Georgia drove from the zoo to Barrington. The Blackstone house occupied the center of a cul-de-sac with two homes on either side. All three nestled on the shore of Lake Louise and each had their own pier. She drove around the cul-de-sac back out to the street and found a parallel street with its own cul-de-sac and parked there. If she was caught, or had to make a quick getaway, she didn’t want to make it too easy to identify her car. She approached the Blackstone house from the lakeside on foot.
She walked around to the front of the house. It looked the same as it had the first time she came. Vacant. Tulips were blooming, and so were daffodils. Other shoots—she didn’t know what— had started to poke out of the dirt. She checked the mailbox. It was empty. The Blackstone’s neighbor had said they’d left in a hurry, but someone had gone online or called the post office to hold their mail.
She retraced her steps to the back of the house. The backyard, easily half an acre, featured a sloped lawn bordered by evergreens on two sides, probably the property lines. A large brick patio extended from sliding glass doors. Flowerpots were filled with pansies and violets, and the tart odor of fertilizer wafted over her. Landscapers.
She walked around to the far side of the house. Finally. A back door. She went closer and peered through upper glass panels. The door opened to a mud room. Beyond that was the kitchen. Perfect. She slid her hand into her blazer pocket and pulled out her lockpicks. She hadn’t used them in a long time. She’d been taught by an old friend of her father’s soon after she got her PI license, and at one point she was pretty good. But she’d grown rusty.
She inserted her pick into the keyhole and felt for the pins. She found one and started to apply pressure to it. She had to be gentle, but persistent, or it wouldn’t work. The point was to test the resistance of the pin springs so she could accurately freeze each pin in its designated position. She fumbled around for a moment but finally was able to lift a pin that stayed where it was supposed to. Then she slid in her torque wrench to get a feel for the plug’s stiffness. She swore softly. What would have taken her ten minutes a few years ago now took twenty. The lock had seven pins. It wasn’t easy, but not as hard as it could have been. Barrington residents—in fact, most affluent people in palatial homes—shared the illusion of white-bread safety. No burglar would dare to rob a house in this neighborhood.
Still, before she set the last pin she checked her watch. Safety didn’t mean complacency. There would be an alarm, followed by a phone call from the alarm company to the house. If no one picked up, a call would go to the Barrington police station. It would take them five to eight minutes to show up. Georgia was cautious: She set her phone timer to five minutes, set the last pin, and heard a quiet click. With a satisfied sigh, she opened the door.
She walked through the mud room to a huge kitchen, the kind with an island in the center and a breakfast nook with a bay window that looked out on the backyard and the lake. It was overbearingly clean, spare, and white. The phone rang. The call from the alarm company. She ignored it and looked for a pad or scrap of paper. But there was nothing on the counter near the phone. She opened the nearest cabinet and found a dozen colorful coffee mugs with logos from Starbucks to the local library, but no paper. She pulled out a drawer underneath. The junk drawer. Everyone had one in their kitchen. She rummaged through rubber bands, scissors, a hammer, screws, and a tube of lipstick. No paper. She took a few extra seconds to open the other cabinets and drawers. Nothing.
She checked the timer. Forty-nine seconds had elapsed. She hurried out of the kitchen through an elegant dining room to the front hall. The front door was to her right, and to her left a curved wooden set of stairs led upstairs. She was looking for Blackstone’s home office or man cave. She poked her head into another elegant living room, then a TV room, behind which she found an office. Not a man cave. It included a huge secretary desk with delicate carvings on the drawers. Nothing was on the desk’s surface except an expensive pen set. A wheeled executive chair rested on a plastic sheet under which was an Oriental rug. Framed certificates of Blackstone’s College and Medical degrees festooned the walls. He’d mounted everything except his kindergarten report card, Georgia thought.
She started racing through the desk drawers and cabinets. One drawer was locked, but she didn’t have time to pick the lock. The others were full of office supplies, a directory of Mercy Hospital employees, and a northern suburbs telephone book.
She checked her phone timer. Less than three minutes left. She needed to hurry. She climbed the stairs two at a time. At the landing she had to choose: the master bedroom or a spare room whose door was open. Instinct told her to check the bedroom, but first she glanced into the spare room to see why the door was ajar. Her gaze was drawn to a neon sign on the wall that spelled out in blue cursive letters, “Barb’s Beading Palace.” The only furniture in the room was a pool table covered with an assortment of plastic bins. A white built-in desk and bookshelf occupied one wall.
The bins were filled with an embarrassment of beads, all organized by size and color. One bin contained tools for beading. Thin elastic strips and gold necklaces of all sizes filled another, while others contained finished necklaces and bracelets. Barbara Blackstone was a beader. Georgia had heard the hobby was back in vogue. This must be what the affluent housewives of Barrington did. Selling real estate was clearly passé.
She hurried to a built-in desk against the wall. There was nothing on its surface. The Blackstones were turning out to be obsessive neatniks. A white cabinet sat above the desk. Georgia opened it. Inside was scotch tape, scissors, glue, and what looked like a daily planner with a black cover and spiral binding. On top of it was a small pad of paper no bigger than a post-it note. Georgia snatched it.
She looked at the timer. Ninety seconds left. She examined the pad. It looked like there were indentations on it, probably from handwriting on what was once the top sheet but had been torn off. It could be something of interest. Then again, maybe not. She dumped the pad into her blazer pocket. She turned to leave the room and noticed a bracelet made of sparkly red beads separated at regular intervals with gold baubles. Was it for the holidays?
She checked her timer. Jesus! Only a minute left. She hurried into the master bedroom. She had to check both bedside tables and drawers. Each was mirrored silver. Again, nothing sat on top of the tables except matching lamps, so she pulled out the drawers. A vibrator, a trashy novel, and a pen in one. No paper or pad. A pack of condoms in the other along with a couple of nonfiction books. Again, no paper or pad.
Georgia raced out of the room and scrambled down the stairs. A siren wailed from a distance. She had no idea how close it was. Her heart thudded in her chest. She threw open the back door, slammed it behind her, and ran to the edge of the shoreline and back to the parallel street where her car was parked. She keyed the engine and was just turning out of the street when a patrol car, wheels screeching, swerved onto Blackstone’s street. Adrenaline rushed over her, and her pulse drummed in her ears. She was sweating.