He stopped at the corner and listened. Nothing for 30 seconds. Then the soft drag of something being moved across a concrete floor. Cade exhaled slowly through his nose, kept his back to the wall. He had no weapon.
He was a heating technician from a mountain town, not a security contractor, but he had a full understanding of the house layout, a headlamp, and the particular advantage of knowing that whoever was in that room did not know he was here. He rounded the corner. The storage room door was partially open, a thin blade of light showing at the bottom a flashlight inside moving. He crossed the last 12 ft of hallway in six quiet steps, put his shoulder against the wall beside the doorframe, and pushed the door all the way open with his foot. The figure inside spun around.
It was Luther Quaid. Cade recognized him from the property photographs he'd seen in the estate office, his first week on the job. A lean, angular man in his mid-50s, gray streaked hair cut close, a face that had spent decades in mountain weather and looked like it. He was holding a flashlight in one hand and a flat document case in the other. The document case had not been there when Cade had checked this room at midnight.
Luther stared at him. Cade stared back. Luther Cade said, "Who are you?" His voice was controlled, not panicked. That was the first thing Cade noticed.
He wasn't startled enough. I'm the heating tech. I've been working the estate for 3 weeks. Cade kept his tone even. question is what you're doing in here at 4 in the morning.
Luther lowered the flashlight slightly. I work here. Your cabin's on the lower property. You walked up through that storm in the middle of the night to work. I heard the generator go down.
I came to check on things. The generator went down 8 hours ago, Cade said, and the fuel line was cut. Something moved behind Luther's eyes. Fast controlled gone vandalism. We've had problems with Stop.
Cade said. Luther stopped. I'm not the police, Cade said. And I'm not going to stand here and let you finish that sentence because we both know where it ends. He looked at the document case.
What's in the bag? Estate records. Financial. Is Octavia aware you're down here? The pause was a fraction of a second too long.
I'll wake her, Cade said. Right now, and we'll ask her together. He turned to go. What happened next happened fast. Luther moved not toward him, but toward the far wall, and Cade heard the sharp metallic click of a latch being thrown.
A service panel in the wall, one Cade hadn't fully cataloged, swung open into a narrow utility passage. Luther was through it before Cade crossed the room. Cade followed for three steps before he stopped. He knew where that passage led. He traced the utility runs 3 weeks ago, first day on the job.
It connected through the east wall to the equipment shed. And from the equipment shed, there was a slide door to the exterior courtyard. Luther wasn't trying to escape. He was trying to reach something outside. Cade turned and ran back through the corridor toward the stairs.
He took them two at a time, hit the second floor landing, moved fast to the master bedroom, and knocked hard enough to rattle the door in the frame. Octavia, wake up now. 4 seconds of silence. Then her voice completely alert. No groggginess.
What's happening? Luther Quaid is in the house. He came in through the service passage from the equipment shed. He had a document case with him. A pause.
I think he's not alone. The sound of something heavy being dragged away from the door. Then the lock turned. She opened it, standing in dark pants and a gray sweater, hair pulled back, eyes sharp. She'd never fully undressed.
Whether that was instinct or her usual state of operational readiness, he couldn't tell and didn't ask. Luther, she said, "Not a question. Did you suspect him?" Her jaw tightened. " I suspected everyone.
That's different from having proof. We need to move you somewhere that locks from the inside and isn't adjacent to the exterior walls." He was already looking back down the corridor. There's a wine celler on the sublevel stone construction. One access point, solid door.
Yes, that's where you're going. She moved past him into the hallway without argument and he fell in beside her, keeping her on his interior side as they went down the stairs. He handed her his headlamp at the bottom. Keep this. I need both hands.
Where are you going to figure out how many people were dealing with? She grabbed his arm briefly, firmly. Don't be reckless. He looked at her in the thin beam of the headlamp. Her face was tight with something she probably didn't give out easily.
Not fear for herself, something else. I've got Brin to get home to, he said. I'm not being reckless. He left her at the cellar door and went to find Luther. It took 11 minutes and cost him a bruised shoulder and a cut across his left palm from a displaced bracket in the utility passage, but he found Luther in the equipment shed with another man shorter, heavier, wearing a contractor's coat with no identifying marks.
The second man had a two-way radio. When Cade came through the interior door, Second Man reached for something in his coat pocket, and Cade did the only thing available to him, which was to drive his forearm across the man's chest and put him against the wall with enough force to knock the breath out of him. It wasn't clean. It wasn't controlled. Cade's shoulder hit a pipe rack on the follow-through, and pain flared hot from his collarbone to his elbow.
Both men scrambled. Luther made it past him and got back into the utility passage. The second man found his footing and threw a punch that Cade caught mostly on his forearm, but partly on his ear, and the world went briefly sideways. He didn't chase them. He didn't need to.