The Innocent: A Vanessa Michael Munroe Novel
Page 11
Outside the hotel, in the coming twilight, Munroe flagged a taxi. With the directions pulled from the GPS, she talked the driver through what little he didn’t already know.
They traveled first to the far edge of city, away from the elegant colonial architecture and wide tree-lined avenues of the city proper. Out here there were still dirt roads, the buildings were modest and humble, and although this property wasn’t the van’s final destination, there was no other reason for the forty-five-minute stop in this remote area but to visit a sister Haven.
The property, spread out ranch style, was comprised of a greater two-story house, a smaller single-story annex, and what appeared to be a barn or large shed at the far back. The buildings were set far off the rural highway with a dirt road connecting it to the main road. Stopping wasn’t possible without attracting attention, so they passed twice, photographed what they could in the dimming light, and moved on to the next location.
The van’s home was in a suburb closer to the city, a neighborhood where houses were surrounded by high walls and accessed through sheet-metal gates and interspersed among mom-and-pop stores and microindustries. The first pass confirmed what the satellite images had shown: a three-story house with subconstruction in the rear that appeared to have been built as servants’ quarters. Placement from the walls allowed for a large backyard.
Far down the street, Munroe paid the taxi fare, and she and Bradford exited, joining the pedestrian traffic. Unlike the first property, which they’d known was inaccessible, here Munroe hoped to see if there were any guard dogs or night watchmen, and to get a visual of the easiest access route over the walls.
Arm in arm, casually strolling, Munroe and Bradford walked until they had looped the entire area and she had seen what she wanted.
“How many bedrooms?” Munroe asked.
Bradford glanced over his shoulder and then turned his gaze toward the sidewalk as they continued. “I dunno,” he said, “maybe five or six.”
Munroe nodded. “That’d be my guess too. And I’m going to venture they’ve got at least forty-five people living in there.”
“Based on what?” he said. “Gut instinct?”
“Mostly from what I’ve read,” she said, “and from the things that Logan has told me over the years.
“At least two-thirds of them will be children,” she added.
Bradford paused, and Munroe knew he was running the numbers. Finally he nodded toward the house. “Thirty kids in there?” he said.
“At least. Probably more.”
He waited a beat and then deadpanned: “That’s a lot of laundry.”
* * *
At one in the morning the heart of Buenos Aires was just starting to bustle. For those out on the town the evening didn’t truly begin until around midnight and would only start to settle after three or four. The night was different in the suburbs, where beyond the occasional late sidewalk chatter, the streets were mostly quiet, the silence broken only by the occasional car or a dog’s bark or the wail of a cat in heat.
Munroe stood with her back to the wall, one leg casually braced against it, watching the street, waiting in the silence for the right moment to move. She had approached the property from the rear, following the side road that Raúl had used to drop her off. Once on her own she’d pulled off her outer T-shirt, tightened it into a roll, and stuffed it into a vest side pocket. She donned a balaclava, and in full-body black with the depth of night calling to her, followed shadow to shadow, a phantom in the dark until she reached the loneliest of the Haven compound’s walls.
Munroe tossed a retractable anchor over and hoisted upward. On the other side, the property grounds were well lit, and although Munroe didn’t see them, she knew from the first pass that several dogs had the run of the space.
She lay flat in the shadows along the width of wall, her left leg hanging along the outside for balance. From a vest pocket she pulled a Ziploc pack of meat and with a trainer’s whistle summoned the dogs. Relying on the old tried-and-true, she dropped several laced chunks into the yard, and with the dogs self-sedating, set to work pulling equipment pieces from her pockets.
She reassembled and mounted a surveillance camera first, followed by a wireless long-range transmitter. Located as they were, she wouldn’t expect the pieces to be discovered for a very long time, if ever. With Bradford’s guidance in her ear, Munroe made minute adjustments until he confirmed visual contact. She then repeated the procedure with a laser sight, pointing it so that it reflected off the largest downstairs window.
The dogs were dozing now, and though not fully asleep, they were not alert enough to raise an alarm. Munroe crouched and scooted along the balance beam of wall until her readings showed the proper angle. Placing a laser mike required a bit of finesse, and tonight was her one shot at getting it right.
Munroe twisted a wing nut, tilting the receiver another half degree toward the laser, and Bradford, in her ear, confirmed sound.
Based on what he heard, there were at least four people still moving about the house. Voice verification, an unexpected boon, was an upside to the downside of having someone awake in the Haven she’d hoped was by now asleep.
Camera and audio were secure and mounted, and logic said that having gotten what she’d come for, it was time to leave. But from this place on the wall, across fifty feet of well-lit lawn, the open garage, with its three vehicles, beckoned.
Munroe hesitated.
Surveillance on one window would net them something, but how much activity that one room received—even if it was obviously the largest in the house—was anybody’s guess. She wanted more, and if the lure of getting a visual on the comings and goings of the Haven wasn’t enough to draw her forward, getting a tracker placed on a second vehicle was irresistible.
