The Chaos Kind (John Rain #11)(61)

She was thinking too much. They’d find something. A bathroom, maybe. A closet. Or they could get to an exit and run out of the building. Get to the street and pound on someone’s door. But first they had to move.

She leaned over Dash and shook him briskly by the shoulder. He flinched and opened his eyes.

We have to go, she signed. Right now.

He looked around, obviously confused and still half-asleep. Is Marvin here?

No. Not yet. Come on. And quiet, all right? Like a ninja.

Where are we going?

Up the stairs.

I have to go to the bathroom.

Later. Come on.

She pulled him to his feet and they walked quickly to the stairs. They were almost at the top when she heard the vibration again, in the library door.

The lock-pick gun. They were out of time.





chapter

forty-five





RAIN


Rain scanned as Delilah drove, the weight of the Glock reassuring in his hand. The neighborhood around the school was residential, and unlike the highway, where they had passed a few cars, these streets were still empty, the streetlights revealing nothing but early-morning mist. They circled twice and saw nothing, not even a jogger or suburbanite walking a dog.

According to Google Maps, there were two parking lots, one at the north end of the campus, the other at the south. Manus had told him to use the north lot, alongside the main building where the woman, Evelyn Gallagher, had her office. But it always made sense to see the balance of the terrain before arriving at the destination.

“Turn here,” he said to Delilah. “Swing through the south lot first.”

They did. Not a single car. There was a baseball diamond nearby, and farther off, a football field. Probably the south lot was used more for athletic events.

“Go back out,” he said. “Left on the street, then left again. Let’s enter the north lot at the northeast end.”

“All right,” she said. She didn’t ask why. He was glad. He couldn’t always explain why he preferred one approach over another. And when he was focused, he didn’t want to have to try.

He took a quick glance back at Maya. She had been extremely quiet, but he saw she wasn’t sleeping. She was holding her dog in her lap. Her knees were pressed together to create a kind of seat, and she was leaning forward, her arms around the animal as though to protect it.

“What’s her name?” Rain said. “Or his.”

“His. Frodo.”

“He seems like a good dog.”

She didn’t respond.

“You okay?” he said.

She nodded. “Yeah.”

He knew she wasn’t okay. But his job was to make sure she was safe. Someone else would have to help her with the trauma of what she’d been through earlier. In the meantime, he was glad she had Frodo.

As they got closer to the parking lot, he forgot about Maya. He focused on how he would do it if Gallagher were his target, rather than someone he was here to help. Where he would park. Where he’d position sentries. Where he would set up for a counter-ambush. But he saw nothing that set off any alarm bells.

They pulled in. At the far end, there were two vehicles. One, a Prius. The other, a UPS truck.

“A little late for a delivery,” Delilah said, mirroring his thoughts. “Or a little early.”

“Just keep going,” he said. “Past the vehicles. Make a right when we get back to the street. Don’t even slow down.”

If someone was looking, they’d already been spotted. But that didn’t mean you decloak. Better to act as if until you had no choice but to break cover. Sometimes riding out the subterfuge could buy you a little more time.

Delilah kept going. The Prius was parked nose-in, and in the yellowish pall of the streetlights shone in early-morning dew. The UPS truck was nose-out, for a more efficient departure. And covered with no dew at all.

Rain’s heart rate kicked up a notch. This wasn’t going to be a simple pickup like the girl. Someone was already here.

“They haven’t been here long,” Delilah said, again mirroring his thoughts. She must have been extremely unhappy about this development, but she said nothing else, and for a second, he understood her irritation at Dox. He loved the big sniper, and would do anything for him if he was in a jam. Had done anything for him, things he preferred not to remember. As Dox had done in return. But a favor for a friend was one thing. A friend of the friend was another thing entirely. And this favor was looking to be a lot bigger than originally advertised.

Fifty feet up the street, he said, “Stop here.” He would have preferred something farther away. But he didn’t think they had time.

Delilah waited until they were past a streetlight, then pulled to the curb along a line of brick rowhouses in the shadow of a cluster of trees. “We go in?”

“Just me.”

“John. Don’t be stupid.”

“I’m just going to take a look. If anyone’s looking back and I have to come running, I don’t want to have to wait to start the engine.”

“You don’t know what’s in there.”

“They’re here for a schoolteacher and a teenaged boy. They didn’t send a whole battalion and they’re not expecting one in return.”

“Just because the woman saw only one man outside her house doesn’t mean—”