“Hannah — ” Amelia began. “Well, you know, I mean, there — ” she sputtered to a halt, out of gas in uncharted territory.
Hannah took another drink. “Sure you don’t want some?”
“Hannah! You need to pull yourself together!”
“Why?” Hannah asked. “I was together. I got abandoned, so being together that way, your way, this way — ” Hannah waved her hands, taking in the house — “didn’t work too well. Don’t I get to fall apart first before I have to be together again?” Hannah felt something rise in her chest. “Don’t I get to be upset for a little while? I got screwed, Amelia! More than screwed. Don’t I get to be angry? Pissed off? Just for a little while?”
Amelia was backpedaling. “I have to go.”
Hannah didn’t follow her to the door as she finished her drink.
Neeley pulled her backpack from under the bed. Grabbing the locked trunk from the hotel room's closet, Neeley dialed the combination and swung up the lid. There were several small plastic cases inside and Neeley sorted through. She'd planned all this last night as she lay in bed after her workout. She knew that Gant probably would have kicked in the door last night at Hannah's house and forced her into giving up John's location; if she knew it. Neeley preferred a less direct approach.
Gant had lectured endlessly about women having the same violent capabilities as men, but he had usually been discussing terrorists or criminals. Neeley had argued vainly that while women were just as susceptible as men to emotional inducements to violence, women on the whole required those inducements and seldom resorted to violence for the act itself whereas men would maim and kill without much reason. Neeley had often wondered which gender was the more realistic. She also knew that despite her observations, it was dangerous to classify people into groups. Gant had always said that you could never really tell about a person's true character until you saw how they acted in a crisis.
All the previous night she had pondered the problem and her only solution seemed to be to carefully monitor Hannah Masterson while she tracked husband John through other means. A very important question that nagged at Neeley from the moment she found out John had gone under was why had he done that? Had he heard of Gant's death? Or was something else going on? Had the Cellar already moved on John Masterson? But if that was so, why had the Cellar left Hannah dangling? The biggest issue to be resolved was what was the connection between Gant and John Masterson?
Neeley transferred the needed items from trunk to backpack and then relocked the former. She wore a pair of faded blue jeans and a black windbreaker over a t-shirt. Throwing the backpack on her shoulder she headed out, locking the door behind her.
She looped around the city, melding with the flow of the early morning rush hour, careful to observe all traffic rules. Neeley didn't need to consult the GPR to get to Manchester. Once she navigated somewhere she could always get there again.
Soon after parking the pick-up truck in the same spot, she was at her perch behind the log. She pulled out the glasses and scanned.
Hannah was at the kitchen putting some dishes in the sink. Then she turned and headed for the bedroom.
In her closet, Hannah scanned the racks for something appropriate. It was hard to concentrate. She could hardly decide what to wear to see her shrink, much less how she was going to handle the meeting. A part of her wondered if he’d still see her given that John’s insurance was probably going to disappear soon. She’d never particularly felt that Jenkins had much empathy for her. Hannah had found the dialogue once a month since she started seeing him to be intellectually stimulating but of little use otherwise. But John has insisted she keep going and she had no real reason not to, so she’d continued.
She turned on the shower and, as the steam flowed over the top of the glass door, pulled off her nightclothes. She stepped into the hot spray and let the water pound some of the tension from her back and shoulders. She put both of her hands against the tile and leaned forward until she felt a comfortable stretch in her legs.
She stood in the shower a long time thinking of how she had let herself be led into this gilded cage of a marriage. There was a truth somewhere, a reason she had settled for so little while foolishly believing she had so much.
She towel dried her hair. When her hair was reasonably dry, she quickly applied her makeup using extra concealer to cover the dark smudges under her eyes. When she finished her face, she started back on her hair, throwing her head down and brushing it so hard she could feel the tugs at the roots. Done, she took one last look in the mirror and then pivoted out of the room.
Forgetting the earlier quandary of what to wear, she grabbed the first dress off the rack and slipped it on. She stepped back to look at herself in the mirror. The Ann Klein dress fit perfectly and the warm peach color was good with her hair and eyes. That made her feel slightly better.
She walked to the kitchen, grabbed her keys and purse and went out the front door.
Neeley checked left and right. No sign of life. She was glad that the houses were spaced well apart. Neeley jogged downhill and was at the back of the house in less than twenty seconds. She knelt at the patio doors and pulled out a specially made tool. It looked like a set of extremely thin needle nose pliers. The name of the security company on the warning signs posted on all the windows of the Masterson residence had alerted her to what she would need.
She slid the thin edges of the tool between the door and frame and pushed it down towards the floor. Four inches from the ground she felt an obstruction. Neeley slid the tool back slightly and opened the jaws, then reclamped them on the mechanical sensor that was pressed against the inside of the door. She locked the jaws in place and folded the handle over, hooking the adjustable catch on it over the edge of the molding on the outside of the door. All set.
Neeley picked the lock and entered. The pliers held the alarm sensor in place as the door opened. From kneeling to entry had taken ten seconds.
Closing the French door, Neeley paused, scanning the immediate surroundings. She worked top to bottom, left to right, in steady arcs. Smoke detectors in the ceiling corners. No sign of any internal alarm system. No rug on the floor, which precluded ground sensors unless the Masterson's had put some extremely sensitive — and expensive — ones under the tiles. Neeley doubted that.
Her eyes went back to the bookcases that lined almost every wall. She’d never seen this many books outside of a library. And she could tell they weren’t for show as there were numerous well-thumbed paperbacks nestled among leather-bound hard covers. Titles were jammed horizontally on top of rows, filling every available space. Who had that much time to read all this, Neeley wondered?
She had planned out her movements the night before based on the observations of the interior that she was able to make from the outside. Her first move was to the portable phone in the kitchen. She opened the battery case on the backside of the handset, pulled out the rechargeable battery and replaced it with one she had brought with her. The phone would still work, but now it would also simultaneously transmit on a second frequency.
She moved to the stove hood and unclamped the filter. Reaching up as far as her arm would go; she attached a tiny magnetic transmitter to the metal. Backup if the portable phone was taken out of the room.
Neeley turned. Dining room next. She paused in the entranceway and checked it out. Looked clean. She moved along the wall and used a Swiss army knife to unscrew the grating over the air vent. The third bug was in place.