Munroe checked her watch. She hadn’t planned on staying this long, and in wanting to avoid accidentally overdosing the dogs and spooking the Haven, she’d gone easy on the sedatives. There wasn’t a lot of time before the pack started roaming again. Munroe scanned the windows for signs of movement. Finding none, she removed the balaclava.
She slid over the side of the wall and dropped inside the grounds, heard Bradford’s sharp intake, and knew from her placement that she’d entered the camera’s range. She ignored him, stood, and strolled casually across the yard, as if she were one of their own out for some late-night air.
Bradford’s voice was in her ear again, low and businesslike. Whomever he had heard speaking had left the room and now moved through the house. Munroe reached the far side of the garage. Here, shadows loomed and allowed her to again blend into the night. She paused, listened, and continued inward.
Three vehicles sat two wide and two deep, the space where a fourth would have been was filled instead with several refrigerators, a chest freezer, and, from the draped hoses and electrical cords, what appeared to be two broken washing machines. Noting the door, Munroe chose the corner behind the farthest fridge as the ideal framing point.
She slid between the vehicles, knelt, and placed the extra tracker, then ambled onto a washer and from there climbed to a fridge top. In the dark she assembled a second camera and amplifier, working with adhesive to hold the unit in place. She powered it on and Bradford again confirmed visual, again guided her through placement.
And then, with fingertips tilting the camera for a final adjustment, Munroe froze. Bradford’s warning hissed in her ear as he too spotted the crack of light leaking from the house into the black. A moment later, the door to the garage opened and a boy of about sixteen stepped out.
The light from within was blinding against the darkness, and Munroe, previously so well hidden in shadows was now most certainly a demonic outline crouched above him. Had he stopped and tilted his head upward, he would have looked directly into her eyes.
But he didn’t. Oblivious to her presence, he searched for something, eventually found it, returned to the house, and shut the door, and the garage was once more enveloped in darkness.
The same fifty feet of lawn separated her from the wall, and now, on the far side of the area, the dogs, though still sluggish, were beginning to move. She’d gambled against this possibility and knew she’d lost. They were still wobbly, and the longer she waited, the more dangerous they’d become. Caring for little other than making it to the wall before they did, Munroe paused for a beat, tensed, and then bolted across the lawn at a full sprint.
Chapter 13
The pack leader turned in Munroe’s direction. He yelped and, stumbling a time or two, gave chase. The others were at his heels, all four of them picking up speed as they loped the long stretch of grass. Munroe neared the wall at an angle. The leader closed the gap. At a full run she grabbed the anchor’s tail and, with the momentum carrying her up faster than if she’d merely climbed, hoisted herself, then scaled the wall as she felt the snap of teeth behind her.
Munroe reached the top and in the same movement released the anchor and pulled it with her as she slid over and dropped ten feet into a crouch. Hands to her knees, lower back tipped against the wall for support, she pulled in one burning breath after the next. After a moment she stood upright, swore at the pain shooting up her leg, and began a gimpy walk to the end of the road where Raúl had originally left her.
Bradford was in her ear again, his voice a steady calm that belied his panic.
“I’m okay,” she said. “I sprained an ankle on the way down. Call Raúl. I’ll meet him at the drop-off.”
The walk was a slow half mile, and although the temptation to bring the taxi driver in for a closer pickup lingered, Munroe pushed it aside. The last thing the operation needed was an overeager bit player approaching the occupants of the house in a bid to double his money. The less Raúl knew, the better, and in this, as with any part of the assignment in which he was needed, she would keep him at a distance.
Munroe pulled the lightweight T-shirt from her pocket, unfurled it, and pulled it back over her head.
The taxi driver returned Munroe to the front of the hotel, and she took the elevator up. The door to the room swung open before she touched it, and Bradford filled the frame. His face was placid and, but for the subtle creases at his eyes, unreadable. He stepped backward so that she could enter, and as she passed, his eyes followed, though his body didn’t move.
Munroe turned back long enough to roll her eyes. “Relax,” she said. “It’s a sprain.”
Bradford nodded, shut the door, and leaned against it, exuding that natural calm that so deftly disguised his true thoughts.
Without turning to confirm it, Munroe knew that he watched her, and so made a slow show of removing the accoutrements of the evening. When she had ripped the Velcro of the vest, emptied each pocket, and left a small pile at the foot of her bed, she glanced over her shoulder.
Bradford’s arms were crossed, his head tipped back against the door, eyes focused on her. Maintaining eye contact, she sat, unlaced her boots, and, with the same slow deliberation, pulled them off.
Bradford said nothing, and the moment filled the room like smoke rising from the floor until, without a word, he reached for the handle, opened the door, and left.
The reverberation took with it the tension. Munroe sighed. She’d pushed him, had mocked his concern, and then taunted him with it. She stood and turned toward the shower, shed her clothes for the water, heat and regret washing over her until under the burning stream she lost all track of time. She would have felt differently if there’d been a point to her actions, but there hadn’t been, she’d been cruel for no useful purpose.
When Munroe reentered the room, Bradford was on his bed, arms behind his head, staring at the ceiling. He didn’t turn or acknowledge her, so Munroe picked up the last of Logan’s folders, sat cross-legged on her bed with the documents in front of her, and said, “Are you okay?”
