Page 79 of Two Kinds of Stranger

Logan parked a mile away from the home of Kevin Pollock and Christine White.

Past midnight.

While he waited, he roleplayed what he was about to do, and all the possible things that might go wrong.

Coming up on three thirty in the morning, the perfect time, he drove closer to the house and parked one street over, behind the property. This was a main route into town, and the only thing on this street was a gas station two hundred yards away and a strip mall in the other direction, which was dark and long closed for the night. A tall, thick hedge separated this street from the rear of Christine’s property, and, if his estimations from Google Earth were correct, he was parked precisely behind her backyard.

Logan plugged the Wi-Fi blocker into the twelve-volt port in the car using an adaptor. The radio jammer had a USB, which he plugged into the socket beside the twelve-volt. He turned the key to bring the battery to life, but didn’t ignite the engine, then hit the Wi-Fi icon on his phone and searched for nearby networks.

A couple of available networks showed up. One caught his interest.

The White House.

He smiled at that one, then touched the display to join. The phone display readinternet availablethen asked him for a network key.

He switched on the radio jammer and the Wi-Fi blocker, waited for the lights on the displays to turn green and then checked the White House Wi-Fi network. The information below the network had changed.

No internet available.

He plugged wired earphones into his phone, and checked the app that accessed the FM tuner built into the device.

No signal.

Logan got out of the car, pulled the balaclava over his face and approached the tall hedges. Hunkering down, he spread the lower branches apart, closed his eyes and forced his way through.

On the other side, he found himself at the rear of the White property, in their backyard. The pristine lawn glistened in the moonlight, damp with dew. He hopped the fence separating the enclosed yard and approached the side of the house.

A double-glazed side window, closed and locked, had a decal with the name of the home-security system affixed to the glass.

Logan checked his phone.

No Wi-Fi, no radio signal.

Everyone likes to feel safe in their home. No one wants to have their walls and floors ripped up by security engineers laying cable and wiring to connect all of the motion sensors.

Wi-Fi and radio-signal security systems don’t need any of that intrusive work. They take a little more technical equipment than a pair of wire cutters, but they can be bypassed just as easily.

Logan put away his phone, pulled on his gloves and took the magnet out of the backpack. He placed it over the window, in the exact position that corresponded with the lock mechanism, felt the pull of the magnet grabbing the lock, and then slid the magnet to his right and listened for the click of the mechanism unlocking.

He threw open the window, and climbed inside silently. No alarms. No sound.

The house was dark and silent.

He found himself in a hallway separating the rear lounge area from the kitchen. He made his way to the kitchen, softly, silently, and clicked on his flashlight. The lockbox containing Kevin’s pistol was high on a shelf that sat above a small kitchen dining table. He reached for the lockbox. It had a nine-digit keypad.

He laid out some gear on the dining table. First, he peeled off a trash bag and opened it on the table. He put the lockbox inside, popped open the lid on the titanium dioxide powder and dipped the make-up brush inside. Carefully, gently, he brushed the keypad.

Titanium dioxide is found in a lot of products. Toothpaste, sunscreen and other cosmetics. In this powdered form, it was primarily used as dusting powder.

For fingerprints.

Shining his flashlight on the keypad, prints appeared on four of the numbered keys–1, 5, 6, 7. These were the four keys Kevin used to make up his combination. By isolating those keys, he had just gone from a possible ten thousand different combinations, to sixty-five. He didn’t have time to punch in sixty-five different combinations of those numbers. He didn’t need to. Kevin would use a memorable combination. Something he and his wife would easily remember. Either Kevin’s date of birth, or Christine’s?

Logan thought back to the documents he had read, and in particular the supporting affidavit accompanying the motion to the court for the restraining order against Arthur Cross. This affidavit had given Kevin’s age. He was born in seventy-six.

Logan keyed in 1, 5, 7, 6.

Nothing.