Velocity (Karen Vail #3)(40)

Dixon glared at her—a look Vail could make out as hostile even in the moonlight. “I don’t even own one, Karen.”

“Don’t look at me that way. I don’t own one, either.” Vail examined the glass panels that made up half the wood door. She did not want to enter forcefully, but she didn’t see a choice. She wrapped the bottom of her shirt around her right hand and tried the knob. Locked.

“You didn’t think he’d leave his house unlocked, did you?”

“I learned a long time ago to check.”

Dixon leaned back. “How many times have you done this?”

Vail looked over her shoulder to the left, then to the right. By landscape and architectural design, they were well blocked from any neighboring houses. With her hand still wrapped in her shirt, she thrust her fist forward, through the lowest glass square.

“Oh, Jesus,” Dixon said. Her eyes canted up, then left, right, and back to the house. No movement inside. “Can’t believe we’re doing this,” she whispered.

Vail stuck her left hand through the opening, unlocked the door, and pushed it open. Then she wiped the inside knob with her shirt. “Okay. We’re in.”

“And now what?”

“Now we look around. Fast. In case we tripped some kind of silent alarm.”

Dixon closed her eyes. “Oh, that’d be fucking peachy.”

“C’mon,” Vail said, then moved forward. “No fingerprints, okay?” It was an obvious comment, but when you’re working fast and stressing over the fact you’re breaking and entering, it’s easy to reach and touch without thinking first about every action you take.

Had she known they were going to do this, she would have brought gloves. But crossing over the line was not something she planned on doing—ever. Yet in the here and now, it seemed like the best thing to do . . . certainly the desperate thing to do.

Most of the house was dark. A light was on by the entryway, where they’d been standing—legally—about an hour ago. “Look for an office of some kind. A place he’d keep papers, business stuff.”

“Wouldn’t that be at the warehouse?”

“Not necessarily. Depends on the nature of the documents. Does it have anything to do with Superior Mobile Bottling?”

“What exactly is ‘it’?”

Vail moved through the darkness. “Anything related to Robby, Lugo, or Mayfield.” She pointed Dixon toward a room off to her left while she went right. They worked slowly in the dark, until Vail found a flashlight in a drawer in the kitchen. She used it judiciously, holding two fingers across its lens to restrict the beam in case a neighbor could see in through a second-or third-story window.

She pulled her BlackBerry and glanced at the display. She figured they’d broken the seal to the backdoor two minutes ago. How long did that leave them before the police arrived? She had no idea—except that a typical response rate was around nine minutes. But there were so many variables in that figure it was nearly useless to her. Were cruisers nearby when the call came in? Were there private security guards employed by a neighborhood watch group? How far was the closest Police or Sheriff’s Department substation?

Dixon joined her in the hallway. “Nothing. How long do you want to keep pushing our luck?”

“Keep looking down here. I’m going up. You wanna get the hell out, I totally understand.”

Vail took her flashlight up the curving staircase to the second floor. Unfortunately César Guevara lived quite well, and this home had three stories. She would have to move more quickly.

Master bedroom. Bathroom. Checked beneath the four-poster, shone her light behind cabinets, through closets. Guevara was a dapper dresser when he wasn’t working in the warehouse, with dark double-breasted suits that looked like designer cuts. Allen Edmonds and Bruno Magli shoeboxes lined the middle shelf in the cavernous walk-in closet.

This is where she would concentrate her efforts. She grabbed a new pair of black Gold Toe dress socks and slipped them on her hands. It made for awkward groping, but the trade-off was worth it.

She brushed aside his suits, then his shirts, pants . . . looking for a concealed wall safe. Pulled open the drawers of the built-in ebony cabinetry, felt around for a false bottom. Got down on all fours and crawled along the floor, her Gold Toe-clad fingertips probing for a break in the carpet, a concealed seam that might be an invitation to buried treasure. Nothing.

Checked the clock on her BlackBerry. They’d now been in the house nine minutes. At this point, with each passing second, the likelihood of a law enforcement response to their entry bordered on unacceptable risk.

As she started down the stairs, Dixon came running at her. “I got something—but we gotta get outta here. Now. Sonoma PD’s on its way—”

“How do you—”

Dixon turned and led the way out. “Brix. When you went upstairs, I called him, told him to monitor the radio.”

They hit the ground floor and were heading toward the backdoor. Vail wiped down the flashlight and placed it back in the drawer. “Did you touch anything?”

“Don’t know—don’t think so. Maybe a few things—”

Vail, hands still protected by the socks, grabbed for the doorknob. “Does he know? Brix?”

They followed the same roundabout route toward the hedge line, avoiding the motion sensors. “Did I tell him? No. Does he know? Of course, he’s not an idiot.”