Sam’s house is large, but wide open from the back. Only his bedroom and office windows have curtains. His bedroom curtains are closed, but his office is clearly visible. Sam never closes his office curtains because they’re heavy, lined, and when you close them and try to put them back the way they were, they wrinkle. Sam is a meticulous guy. Hates wrinkles. Irons his underwear, he hates wrinkles so much. And his pillow cases, too. And his sheets. I know all this because I secretly lived in his attic for nearly two years and watched his every move through pinhole cameras while plotting to steal his clients’ money.
I’m a former sniper, with two years experience. I know how to remain still, completely soundless, whether laying in a field or living in someone’s attic. Proof of that are the seven deer that casually walk from the opposite stand of trees and stop twenty feet from me to chew the green off some low branches. Realizing this means the area is completely free of people, I punch Sam’s numbers into my cell phone. I have a silent key feature, so it’s only after I say, “Sam, don’t hang up,” that the deer freak out and start running in all directions.
“I’m not going to help you, Creed,” he says.
“Fine. But at least let me tell you what I’ve got.”
“You’re wasting your breath.”
I can tell he’s about to hang up. I say, “Rachel gave blood eleven days ago.”
He pauses. “Rachel doesn’t give blood.”
In the house, I see the light come on in his office, see Sam take up a seat by his computer.
“Are you with me?” I say.
“Yeah, go ahead.”
Sam stands, suddenly, walks to his windows, and looks out. Then he shuts the curtains.
“Pay attention, Sam,” I say. “Because I can’t do this without you.”
“That’s obvious. Because I’m the last guy you’d turn to.”
“True. For lots of reasons.”
“How did you get her to give blood?”
“I don’t know. Nadine talked her into it somehow. Anyway, Nadine took Rachel to a doctor’s office, a guy named D’Angelo.”
“Go on.”
“One of the nurses drew Rachel’s blood, sent it to a lab. A week went by, and D’Angelo died from a sudden heart attack.”
“What day?”
“Tuesday morning. Between midnight and six a.m.”
Sam places me on speaker phone. I hear keyboard strokes, and assume he’s checking internet records to verify Dr. Dee’s death. After a minute he says, “Go on.”
“At four the same morning, a professional extraction team broke into Rachel’s apartment. Nadine was given an injection that induced a heart attack. She only survived because of her proximity to the hospital one floor down.”
“She had time to get downstairs?”
“No. She pressed her panic button by the nightstand. Someone from the hospital came and got her.”
“Someone from the hospital had a key?”
I hadn’t thought to ask Nadine about how they knew to come in the back door. I doubt it’s important, but this is a perfect example of why I need Sam.
“I doubt they had a key,” I say, “but the back door was left unlocked after the break in. The hospital guys probably tried the front door, couldn’t get an answer, went around to the back. It’s just around the corner of the hallway, by the stairwell.
“Did they inject Rachel with something?”
“Nadine doesn’t know. But I’m sure they did. Rachel would have pitched a fit, otherwise.”
“They wanted to keep her alive,” Sam says.
“Apparently. But who took her? And why?”
Sam says, “Who do you suspect?”
“Some branch of the government.”
“And you’re wondering what could show up in Rachel’s blood test that would cause that type of reaction.”
“Exactly.”
“Do the cops suspect foul play in the doctor’s death?”
“No.”
“But you think there’s a link.”
“I know there is.”
“And you’re certain you’ve narrowed her disappearance to the blood test.”
“Yes.”
“Then I can’t help you,” he says, and hangs up.
I wait a few minutes, then leave my bags by the trees and walk to the side of Sam’s house, where the roof hangs low over his bathtub. I pull one of the bricks loose, turn it lengthwise, push the end back into the wall where the side had been, making a ledge for my foot. I step on that brick and pull out another one, three feet higher. Then I stand on that one and repeat the process until I have a brick ladder that takes me up to the roof. I have several ways to access Sam’s roof, but this is my favorite. I created this brick ladder years ago. There’s another one just like it on the other side of his house, where the roof hangs low over his breakfast room.
I follow the incline of the lower roof to the area that gives me access the next level. I take that to the eave where the stucco meets the brick, where years ago I created a crawl space that’s invisible from the ground. I wedge my body underneath that, and open the door I built that leads to the command center I created in Sam’s attic back in the days when I was spying on him and Rachel.
In the beginning, I had two command centers in Sam’s attic: the one I wanted him to find, and the one I wanted to keep secret. The secret one is tiny, accessible only from the crawl space, and is restricted to one small eave.
The command center Sam knew about didn’t have any cameras. Sam always assumed I did my spying after he and Rachel left for work each morning, at which time I roamed through his house, eating his food, using his bathrooms and shower, extracting files and installing programs on his computer.
I power up my old system and immediately see Sam through the pinhole camera I’d placed in his office. There are dozens of these cameras located throughout his house. My old laptop is still connected to the power source. I start it up, expecting to view the keystroke capture device I attached to Sam’s computer that will show me everything Sam is typing on his office computer.
But I’m getting nothing, which tells me he’s installed a new computer since my last visit.
My little nook is soundproofed, and I’m above the second floor of Sam’s enormous house. He’s on the first floor. No way he can hear me if I decide to call him again.
So I do.
14.
“How’s it coming, Sam?”
“I’m not going to help you, Creed.”
“There must be some arrangement we can make.”
“Nothing comes to mind.”
“Money?”
“I’ve got money.”
It’s true. I’d given him a cut from the heist. It was only fitting, since I’d put him through hell and destroyed his business.
“I could always torture you.”
“Good luck with that.”
Also true. There’s a very small percentage of people in the world who don’t respond to torture. Sam is one of them. It’s not that he feels no pain. It’s more like he shuts down when subjected to repeated pain. You can shock Sam with pain, but you have to attack him through his mind. The problem with that is, he’s smarter than me.
But I’m more cunning.
“Sam, Rachel means the world to me.”
“Do you ever listen to yourself? I’m supposed to care about your feelings? Rachel meant the world to me, too, you bastard. I know what it’s like to lose her, remember?” He pauses. “Actually, there is something you can do to make me help you.”
“Name it.”
“Promise when we get her back, you’ll walk away.”
“Done.”
“You’ll never contact her, never allow her to contact you.”
“Okay.”
“You’ll remove yourself completely from her life. Forever.”
I remain silent a moment, allowing the full weight of his words to sink in.