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The first door is easy. It’s Ian’s actual apartment that gives me pause. I undo the doorknob lock easily enough, then the bolt lock, but when I try to open it, I feel three other latches stopping me.
This motherfucker is ten kinds of paranoid. At a glance you’d never notice it, but he’s got painted-over locks for the lowest of the latches, so it blends into the door and looks the same eggshell white. Once I pick that one, the other two are even harder to spot. A false panel in the door hides the second, and the third one has a fake lock over it. I have to pick just to reach the real lock so I can spring that one too.
The whole time, sweat trickles between my shoulder blades, gluing my T-shirt to my skin. There’s too much riding on this job. Every time I blink I see Skye’s face, and that’s making me sloppy. It takes me three tries to free the final bolt, and when I do, the sound of a car in the driveway has me flattened on the floor, creeping toward the communal apartment window to double-check.
Mailman.
Fucking hell.
Then I’m back at Ian’s door, swinging it open at last.
The living room looks normal. Sagging couch the color of dog shit, gray shag carpet that looks like one of those extra-hairy dogs up and died in the middle of the room. Guy definitely does not share his little sister’s taste for home-making.
I skip right past the living room anyway and head straight for the bedroom. More specifically, for the computer that’s still idling beside the bed, a monster of a machine. It’s got to be the most expensive thing in this whole apartment—probably worth twice as much as that junker he just drove off in.
Lucky for me, Ian seems to have been in a hurry. I catch the mouse before the computer goes idle. It’s unlocked, and with a half dozen browsers still open too.
His email account is full of spam about video games, new movies out online, and Nigerian princes offering vast sums of money in exchange for his help. It doesn’t look like he uses this account for much beyond eBay purchases, and even when I click into a few of those, it doesn’t look like he’s buying anything more expensive than computer gear or $7 special discounts on vitamin D.
Not exactly the inbox of a guy sitting on $500,000.
Not the inbox of a guy who blew through $500,000 he can’t pay back, either.
Crunching tires. Another car.
I’ve been kneeling on the floor beside the computer so my head won’t show in the window. Now I cast an eye around the room and spot a mirrored photo frame. Inside, there’s a picture of young Skye, Ian, and a woman I don’t know. Judging by the similarities, she’s got be their mother. I try not to think too hard about the way Skye leans against Ian’s arm, her smile so wide and trusting. Did she know when this photo was taken what her brother was going to get into?
Would she forgive me if she knew what I was doing in his place right now?
No time to worry about it now. A car door slams outside. I lift the photo frame and angle it just right at the parking lot outside. If anyone looks up at the window now, they won’t see me peering out; they’ll only see a flash of silver, the sun catching the edge of this makeshift mirror.
Shit.
Outside sits the junker Ford, Ian and Too-Normal in the front seats. Still talking, for now.
I tap a few keys to send the computer into idle and cast my gaze around the apartment one last time, memorizing all the details. I’ll think harder about the scene later, review what I do and don’t see. For now, I just cement the contents of the room in my memory as I place the photo back on the table and sprint through the living room to leave.
Re-locking a deadbolt is twice as hard than picking it initially. I’m halfway through re-bolting the third one when the jangle of keys against the apartment entrance sends me moving again.
I jam the lock picks into my pockets and take the steps up to the next floor two at a time, my feet balanced on the outer edges of the steps to distribute my weight, preventing them from creaking beneath me.
The fourth floor is empty, but I keep going anyway, up to the fifth. My breath comes faster now, not so much from the stairs as from the adrenaline pumping through my veins, my heart throbbing in my chest.
Below, the stairs creak as Ian reaches his floor. There’s a distant jangle of keys, again.
Fuck, please don’t notice the other locks, I think. Please just assume you were in a hurry and forgot to lock them.
I reach the fifth floor. Also empty. And there, in the corner, is my salvation: a ladder leading up to the roof.
I swing onto the metal rungs, keeping most of my weight on my hands so my boots won’t clang at every step. I move up until I’m eight feet above floor level, and I pause to unlatch the roof door.
It’s not locked, I note, just barred with a simple hook latch. Good to know in the future.
Downstairs, the jangling has stopped. I hear a door slam.
I push the roof hatch open, and the harsh wind up here slaps me in the face.
Maybe he went into the apartment again. Maybe he didn’t notice.
