When Maureen returned to Solomon Heath’s house, she found the back door ajar. She couldn’t think of anything more unlike him than that. She walked up the steps and glanced at the security camera above the door. Looked like it was working. A break-in? If so, she wondered, where was the alarm? Where was the security company that should be responding to it? She backed down the steps and swept the yard, the butterfly box, and the shrubs with her flashlight. Nothing. Not even footprints in the grass. She reached for the radio mic clipped to her shoulder, changed her mind. For the second time that night she was in the one place both Preacher and the FBI had warned her not to be. No sense flushing her career down the toilet because Solomon Heath had a senior moment and left his back door unlocked.
Maureen stood on the path leading to the door, chewing the inside of her cheek. What she should do, she thought, was go get that coffee. A big one. She wouldn’t be going home after her shift. She would be there when Detillier searched that apartment in a few hours. Depending on what they found, it might be another twelve, eighteen hours before she slept again. So. Coffee. A lot of it. But instead of moving for the car, she stood there on the path, staring at the golden vertical line between the open door and the doorframe. But, damn, she thought, Solomon Heath didn’t seem the kind of man prone to senior moments. What if something had happened as he returned to the house? What if he’d fallen? Had a stroke or some kind of emergency. Just to be sure, she thought, for safety’s sake, I’ll take a look. She returned up the path.
She knocked on the door before reaching for the knob. “Mr. Heath?” She waited. She settled her other hand on her gun. Nothing from inside the house. “Mr. Heath? It’s Officer Coughlin. Everything okay?” She waited. No answer. She bumped the door with her shoulder. It opened into a small, second kitchen. She saw no sign of Heath, or of anyone else inside. The thermos they had shared sat on an island in the middle of the room. She entered the house, easing the door closed behind her.
There, behind the door, the golf club he’d held in the park stood propped against the wall. She checked the keypad on the wall above the golf club. The alarm had been deactivated. With the club in its place and the alarm off, Maureen figured nothing bad had happened at the back door. She looked around the kitchen. A familiar scent tickled her nose. Bourbon.
She stepped deeper into the kitchen. She considered calling out to Heath again, hesitated. Broken glass crunched under her boot. Fragments, she saw, of what was likely a highball glass, lying in a pool of spilled bourbon. She backed up. That, she didn’t like. Why would Heath drop a drink and leave it there without cleaning it up? Because, she thought, something much more urgent had commanded his attention. She checked the kitchen tile for footprints, saw a couple of dirty work-boot prints that were probably not Heath’s. All right, she thought, someone else is in the house. The story so far: After she leaves, Heath comes in the back door, turns off the alarm, sets the thermos down on the island, makes himself a drink. Everything is cool.
Then, later, something brings a sleepless Heath to the back door—a knock, maybe a voice. He opens the door, fresh drink in hand, and whoever is there backs him up into the kitchen, then does something scary enough to make Heath drop his drink. Which hadn’t happened that long ago, she thought. The ice cubes had hardly melted. A gun? Heath drops the drink and puts his hands up? He tries to set the drink on the island and misses because something else, like a man with a gun, has his strict attention. She had a good idea who that man with a gun might be. It was then Maureen heard voices coming from deeper inside the huge house.
She turned the volume down on her radio. Maureen was very glad she had not made more noise coming through the back door. Two men, arguing. One declaring, the other persuading. Her best guess: Gage delivering a lecture, Heath pleading not to die at the end of it. She could tell they were moving through the house. Away from her. She glanced at the back door. Solomon, you arrogant idiot, she thought. You let him in thinking he’d come to you, his old benefactor, for help one more time. That you’d keep him here for us, or maybe that you’d finish him yourself somehow. That he’d never come to hurt you, that no one would ever come to hurt you, in your big, safe house.
Maureen unsnapped her holster. She figured she didn’t have long to find them. Gage loved a good lecture, loved to hear himself talk, but he had to know his time was running out.
She pulled her gun, held it low by her hip, and considered her options. Gage surrendering, she figured, was not one of them. She knew from the Walmart sporting-goods section that the Watchmen were not the surrendering type. Gage, if he couldn’t kill her and escape, would want his blaze of glory for the effort. And he’d want to take her and Heath with him when he went. For all Maureen knew, his pockets bulged with grenades. He couldn’t know she was there.
She could call for backup, wait for others to help her search the house. That was the sensible course of action. But the radio would make noise. She was in a quiet house. If the men inside hadn’t been arguing, they might’ve heard her calling out or stepping on the broken glass. Maureen glanced again at the ice on the floor. Waiting for backup would cost her a fair amount of time. Heath’s house opened onto Audubon Park. Gage could easily disappear into the park with his hostage. He could have a getaway car on Magazine Street, on St. Charles, on any number of side streets that ended at the park. They could vanish in any direction. That was most likely the plan. They were not far from the river, not far from where Quinn had disappeared under its currents. The river road, dark and winding, would lead Gage right out of town whether he was taking a hostage with him or leaving another corpse in his wake. She reached into her pocket and pulled out her phone. Atkinson: she worked all night like Maureen. Straining to follow the path of the conversation through the dark rooms of the mansion, her gun in one hand, Maureen thumbed a silent message to Atkinson. Her location, the men in the house with her. She sent the text and slipped the phone back into her pocket. Help would come, then, Maureen thought, she just didn’t know how long it would take to get there.
The voices in the dark grew heated. Someone struck a blow. The other man hit the hardwood floor. In stages, it sounded like. Knees then hands. Gage urged Heath to get on his feet. Maureen heard doors thrown open. A cold wind blew through the house. They were headed for the porch, Maureen thought, and for the park. She couldn’t let them get away, couldn’t let them disappear. As quietly as she could, she moved from the lighted kitchen into the deep, dark belly of the big house, moving forward into the cold November wind.