Don't Make a Sound (Sawyer Brooks #1)(21)

Malice could only pray that the man was heading home. And if anyone knew the answer to her question, it would be Lily. “We need an address. Where does Brad Vicente live?”

“Fifteen hundred Nineteenth Street, Sacramento. Midtown. There are three entrances. One upstairs, two downstairs.”

Malice plugged the address into the navigation app.

“That area is usually crowded around this time,” Lily said. “When you arrive at the house, keep your head down, face covered. Parking might be difficult to—”

“I’m a block from the house,” Bug told the group.

“How did you manage that?” Psycho asked.

“My night off, remember? Lucky for Cleo, I was waiting for a friend at Shady Lady, which happens to be right around the corner, when Malice called. I can see Brad’s house from here. I’m going around back.”

“Be careful.”

“Always.”



Malice found a parking spot on Twentieth. She checked her phone. There was a text from Bug: I’M HIDING IN A CLOSET DOWNSTAIRS. SOUNDS LIKE HE ENTERED THE HOUSE THROUGH THE GARAGE. STAY PUT UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE.

Malice wondered how Bug had gotten into the house so fast. Had she broken a window? Had anyone seen her? Their original plan had been to get Brad to Cleo’s car, tase him, and then take him to an abandoned warehouse ten miles away. It had seemed so clear and easy on paper.

But this was the real deal.

Her nerves were shot. Nothing was going right. They had no plan B. The pounding in her ears made it difficult to think. Every worst-case scenario imaginable was fucking with her mind. Her instincts screamed at her to call the police. Her friend could be in danger. But The Crew’s number one rule was “No police.” Because that would mean they would have to file a report. The police would ask for names and IDs.

No police.

She would stay put, as Bug suggested.

It was after 9:00 p.m. Hot as hell. Sweat trickled down her spine. A group of rowdy kids walked by, laughing, streams of smoke trailing behind—teenagers, their hormones working overtime. She didn’t want to think about what she’d been doing at that age. Definitely not hanging out with friends. And definitely not laughing.

A car drove past, music blaring. A couple walking their dog on the other side of the street stopped to stare at the teenagers across the way. Thirsty leaves hung from myriad branches of sycamore trees lining the street. Farther down the block, she spotted Psycho, tall and willowy, hard to miss. She made a sharp left into an alleyway.

Unable to sit still, Malice put a baseball cap over the black wig she’d been wearing for most of the night. The mask would draw attention, so she left it in her purse for now. Her wig felt tight and didn’t help her throbbing headache. She climbed out of the car and walked at a measured pace toward Brad’s house. Twelve and a half minutes had passed since receiving Bug’s last text. Then her phone buzzed: COME ON IN. BACK DOOR IS UNLOCKED.

Malice took another sweep of the area. Psycho was nowhere in sight. The couple and the teenagers were a good distance away as she stepped through a side gate. Trees and a tall wood fence covered in ivy made for lots of privacy. There was a patch of grass, and a stone path that led to a firepit surrounded by inviting outdoor furniture. The back door was ajar. After her mask was on, she pushed the door open and stepped inside.

The curtains on the windows straight ahead had been pulled shut. The lighting was dim. The room was a long rectangle. A pool table and a small built-in bar took up the space on one side of the room, and a couch, coffee table, and flat-screen TV took up the other side. Malice stood next to the couch. Somewhere close to the middle of the room, sprawled out on the floor, was Brad, wearing a button-down shirt and navy-blue boxer briefs, his wrists and ankles bound with duct tape to various pieces of furniture, including the legs of the pool table.

Psycho and Bug sat on two of three stools lining the bar. Behind them were glass shelves filled with neat rows of whiskey, bourbon, vodka, you name it.

Psycho had taken off her wig and eye mask. She greeted Malice with a nod.

Bug, twenty-seven, the youngest in the group, raised a cue stick. “Want to join us for a game of pool? I was about to rack the balls.”

Brad thrashed about. He’d been gagged and blindfolded, forced into a vulnerable situation, and he didn’t like it. He rocked his head maniacally back and forth, his face strawberry red from the effort.

Malice shut the door, locked it, then pulled her mask off. “Where’s Cleo?”

“Upstairs, sleeping off the drugs.” Bug used the cue stick to point to the laptop sitting on the bar. “I need a password.” Bug was the computer geek in the group, the hacker. During the day she worked for an antivirus company, stopping hackers like herself.

“How did you get him tied up so quickly?” Malice asked.

“I heard him going up and down the stairs. After he quieted, I made a noise. He came back downstairs. I tased him and he went down. Luckily for me, he had more than one roll of duct tape in the cupboards in the laundry room. That stuff comes in handy.” She smirked. “I think I did a good job under the circumstances.”

Malice checked the bindings holding Brad in place. She knelt low and leaned close to his ear. “No use struggling, Brad. If you want to make things easier on yourself, you’ll need to give us the password to your computer.”

Beneath the tape over his mouth, his roar was followed by a stream of words she couldn’t make sense of.