“Why the fuck would someone search an old folk’s home? What are they looking for?”
Leaning forward and resting his elbows on the table, he links his fingers together and shrugs. “I’m not sure who, I’m don’t know what, and I don’t know why. This was weeks ago, and I let it go, because it doesn’t make sense. But then this happened.” He picks the remote up again and brings one of the twenty or so squares of surveillance up so it covers the whole screen.
It’s Kane’s kitchen.
He presses buttons and rewinds the footage. I see snippets of Jess and Kane walking through. Coffee. Breakfast. Bringing the mail in. Sorting the mail so a few sit on the end of the counter, and others are tossed in the trash. “Watch this…” He presses play, so I train my eyes on the black and white image of his kitchen counter. I see the pile of mail. I see the coffee mug. I see a hair tie.
A minute passes. Then two.
My eyes go to Kane when nothing happens. “I don’t see it.”
“Watch again.” He rewinds it and slows it down.
A pile of mail. Half a dozen sheets of paper stacked on top of each other in a neat square.
A half empty mug of coffee.
A hair tie.
Then the footage blips. Just for a second, just the tiniest blip.
“What the fuck was that?”
“Watch it again, Rook. If you don’t see it this time, you need to find a new job.”
He rewinds it as every man in this room watches the TV with narrowed eyes. The twins aren’t as concerned. They watch, but they don’t have the same concern in their eyes as the men.
Kane presses play, and because I know I’m supposed to seesomething, I watch closely. I lean on my new cane and study the way the papers are lined up on the counter. How the neat pile has one or two sheets slightly off center.
The mug remains perfectly still.
The hair tie remains where its supposed to be.
Then the blip.
My eyes go to Kane’s. “The papers moved. They were a little messy. Now they’re perfect.”
“Give the rook a ribbon.” Kane throws the remote down and folds his arms. “Someone was in my home. They’re smart enough to blip the fuck outta my security system, and they knew I’d be watching, so they were careful not to move anything.”
“They fucked up with the paper.”
“They sure did. So who the fuck is smart enough to get past my security? Someone with serious hack skills. Someone with massive fuckin’ balls. And someone who knows how to climb wall after wall and walk away with their lives.”
“Abel’s people?”
Pushing back in his chair, Kane folds his left foot over his right knee and tugs Jess’ hand into his lap. He needs her close. He needs her safe; there’s a reason she’s here today, and not in her own office on Main Street where she should be. “I don’t know who it is. But whoever it is has access to my home as though it’s open for all. That’s why Jess has her marching orders until I figure this shit out.”
“I’m not leaving,” she huffs. “I’m not going anywhere unless you come with me. And since you insist on staying…” She purses her lips and shrugs. She’s not moving a single inch.
“So someone was in Bish’s house,” Spence rumbles. “They can get in and out without being noticed until long after the fact. We can’t know if they were in his apartment, since it’s a piece of shit and not under surveillance.”
“Same as my apartment,” Eric adds. “That whole building is falling down around it’s tenants, and nobody thought to go back and watch, so we don’t know if anyone’s been in.”
“My place is tricked out,” Spence adds. Standing at the head of the table near the TV, he folds twenty-one-inch biceps across a thick chest and scowls. “I have security up the wazoo, but I got the same blip.”
My eyes widen. “You got the blip, too? Fuck me.”
“I didn’t know it till Bish brought this to us. I wasn’t watching mine, I got no alerts, so I had no clue. I went back over it last night, and sure as shit, I see the blip. I can’t see anything of mine stolen or moved, but the blip is there.”