By the time Laura reached Meadowlark Gardens, she had revised her plan. She no longer wanted merely to hide a distance away and photograph the Fox and his clients from afar. She wanted to get close enough to hear their conversation and make a video recording of them with her phone.
She walked through the deserted alley of the complex and into the courtyard. She grimly observed the rusted picnic table, and near it, the slide, swing, and covered bin of jump ropes and other gear that were the remains of a playground. She saw the lampposts with their broken lanterns and missing fixtures. She looked up at the dilapidated buildings lining the courtyard, which stood like the eerie gravestones of a failed project in which the hopes and dreams of the inhabitants were doomed.
She entered one of the buildings from which she hoped to hear the voices in the courtyard, and she crouched down under a broken window facing the playground. She paused at the eerie sight of a tool kit and a roll of duct tape left there, as if a handyman who had patched some of the windows had taken a break and would return any minute to make more repairs.
As she waited, she placed her phone in her jacket pocket, ready to pull out as soon as the meeting's participants arrived. With any luck, this recording would destroy Darcy Egan, Zack Walker, and the contractor who was making their diabolical scheme possible. This man would stop at nothing for money. He'd sell out a country, a once-great country, to enrich himself. As she crouched down and waited, she vowed to bring the Fox to justice for his unspeakable crimes against her country.
She heard a car approaching. Then, its engine stopped. She heard only one car door opening, so she concluded the person was alone. It must be the Fox. She heard footsteps coming through the building opposite to hers as the person headed toward the courtyard. She was about to see a monster who would extinguish the cherished liberty of America, a depraved individual who would destroy the people's right to elect their leaders at the ballot box. She was about to see a man who, for a load of money, would topple the hard-fought gains of human freedom that took millennia of human suffering to establish. She could feel her heart pounding against her chest as her face reddened and her hands shook. Every cell of her body was demanding the capture and punishment of the man she was about to see.
At first, she saw only glimpses of the man in the shadows of the building. She observed his baseball cap, his vest over a long-sleeved sweater without the benefit of a coat, and his sunglasses. He walked with a relaxed stroll that suggested to her a casual, devil-may-care attitude—a man without a conscience.
Then, he moved into the courtyard in full sight. She realized she knew that body all too well. The muscular arms, the tall build, the trim waist, the long legs, the tightly curled hair weaving out under the cap.
She forgot about hiding, about her safety, about the incredible story she was there to chronicle—a story that just became even more outrageous than she'd ever imagined.
She stepped out in the open to face him.
"Reed!"