CHAPTER 9
During his stopover at the library, Reese had changed into dark clothes to enable him to move through the shadows unnoticed during the night's adventures. He wore black pants of a more casual cut to allow for easy movement, and he had chosen a long-sleeved black shirt to hide the white bandage wrapped around his left forearm. His motorcycle waited in a nearby alley, ready for quick retrieval.
Now all he had to do was wait—the hardest part of all.
Twilight had darkened the clouds to a deep grayish-purple, leaving only a faint rim of pink and lilac on the horizon, when the evening took at unexpected turn. Reese was checking the front window of the salon, making sure that their number was still in sight, when the white van pulled up.
That meant it was time to set his plan in motion. Step one: attach a tracker to the van. He peeled himself away from his hidden vantage point and merged into the sparse pedestrian traffic of a late weekday evening, scanning the salon window again automatically.
This time he did a double take. Their Number was gone.
Reese flicked on his earpiece and veered slightly, redirecting his path toward the salon. "Finch. Shelly—Jun—just vanished. I'm going in after her." Despite the desperate situation, Reese felt a welcome spike of adrenaline at the possibility of action.
"Wait, Mr. Reese, not yet!" Finch said hurriedly. "She's fine—for the moment. She's in the office with Mr. Lee. He's asking her about her encounter with you this afternoon. I'll let you know if she needs help."
Reese let out a breath of relief. Although it made him uneasy to have their Number out of his sight, he knew that Finch was right. Any wrong move could harm rather than help her. "The second anything changes . . ."
"I'll let you know," Finch assured him.
Reluctantly, Reese turned back toward the white van, approaching it on the driver's side. Just as he passed the rear of the vehicle, he paused suddenly to stoop down, as if he had dropped something. Then he proceeded on his way, having attached the tracking device, attracting no more than a bored glance from the truck's driver.
"Bad news," Finch's voice buzzed in his ear, speaking rapidly. "Mr. Lee just took away Shelly's panic button."
"Has he figured out what it is?"
"Not yet." Briefly, Finch recounted Shelly's interrogation by Mr. Lee.
Reese swore under his breath."If I hadn't stepped in to help her, he wouldn't be suspicious. I should have made sure the two guys who attacked her would keep quiet," he concluded darkly.
"You did the right thing, Mr. Reese," Finch soothed him. "There's no way we could have anticipated the lengths to which Mr. Lee would go to silence our number. Which makes me wonder all the more why he's so invested in making sure she keeps quiet." He cleared his throat slightly. "And although I appreciate your hindsight with regard to Mr. Lee's thugs . . . I do prefer that you refrain from leaving a trail of corpses, except when absolutely necessary."
"Easy for you to say," Reese grumbled. "So are we sticking with the plan, or do you want me to extract her now?"
"As little as I like leaving our number in the hands of Mr. Lee, I suspect that we have a better chance of learning what he's up to if we do," said Finch.
"Then I won't take my eyes off that van," Reese responded grimly.
A little while later two bright spots, one tracking the van and the other showing Reese's location, were moving across Finch's screen. His eyes followed them as if his vigilance could contribute to their Number's safety. He was so focused on the movement of the dots that it wasn't until half an hour into the van's journey that he noticed where they were headed. What he saw perplexed him.
"Mr. Reese . . . you are still following the van with our Number in it, I presume?"
"That's right, Finch. This route look familiar to you, too?"
"Disturbingly familiar. Do you think it's only a coincidence, or . . .?"
"We'll find out when we get there, won't we?"
So when both dots finally came to a stop and Reese announced, "This is the place," Finch zoomed in for a street view, baffled by where they had arrived. "Mr. Reese, did you, in fact, just follow the van to . . .?"
"Mr. Lee's house," Reese confirmed. He concealed his motorcycle behind a hedge a little ways from the house, then pressed himself into the shadows and glided noiselessly along the fence toward the gate.
"But why would he bring them . . .?"
"Whatever it is, it can't be good," murmured Reese, crouching down as he neared the van, scanning the landscape, noting the positions of the guards and taking inventory of their weapons. While he was grateful for the cover of darkness, he was glad he'd initially scoped the place out in daylight.
Finch's mind, meanwhile, was racing to put together the pieces. "Curiouser and curiouser," he murmured. "What could our Mr. Lee be up to? With all of those undocumented women involved, I don't like to contemplate the possibilities."
"Neither do I," said Reese, "but with a little luck, I'll find out soon. And then we'll get them out of here." He had begun moving toward the van, which was still stopped at the entry gate.
"'Them'?" echoed Finch, as the plurality of the pronoun dawned on him. "Mr. Reese," he blurted, "I'm not so sure this is a good idea—please do be careful."
"Of course, Finch. You know me," Reese purred.
"Exactly," Finch replied grimly, and Reese returned an unseen smile.
As he neared the gate, Reese could hear the driver chatting with the guard, their conversation punctuated with laughter; he saw his opportunity. Silently, he approached the rear of the vehicle from the passenger side. This time, he appreciated the lack of windows on the van's rear compartment, since it meant less risk that he would be spotted by its occupants. Planting one foot on the rear fender, he pushed himself up to reach the roof rack and gripped it with his right hand, keeping the other near his weapon in case of trouble. Within a minute, the van began to move forward again, and he balanced his right foot on the wheel well and flattened his body against the side of the vehicle. Then the gate slid shut with a hum of motorized rollers and closed behind them with a dull clang.
Nobody raised the alarm; Reeese hadn't been noticed. Now for step two of the operation. From his precarious vantage point, Reese studied the exterior of the house, searching for spots that might enable a break-in. The word "house" hardly did it justice, though. It was a mansion—a new construction with peaked roofs of varying heights, its lighted windows illumined with an artfully golden glow, and meticulous landscaping fringing its edges. Under his breath, he confided to Finch, "The bathrooms in this place are probably bigger than my apartment."
"Your guess is not far wrong, Mr. Reese," Finch said. On his screen, he had pulled up the real estate listing from before Mr. Lee purchased the estate. "The question is, how does he afford it? The property values in that neighborhood are nothing short of stratospheric."
"He's getting plenty of money from somewhere. Too bad he doesn't share it with his workers."
The van had been approaching the mansion on the left arc of a circular driveway, where floodlights shone up from the border of the flowerbeds around the front of the house. There were large windows along the front of the house, but Reese hoped that the combined glare of the lights outside and the lights indoors would conceal him from the house's occupants.
A moment later, the vehicle lurched, and Reese tightened his grip as it turned onto onto a gravel access road that ran along the side of the house. Still no alarm, and now they were out of sight of the front windows. Better yet, the rear of the house appeared to have fewer lights and deeper shadows.
Reese permitted himself a slight smile; it was the perfect spot for a little breaking-and-entering.
