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She searched the shadows and didn’t spot a thing. But her instincts told her someone was out there. Watching her.
Chapter 2
Cody Parker crouched beneath Sierra Baker’s kitchen window, hidden by the bushes along the front and side of her house. His parabolic microphone had caught every word Sierra Baker had said on the phone. First someone named Jack, then her mother. Baker had said she was okay, and that she’d called Jack first. Who was Jack? A family member? Her lover?
She’d sounded shaken when she talked to both Jack and her mother. Said something about an odd traffic stop and the cop trying to get her out of her car. What had happened?
Something serious, because she’d been escorted home by a police officer.
Sierra Baker was in trouble.
Why would she call her parents after she’d been involved in what sounded like an abduction attempt? Who were her parents, and why would they be connected to what had happened? The dossier he’d been given about Baker hadn’t mentioned any relatives. As soon as he got a chance, he’d Google her and see what he could find about her family.
He wasn’t a huge fan of close protection. He preferred more… cerebral jobs. Assignments with puzzles that needed solving.
But it was a good thing he was here. It sounded like Baker needed help.
He wouldn’t approach her tonight. She’d sounded unsettled by the traffic stop and the escort home. Cody would get more information if he waited until tomorrow. He’d watch her house tonight and ring her bell in the morning. Daytime made everything less threatening. Less sinister.
He’d scouted her house while waiting for her to come home, and he’d rolled out a sleeping bag behind the thick shrubbery on the other side of her house. He’d listen for anything that sounded like trouble, or any unusual noises inside the house. He slept lightly, and knew he’d hear anything out of the ordinary. If he did, he’d wake instantly.
Sierra Baker would be safe while she slept tonight.
Cody stretched out his sleeping bag on the spot where the mulch was thickest. He listened for an hour and didn’t hear a thing, so he allowed himself to fall asleep.
It was still dark when he abruptly woke up. He wasn’t sure what had alerted him, so he lay still and listened. A car drove too slowly past Baker’s house. No more than five miles an hour. Too slow, even for a suburban neighborhood.
It didn’t stop, but the way the car was crawling along the street raised bright red flags. Cody crawled to the end of the row of shrubs and peered around the corner. An unmarked dark car rolled slowly past Baker’s house. One driver. Probably a man based on the back of his head. The car continued to the end of the street, then turned the corner.
As Cody listened intently, the engine noise stopped. A car door clicked open, then closed. The person closing it was careful. Quiet. But Cody heard the crunch of grass beneath his feet. Coming closer.
It sounded as if he was cutting through the yard of the house behind Baker’s. No fence separated the properties, so it would be easy to approach Baker’s house from the rear. Cody positioned himself where he could see whoever approached.
Moments later, a man dressed in dark clothes and wearing a ski mask crept into Baker’s yard. As Cody watched, he passed the garage. Fiddled with the back door. Found it locked and moved toward the front of the house.
Going the opposite way, Cody reached the front before the intruder did. He watched from the shadows as the black shape tried the front door. Also locked.
The black shadow tried the first floor windows. His muttered curse drifted to Cody, who shook his head. Had this joker really expected a woman who lived alone to leave her doors or windows open? Especially after she’d been spooked tonight?
Cody would bet money this was the guy involved in that traffic stop Baker had mentioned.
Cody blended in with the night, and he was sure the masked guy hadn’t realized he was being watched. Cody would wait the intruder out. If he tried to get into the house, or did anything else threatening to Baker, Cody would take care of him. If he simply went away, Cody would follow him to his car and try to figure out who he was. What he wanted.
Mel had mentioned the Bratva. The guycouldbe a member of the Russian mob, but Baker hadn’t said anything about an accent. And the Bratva generally only trusted other Russians.
With a final, ugly curse, the guy headed toward the back of the house. Cody drifted after him as silently as smoke, moving like the ghost he’d been on his CIA assignments. He followed the intruder past the house behind Baker’s and watched him climb into a dark sedan. No markings. Plain car, probably five or six years old. Nothing conspicuous about it.
The perfect car to blend in. The kind of car most people’s gazes skipped over, unnoticing.
Once inside the car, the trespasser closed the door quietly and pulled away from the curb. Cody listened until the car was too far away to be heard, then crept back toward Baker’s house. He lay awake a long time and heard nothing. Finally he fell asleep again.
Dawn light woke Cody a few hours later. The lavender sky told him it was early. Probably too early for Sierra Baker to be awake. But he slid out of the sleeping bag and rolled it up. Listened intently for any sounds indicating someone was nearby. When he heard nothing, he trotted down the block and stashed the sleeping bag in his car’s trunk.
Most of the houses around Baker’s were dark. Quiet. But a few streets over, a dog barked twice. A little closer, a door slammed. Someone going outside to pick up a newspaper? Or go for a run?
Cody waited. Watched. Listened. No other noises disturbed the slowly-lightening dawn sky. Baker’s house was still dark and silent.
He settled on the mulch and watched the neighborhood wake up.
