She touched my hand. “Let’s go upstairs. This register isn’t open yet. I’ll remind you what you have going.”
Was her ego really insulted, or was she just trying to hang onto her access to the register?
“Honey,” I said, no acid at all, “I really am going to be gone on business. Just look after things. We’ll have a good time when I get back.”
“You know, Jack,” she said, eyes big, “I really do like you. I usually don’t like the men I’m with.”
“You’re sweet,” I somehow managed to say.
Lu was still asleep when I got back. I nestled next to her and, when I woke, the windows were full of night and Lu was up, getting into yet another jumpsuit. A black one this time, suitable for the commando mission we’d be mounting.
I got into a black sweatshirt and black jeans and black sneakers. A fleece-lined black leather jacket — not motorcycle style, but with a custom pocket like the bomber jacket — would complete the ensemble.
Well, almost.
I dropped the noise-suppressed nine mil in the custom jacket pocket, a .38 snubnose in the other pocket, and had Lu duct-tape a switchblade along my spine above the belt line.
“Road trip?” Lu asked with a smile.
“Road trip,” I said.
Nine
I found myself on Highway 12 again, rural landscape alternating with urban spread till the latter took over. Traffic was neither light nor heavy, as we’d started out around ten PM, making the trip to Wilmette in the predicted hour and fifteen. Reaching Indian Hills Estates, however — north of Lake Street and west of Illinois Road — took another twenty minutes.
We were in my temporary ride, the Impala, which seemed less attention-getting then Lu’s Camaro; nonetheless, she drove, having been to the Envoy’s home before. We said little on the way. We didn’t have the radio on, not even Easy Listening. When you’re getting ready to invade a home, particularly one with a couple of armed guards on the loose, getting mentally prepared is a must.
We glided between the stone markers of what had once been farmland but was now a subdivision, a couple hundred acres of big honking houses, winding roads, yawning front yards and wooded areas. Right now all the trees were still winter bare, but for the occasional stubborn snow clinging to branches. Spring would thicken up these barriers, make them nice and green and plush; but this time of year we had minimal cover.
“Money,” I said, taking it all in as we rolled through the neighborhood.
“Money,” she said with a nod. She was in the ponytail again, and it bounced.
The houses perched on endless lots, with no set style — Colonials, Tudors, Arts and Craft, even ranch-styles. Some homes had been here a good while, others showing signs of recent construction. Apparently some smaller homes, dating way back, were going down to make room for big new ones.
The Vanhorn place seemed here to stay, however, an English Manor-style shades-of-tan brick-and-stone affair with dark brown shutters, a two-car garage, two peaked roofs each with a chimney, and a yard no larger than Versailles.
We parked on the next street over in front of a chain-link fenced-off lot with a sign that said DEMOLITION/NEW CONSTRUCTION SITE. No one likely to complain about us leaving the Impala here. Across the street was a Colonial with a FOR SALE sign and no signs of life. That was also good.
The houses were far enough apart to make it unlikely that anyone would notice us strolling across and into the trees. We were soon moving through the park-like area of the adjoining back yards of the mansions, demarcated only by low-riding shrubbery. Lu led the way and I walked backward, right behind her. Our tight-gloved right hands held our noise-suppressed automatics along our sides as we quick-stepped across. The night was cold but not windy.
Vanhorn’s back yard was landscaped only at its edges, the expansive rest of it open, its winter-brown grass painted ivory in the cloud-filtered moonlight, almost blending in with a gray stone patio with outdoor fireplace, wrought-iron furniture and enough room for the Marine Corps Band to rehearse. The back door would let us into a finished basement, specifically a recreation room visible through windows and the windowed back door, whose Yale deadbolt I opened in a couple minutes with two picks.
Lu had been right about the lack of an electronic security system — or least one that set off a noisy alarm. And I figured she was right that a silent alarm that brought the cops was unlikely. The two security guards on duty were the only threat that faced us.
No sign of them yet.
We both had mini-flashlights in our pockets, but neither of us had them out as we stepped inside, where track lighting had been left on, on this lower level, at a dim but serviceable setting.
The ample rec room was decked out with a treadmill and other exercise equipment, a green-felt poker table, black-leather couch and comfy chairs, a big projection TV, and off-white walls arrayed with framed Chicago Bears and Cubs memorabilia.
Batwing doors opened into a spacious, appliance-filled laundry room where stairs led up into a vast kitchen also decked out with the latest appliances, and enough seating at an island for that Marine band on break. Though the house was Depression-era, this kitchen and the rooms beyond were all renovated into bland modernity, though the furnishings within the white-trimmed walls (pale shades of ash, peach, lime, mauve) were lush dark wood and overstuffed dark-brown leather.
Still no sign of the security guys. They hadn’t been outside. When we’d peeked into the two-car garage, off the kitchen, two vehicles were parked there, a Mercedes and a tricked-out Jeep. So somebody was home. But the first floor seemed spookily quiet — just the hum of kitchen appliances and the ticking, and occasional chiming, of clocks.
Our flashlights never came out of our pockets. Lights were on here and there, table lamps, dimmed track lighting. Easy enough to get around in, but with an eerie feel. It was like walking through a haunted house and then realizing you were the ghost.
We had prearranged that Lu would go upstairs and check things out, and bring Vanhorn down at gunpoint if he was already in bed. Meanwhile I checked on a room toward the back of the place, where the security guards hung out.
Lu’s sketch had indicated a couple of single beds, a couch, a card table and a TV. Her memory proved accurate enough, but a surprise was still waiting for me, and I hadn’t spotted it at first, as it was off to my left as I came in.
A guy was in there — all in black, not unlike the way I was dressed. Sturdy-looking individual with short hair befitting the ex-military man he almost certainly was. Muscular and mean-looking, he’d have made a formidable opponent.
If he wasn’t dead.
He lay on his back, and his eyes were open and staring, and it seemed like the hole in his forehead was doing the same. Resting on a pillow of gore he’d produced, he had a peaceful expression, like he hadn’t even had time to say, “Oh, shit!” Or even think it.
I heard something behind me, spun, and it was Lu.
“Good way to get killed,” I whispered.
She was frowning down at the dead man. “Did you do this?”
“Not that I recall.” I knelt, checked him out. “Rigor. Been dead a while.”
That made it unlikely the killer, or killers, were still around. Rigor took at least four hours to set in.
She kept her voice down anyway. “Vanhorn’s not upstairs. Nobody is. Let’s check out the den.”
That was on the first floor, too, off the living room, with which it shared the only wood paneling in the place, and I’m not talking about the stuff in your uncle’s den where he hangs his beer neons — I mean the rich, dark-brown burnished wood of wealth that goes well with overstuffed leather furnishings.