Oh, no.
She lifted the top of the piano and felt under the lip for the key. It was gone.
Every few weeks, per Desirae’s instructions, she changed where she kept it. It had already been in the piano for two weeks. Another few days and it would’ve been time to move it again.
She tiptoed across the room until she could see that the door to the basement was cracked open.
Get out! Desirae’s voice yelled at her.
Nadine tried to swallow but her mouth had gone dry. Yes, she had leave immediately, but there was something she could do that would give her an edge. She returned to the kitchen, quietly opened her junk drawer, and rooted around until she found the old basement key. Taking careful steps, she walked back to the basement entrance, turned the knob so the latch retracted, and eased the door back into place.
Her heart was beating so rapidly she could hear the blood racing past her ears as she inserted the key into the hole below the knob. In her mind, she imagined someone rushing up the stairs and ripping the door out of her hands, but the door remained closed as the bolt slipped into place.
Get out!
She wasn’t about to ignore her daughter’s voice a second time.
As dusk settled on the area, it became less likely the SUV would be seen, so Daeng moved it into a position where he had a clean view of the woman’s house. He imagined in the summer the neighborhood was pretty active, with everyone getting as much outdoor time as they wanted. At least that’s what he would do. Now, though, the only people he saw were all moving from car to house or house to car.
Five minutes after he repositioned, a late-model Volvo pulled into the driveway of the woman’s house. He tried calling Quinn first, then Nate, and finally Orlando, but no one was answering.
As he made the calls, he watched the driver — a woman with shoulder-length gray hair — get out of her car and walk inside the house.
“Maybe they heard her,” Abraham said, “and that’s why they aren’t answering.”
Daeng grunted noncommittally as he tried Quinn again.
No response.
“Should we go in?” Abraham asked.
“We stay here,” Daeng said.
Several minutes later, as he was contemplating moving closer to the house, his phone rang. He snatched it up, thinking it would be Quinn, but the number on his screen was not familiar to him, and the locator below it read: CARSON CITY, NEVADA.
He let it ring one more time before deciding to answer. “Yes?”
It turned out to be Orlando. She started explaining something about scramblers and routed signals, but there was no time for that right now.
He said, “Did she find you?”
“Who?” Quinn asked.
Daeng told them about the woman and how he’d been trying to reach them.
Quinn said, “We’ll call you back.”
It couldn’t have been more than thirty seconds after the call ended when the front door of the house opened and the woman rushed out.
Daeng tried calling Quinn again but had the same luck as before. He was about to cycle through the other two when the woman jumped into her car and started backing out of the driveway.
He tossed his phone at Abraham and said, “Keep trying them until you get through.”
As soon as the Volvo headed down the street, Daeng put the SUV into Drive and followed.
Quinn was the first up the safe-room stairs and into the basement, with Orlando and Nate only steps behind him. There they paused and listened, but it didn’t sound like anyone was in the basement with them, nor did Quinn hear any creaks from the floorboards above. He did, however, hear the faint scrape of metal on metal and a click.
A lock.
The realization hit all three of them at once. They raced through the basement toward the stairs, but before they could even reach them, they heard someone running through the house and then what sounded like the front door opening and slamming shut.
Taking the steps two at a time, Quinn hustled to the top and grabbed the knob. But as he feared, the door was locked.
“Son of a bitch,” he said.
He tested the door and found it was a little loose in the frame, so he grabbed the railing and repeatedly kicked the door just below the lock until it broke free.
Standing just inside the stairway, Quinn called in French, “Madame Chastain, are you there?” He was all but positive she wasn’t, but caution was dictated. “We just want to talk. We’re not here to hurt you.”
The only response was Nate muttering, “Which is why we busted down your door.”
Quinn glared at him before stepping through the doorway. “Madame Chastain?”
While Orlando followed him into the living room, Nate paused near the door and pulled out his phone.
“Hello?” he said. “No, we’re okay. She didn’t—” He paused, listening. “All right. Good….Call you right back.” He lowered the phone. “That was Abraham. Apparently the woman jumped in her car and drove off. They’re trailing her and want to know what we want them to do.”
Quinn looked at Orlando. “Your call.”
“Given what we’ve found, I think it would be a good idea to try to talk to her, don’t you?” Orlando said.
This was officially the most frightened Nadine had been in her life.
Desirae had warned her that someday someone might try to use Nadine to reach her, but as the years passed, the possibility had become more unreal, like it was only a story her daughter had made up.
Until she realized someone had been in or was still in her house.
A horn honked. She blinked and saw she’d started drifting across the centerline. She jerked the wheel and brought the Volvo back to her side.
Get it together, she told herself.
A normal person would have driven directly to the police station. But as straitlaced and boring as she might appear, her life was far from normal.
“Yes, Officer. Someone deactivated my professional-grade alarm and found the secret apartment under my backyard. No, no, there aren’t any building permits. My dead daughter had it built. And no, that gun you found upstairs is not registered. She got that for me, too.”
Besides the awkward questions she’d have to answer, Desirae herself had said that while the local authorities could probably be trusted, the same could not be said of others who might gain access to their reports. That was something that needed to be avoided at all costs.
Nadine’s most obvious option was her sister’s house. It was only fifteen minutes away, but she figured if the intruders knew about her, they’d know about her sister, too. So where the hell should she go?
God, she wished there was a way to easily reach Desirae. Her daughter would know what to do. But that was not going to happen so Nadine would have to find a solution on her own.
As she reached the south end of the lake, an answer occurred to her.
Beatrice’s place.
Of course.
It was back in the other direction on Lac Delage, but Nadine’s friend was in Arizona for the winter and the place would be empty. And Nadine was one of the few who knew where Beatrice kept the spare key.
She circled around to the other side of Lac-Saint-Charles and headed northwest toward Lac Delage, feeling for the first time since this started that things would be okay.
Following Daeng’s directions, Quinn drove to Lac Delage in the Lexus sedan he’d anonymously borrowed from one of Nadine’s neighbors.
“There they are,” Orlando said, pointing ahead.
Barely visible in an overgrown turnout at the side of the road was their rented SUV. Quinn killed his headlights as he pulled in behind it, and then he, Orlando, and Nate relocated into the other vehicle.