The Final Step by Ridley Pearson

Author:Ridley Pearson
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2018-09-02T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 41

THE SUMMER FROGS AND SCREECHING INSECTS turned the nighttime woods into a place so impossibly loud that it covered the approach of four figures dressed in all black. The installation of wireless cameras around the crumbling mansion’s exterior was being tended to by Eisenower and Maletta, both of whom claimed tree-climbing skills. The battery-powered, motion-triggered cameras connected over a cellular carrier to an app on James’s phone, all financed by his trip to Boston the prior weekend.

Stacey and Leith, now part-time employees of Sugar Maple Cleaners, had yet to set foot inside Hildebrandt’s rooms, but had easy access to the company cleaning schedule (thumbtacked to a corkboard in Ginny Lonstadt’s kitchen, which served as her home office). Hildebrandt had rescheduled the housecleaning of his apartment to fit his travel schedule. He was currently away for two days.

The cleaning company also included a property’s security alarm code on the assignment sheet for the few homes that used such codes. The assignment sheets were stacked between Ginny Lonstadt’s four-slot toaster and her laptop on the kitchen banquette, so she could properly input the hours her girls spent on each job, and the tasks completed. Since she was typically about a week behind on her paperwork, the stack was not small. Stacey had found two sheets for the Hildebrandt property, the same security code on both.

Once down the tunnel, James slipped through the door and hurried to the keypad panel by Hildebrandt’s front door. He input the code written on his palm and silenced the box. On his signal, two boys and a girl named Claudette followed in behind him. They performed exactly as James had instructed. The boys took photos and shot video while Claudette, a toothpick of a girl with straight hair and a stretched face, installed tiny video cameras disguised as screws in light switch wallplates. They cost one hundred dollars each. James searched the office more carefully than on his first visit. He examined a paperweight marking Hildebrandt’s government service. Several photographs showing the man in the Oval Office with different presidents.

He reached some of the framed newspaper clippings and stopped. One in particular held him. It seemed so familiar, as if he’d seen it before on a different wall of a different office. A different headline but the same photo: an armored car on the side of the road, police everywhere.

Eisenower startled him from behind. He asked some stupid question James couldn’t answer. James moved on.

In the small kitchen, he noticed a pad of custom notepaper by a wireless telephone. He tried a trick he’d seen in a movie: rubbing a pencil lead gently across the top sheet to reveal impressions from the note made above it.

avocados

bananas

soy milk

raw sugar

coffee

James hurried upstairs to the apartment’s only bedroom. Another custom stationery notepad sat alongside the bedroom phone. James rubbed this as well. Not all the impressions had been made strong enough to carry through.

6_7__23475

A___an____

He raced downstairs to Hildebrandt’s office and was in the process of rubbing that notepad as

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