that bitch. She ain’t taking what’s mine.”
The question about a plan that Alex had asked earlier was not without reason; Adaira had yet to come up with one. She needed an idea that complied with the game’s theme. She knew she wanted a movie that represented the essence of Team Kitty Kat, one that was equally thrilling as being a dominatrix.
The first film that came to mind was Doctor Dolittle. She had remembered a scene in which Jake the Tiger was contemplating suicide from the top of Coit Tower. Adaira thought of how fun it would be if the lady agent leapt or was pushed from the tower. However, the movie didn’t quite meet her expectations. Family fun wasn’t exactly what she’d had in mind.
Not being a huge movie buff, Adaira was forced to do a search online, where she found an article that listed every movie shot in the city. Escape from Alcatraz jumped out at her, as she was certain it would be a thrill to watch Agent Kane try to escape her grasp. But then she came across the erotic thriller Basic Instinct. It seemed almost too perfect. She was exactly like the lead character: intelligent, sexy, deadly. But in the end, Adaira chose a movie that had a driving scene that appeared to be as equally thrilling as whipping a man into submission.
Chapter 20
Two days had passed without incident. Neither my neighbors nor the media were the wiser of what had been taking place at the House of Kane. I had talked Reilly out of setting up a command post on my front lawn. That would have drawn unnecessary attention and freaked out
the neighbors.
An agent at the bureau had dug up information on Team Favela. The man’s name was Antonio Rocha—a wannabe thug from Rocinha, one of the larger slums of Rio de Janeiro. His background proved interesting.
Apparently, his mother was a powerful woman in the favela where he grew up on account of her longtime boyfriend, Francisco Sá Silva, the right-hand man of one of Rio’s most feared drug lords. Sá Silva was said to have helped her raise Rocha since he was ten. I suspected Rocha never quite lived up to his expectations. Maybe playing this game was his way of proving himself to the man he called Dad.
According to the game, Team Favela should have been in Buenos Aires, Argentina. There were no waypoints on the map connecting that city with another, so I could only assume B.A. had been his first crack at the game. As far as I could tell, he had only completed one of the Attractions before the objectives of the game had changed. They’re only a flight away.
I exited the back door, looking to find Knox. He’d already had the lock on it fixed and reinforced; in fact, all entry points into the house had been refitted with extra security fixtures. The floodlights were also operational again. My neighbors would just have to deal with it.
Knox had set up two live animal traps in the far corners of the yard in an effort to keep the raccoons from triggering the security lights. “It’ll help to eliminate a false trip.” He motioned upward with his eyes to the lights.
I studied the wire mesh cage. “What’ll you do if you catch one?”
“We’ll have animal control come out and relocate it.”
I took a deep breath of fresh air and kicked a pinecone that had fallen from the tree. Last Thanksgiving, Lucy had collected enough for her entire class to make pinecone turkeys. Lucy had made one for each of us, and they served as the centerpieces for our festive dinner. Remembering that day made my stomach turn; I had yet to see my family since the night they had been whisked away. I continued to push Reilly for a visit, but he rejected my request each time. He had me contemplating a decision that would not make him happy.
Coit Tower (Abby Kane FBI Thriller - Chasing Chinatown Trilogy Book 3) Page 8