Bradford shifted to his side so that he faced her, propped his head against his hand, and said, “Tell me about Noah.”
She turned to meet his eyes. “What do you want to know?”
“Why’d you leave?” he asked. “And don’t say you did it for Logan or the assignment or because of the nightmares,” he said. “They’re reasons, but not the reason.”
Munroe was silent for a moment and then finally whispered, “He didn’t know me. Couldn’t know me.” She paused, and Bradford made no move to break the silence.
“For a while, I fit an image in his head,” she said, “and as long as what I did and said conformed to that image, he was happy.” She shook her head slightly, sadly. “But even if I try, even if I want to suppress my nature, it still surfaces. I am what I am, Miles, and the glimpses I allowed him clashed with the image he wanted. No matter how he argues it or even how he tries to accept me for me, he can’t, and I can’t conform, so it’s better this way.”
She stared out into empty space. “I already bring so much suffering into the world,” she said, “I never wanted to bring it to him. We had a good run, you know? I loved him—love him—always will.” She traced her fingers in a random pattern across the top of the document folder and said, “But sometimes love is its own reward, Miles. To struggle to turn it into more is to murder it slowly.”
“You could go back when this is finished,” Bradford said.
“I could,” she said. “Although Noah made it painfully clear that I’m no longer welcome, and I don’t really blame him. It doesn’t matter why I had to go—a man’s pride can only take so much.”
She paused. “Oh, but I have considered it, you know? Going back, unwelcome as I am.”
“You won’t?”
“No,” she said. She raised her eyes to his. “The reasons I left are there now as much as they’ve always been, and all I have to offer is more heartache. He can hate me—despise me if that’s what he wants. I choose to treasure what we shared, no matter how it ended.” She paused and again met Bradford’s eyes. “And yes,” she said. “It has ended. That is what you wanted to know, isn’t it?”
It was nine in the morning and Munroe stood in the hotel foyer, waiting for Raúl. She’d left a note taped to the TV as a courtesy against Bradford’s panic. He would have bolted upright the moment she slunk out the door, and her rapid scrawl would at least allow him peace and a few more hours of rest.
The next phase was set for midafternoon, and as Bradford hadn’t fallen asleep until after five, she expected he’d be out until she got back.
Her first stop was Logan’s hostel, where two weeks’ advance payment on the rooms had been her insurance that the trio would stick around long enough for her to return. She had called ahead, confirming with the proprietor that the boys weren’t in, although how long they’d be gone was impossible to gauge.
With instructions to Raúl, Munroe wound through the narrow courtyard to Gideon and Logan’s quarters, and there, after confirming again that the room was empty, she let herself in with a skeleton key. Being discovered invading Logan’s space ranked low on her list of potential disasters, but an encounter was something she wished to avoid, and so she moved to get out as quickly as possible.
Between the beds she shifted the middle table and, behind it, removed an electrical faceplate, fingers deftly wiring in a bug. She then moved across the room and repeated the procedure behind another. It wasn’t that she didn’t trust Logan—Gideon was another story—she was simply playing it smart, and Logan, knowing her as he did, would expect nothing less.
Having accomplished what she’d come for, Munroe retraced her steps, momentarily backing into an alcove to escape detection as Heidi passed. Expecting the boys to follow shortly, she paced a quick return to the front, arriving a half minute before the taxi pulled into place. Slipping into the backseat, she checked her watch. Two hours to prep for the next phase.
She returned to Paseo Alcorta for another shopping foray, this time swinging to the extreme girly side, stic
king to the high-end boutiques and couture labels. The trip inside was a focused mission of matériel acquisition, a trip that under any other circumstances would have been far more enjoyable and lasted well beyond today’s time constraints.
Bradford was still face to the pillow when she returned, and he did not stir as she closed the door. It was a perfect act, so well did he hide his attentive awareness and project the appearance of sleep. Amused, Munroe dropped her bags on the bed and moved to the computer.
She was fast-forwarding through video footage collected from the Haven cameras when Bradford said, “What time is it?”
Without turning she said, “Almost one o’clock.” A pause, and then, “Have you seen any of this?”
Bradford slid his legs over the side of the bed, stood, and walked to the bathroom. “Nothing since daylight,” he said. “But the tracker started moving after ten.”
Munroe hovered over the computer, skimming through the footage, pausing as faces flashed across the screen, images of half a dozen of the Haven’s children. They’d entered the yard shortly after noon, the wall-mounted camera capturing shot after shot as they played. The computer allowed her to zoom and crop the digital information, and by the time Bradford returned from the shower, she had a full array of faces.
“Anything?” he said.
“Not yet, but these all look to be around nine or ten; the others haven’t come out yet.”
“What about the second camera?”
“I’ve got a couple of the vans leaving, all adults, nobody that looks like David Law.”
“Do you want to sleep?”
Munroe paused, turned from the computer, and, silent, stared at him.
“I figure you could use it,” Bradford said, “and maybe if we keep it to an hour or so, you’ll get enough to take the edge off without slipping into a dream.”