The town of Kadrey was maybe half the size of Townsend, though that wasn’t saying much. Townsend had a handful of fast food places, where Kadrey had none. Nova remembered driving past and barely glancing out the window. Just houses and buildings, a gas station, and that was it.
Now, in the thickening night, Kadrey hardly looked like a town at all. It was nearly eleven o’clock. The town stood dark and quiet, a few lights on inside houses, but not many. There were only a few streetlights, their bulbs as dim and fading as the stars in the sky.
Instead of heading in a direct line toward Kadrey, they had looped around to the other side, keeping a mile-wide buffer between them and the town. Connolly no doubt had men stationed on the outskirts. That was what Nova would do. Connolly had to know they would keep moving. Staying in one spot wasn’t an option. Nova doubted Connolly had sent more men out looking for them, but that wasn’t the point. There was only so much you could do in the desert. Nova and Jessica would need to make an escape. That meant either returning to Parrot Spur or heading toward Kadrey. Townsend wasn’t an option, as the distance was just too far to make on foot, especially with Jessica’s weight on his back slowing him down.
Jessica whispered, “Do you see anything?”
They lay flat on a ridge over half a mile away from town. From this angle they were facing the rear of town. A few lights on inside houses, the pulsing glow of televisions, but that was it. Between them and the houses were sagebrush and trees. The trees weren’t really trees at all but overlarge bushes, maybe three dozen of them in total.
Nova concentrated on the trees. He just stared. He didn’t blink. He didn’t breathe. He stared and waited for any sign of movement, anything that would alert him to a sentry. Connolly’s men may have once been soldiers, but that had been years ago. He doubted they kept up their training. He doubted they were still accustomed to combat situations. Their evenings were spent drinking in the bar, not lying in bed working out tactical situations in their heads.
“No,” he whispered, “but that doesn’t mean there’s nothing there.”
“You think they’re out there?”
“I know they’re out there. It’s just a question of how many and where.”
“Should we keep moving around?”
Nova thought about it. Continuing west might cost them another hour, depending on the terrain. The benefit was they would be coming up on town from a side Connolly’s men wouldn’t expect. Or would they? Nova wondered just how smart Connolly was. To run an operation like this, he had to be pretty smart, but right now the man was no doubt frustrated. Maybe he wasn’t thinking straight. Maybe he was letting his emotions get in the way. If that was the case, maybe he wouldn’t consider the idea they would loop around and approach town from the other side.
“Let’s keep moving,” Nova said.
Another hour passed. They took their time. Better to take their time and stay alive than to cut corners and end up dead. They had weapons, true, but Nova didn’t think he could count on Jessica if it came to it. The girl was tough, but she wasn’t that tough. He saw it in her eyes. He heard it in her voice.
They left the ridge and entered into rocky terrain. Nova’s legs burned as they climbed up and over boulders. Then the terrain began to flatten into a copse of trees. There were many more trees than he had seen before. They seemed to border the town on this end. It didn’t make sense at first, but then Nova realized these trees had been artificially placed here by the townspeople. That’s the only thing that made sense. Probably decades ago some smart citizens had realized just how dangerous the rocky terrain was for kids, and so instead of putting up a wooden or wire fence, they made a natural one.
Cicadas trilled around them, masking the sound of Nova’s footfalls, but still they went even slower through the trees, making sure not to disturb any branches or snap twigs.
The closer they got, the more distinct the houses became. All of them compact and no more than one story tall. Now it was midnight and most of the houses were dark and still.
Nova forced himself to keep checking the ground as they went. Good thing, too, because there was a dark pool ahead of them. He almost stepped into it when he realized it was a hole.
“What’s wrong?” Jessica whispered, then looked up over his shoulder. “Are those toys down there?”
It appeared to be. Some plastic shovels and buckets in the hole, which was only a few feet wide, a few feet deep. Better kids playing outside than video games inside, Nova supposed.
They continued on. Eventually the trees and sagebrush fell away and it was just open desert between the ridge and town. This was Nova’s main concern. Suddenly their cover was lost. The sky was clear and the stars were bright, but fortunately the moon wasn’t full. Even a half moon would give the sentries more than enough light by which to see them. But right now it was just a sliver, and Nova hoped the sliver would allow them safe passage across the short expanse of desert.
“Hold on tight,” Nova whispered.
He went faster now with the open space. The seconds seemed to last forever, and then they reached the houses.
Jessica climbed off Nova’s back. Nova looked at her, asking silently if she could walk on her own. She offered up a short nod.
Most of the backyards here were fenced in, though the fences weren’t tall. Nova could see over most of them. What he was looking for was an open patio door. He had to assume a town like Kadrey would have trusting neighbors. They probably locked their front doors when they went to work during the day, but their windows might be unlocked. And at night, while they slept, they might keep their patio doors open to let in the cool desert air. The only thing standing between their home and an intruder would be wire mesh.
It was the fifth house that Nova found an open patio door. Just as he hoped, a screen door was the only thing barring them entrance.
Even better, there wasn’t a fence. They walked right into the backyard. There was nothing in the yard. Some white plastic patio furniture on the back porch and that was it.
Nova slung the rifle over his shoulder and withdrew his pistol in the same motion. He checked on Jessica, saw she was making decent progress, though he could tell she was in pain. She was doing her best to hide it, though, and for that he had to give her points.
They approached the patio door. Stepping up onto the concrete porch, Nova stared through the screen door at the darkness beyond. Suddenly he wondered if this was a trap. If Connolly was even smarter than Nova had thought. If Connolly had known exactly what Nova was going to do even before Nova did. If at this moment one of Connolly’s men—if not Connolly himself—stood just beyond that screen door, an Uzi aimed for center mass.
Nova got closer. Peered inside. An empty kitchen. Table and chairs, counter, sink, stove, refrigerator. And on the wall, snug in its cradle, was a phone.
Predictably, the screen door was locked. Nova wouldn’t have wanted it any other way. Had it been unlocked, warning bells would have gone off inside his head.
He used his knife to slice an X beside the handle. The X was large enough for him to stick his hand through. A twist of the wrist, a flick of the lock, and the screen door was open.
Nova checked on Jessica standing beside him as he took hold of the handle. He held his breath, waited a beat, then began to slide it open. It made some noise but the noise was slight, almost drowned out by the cicadas. He slid the door just far enough that Jessica could slip through, then himself, and pushed it closed again.
They stood silent then, listening to the house. A clock ticked somewhere in another room. The refrigerator hummed. The scent of dinner lingered. In the trashcan beside the refrigerator was an empty Hungry-Man frozen meal box.
Nova headed directly for the phone. He pulled the phone from its cradle and placed it to his ear. The dial tone was the sweetest sound he had heard all night. Before he had left D.C., Atticus had given him a business card with a number on it. Atticus had said that if Nova ever needed anything to give the number a call. Nova had memorized the number before burning the business card. He hadn’t thought he would ever need to use the number but wanted to be safe rather than sorry. Now he was glad he hadn’t dismissed it.
He set the phone against his shoulder and started pressing buttons. It was a long distance call, and he had only gotten through five digits when Jessica sucked in air through her teeth. He tilted his face in her direction, saw her staring past him, fear in her eyes.
The kitchen light turned on.