CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Tuesday, October 11th

KANDICE, BLAKE, AND LANCE WERE DRIVING to the mayor's street in a new Escalade courtesy of Mike. It was a typical pearl-white with the metal chromed-out and windows tinted as dark as the law allowed.

It had been a week since Kandice's interview with the Biancardi twins, and the visit was still unsettling with everyone. She spent most of the time gathering information on the mayor with Slava.

Blake had also been hanging around Lance's house a lot more. He came to help solidify a plan for getting around the mayor's security system, and guards.

Lance and Slava still fought about what was said in Italian to the Biancardi twins. Slava refused to say anything more than it was personal, and Lance flooded him with questions at every chance.

Blake and Kandice had gone home one night when it got bad. Slava and Lance ended up yelling at the top of their lungs at one another in Russian. It reminded Kandice of old sitcoms, but it wasn't quite as funny in real life. She got the impression that Lance was unaware there had been secrets between them until now.

"We'll do two passes," Lance said from the front seat.

Kandice and Blake sat in the back with their phones ready to record.

Lance made the final bend in the road and slowed down to about 20 mph. Lance figured ahead of time that twenty would be slow, but not so slow as to draw a lot of attention on them. Kandice and Blake filmed what they could see through the gate.

When they had taken the bend all the way around, and away from the mayor's house, Lance pulled over to the side of the road. Blake showed his film first. They could see three guards between the gate and front door.

Kandice's film showed little more, with the female assistant in a window, dressed in a black dress, and bright red hair. The red that was an obvious shade of fake, but still looked good for some people. She was not one of those people.

"We'll do one more pass," Lance said. "I'll have to go a little faster. I don't want them to mark this vehicle."

Lance turned the SUV around and headed back. This time, they passed doing 35 mph. Kandice and Blake both filmed again, but their film showed nothing new. The guards were moving, but they just switched positions with each other.

The inside of the house looked dark and the only light seemed to be in the mayor's office.

Slava's reconnaissance showed that the mayor spent most of his time in the office. He only left when he was ready to go to his bedroom for the night.