Page 47 of Falcon’s Forever

I take the trees at a dead run and this time I'm not running away from anything. I'm running toward it, and I'm not alone. The women's house comes into view, the front door standing open. Sterling's on the porch. Gull and Digger are near the path. The first thing I notice is there’s no screaming, no gunfire, and it's still too quiet.

I take the steps two at a time. "Where?"

"Back hall. Kitchen window." Sterling points. "The women are in the living room."

I look through the doorway and every one of them is there, Sarah, Emily, Maya, Lena, Rachel, Frankie, and Cara standing near the sofa with one arm around Emily. They are unhurt and breathing. I don't know how badly I needed to see that until I see it.

She looks up and finds me, and for one second everything else disappears. Then Vulture's behind me. "Falcon, show me."

Right. Job first. I turn away from her and follow Sterling through the kitchen. The back window looks normal until he points at the latch, fine fresh scratches around the metal.

Ice Pick comes in through the back door. "Fence clear."

"South line clear," Rook says over the radio.

"Camera at the rear corner dropped for ninety-two seconds around eleven forty-three," Condor reports. "Signal interference."

My stomach turns cold. "That’s not random."

Vulture crouches by the window. "Could they have opened it?"

"The latch held," Sterling says.

"They weren't trying to get in," I say, looking at the scratches. "They were testing whether they could, for when they're ready."

"Same as the fence," Ice Pick says. "Learning about us."

I straighten. "Condor, pull every camera from eleven thirty to noon. Zip, nobody leaves the gate without vehicles checked first."

We go back into the living room together, and the fear in it isn't loud, the women are all quiet. Emily's sitting now with Frankie beside her. Maya's clutching the security phone like it's the only solid thing in the room.

"What do you know?" Cara asks, and her voice is steady in a way I know doesn't mean she is.

“Someone interfered with the rear camera for approximately ninety seconds and tested the kitchen window,” I tell Rachel. “They didn’t get inside.”

Rachel folds her arms tightly across her chest. “Could they have?”

“The latch held,” I answer.

Her expression hardens. “That isn’t what I asked.”

I glance at Vulture. He gives me the smallest nod, and I remember what we agreed to give the women.

The truth, even when it’s ugly.

I look back at Rachel. “If they’d had more time, they might have managed it.”

The room shifts around that. Cara doesn't look away from me. "Thank you," she says, and I understand it's for the honesty, not for anything I actually did.

Maya sets the phone down. "Why touch the window if they weren't coming in?"

"To see what happens when they do," Ice Pick says, and softens his stance the second every woman in the room looks at him. "We think someone's testing response times."

"So, they're coming back," Emily whispers, going pale.

"We don't know that," Vulture says.

"But you think they might," Cara says.