The Stranger You Seek - By Amanda Kyle Williams Page 0,78
century, the huge old cotton mill had been turned into lofts like just about everything else in Atlanta. The area was littered with cool restaurants pushing fresh, local fare, farm-to-table, inspired. A few years ago an Atlanta fireman made the Cotton Mill Lofts famous when a five-alarm fire broke out and CNN filmed him plucking a trapped crane operator off his equipment while dangling from a helicopter rope inches above the flames. More recently a tornado had added to the history, cut a path through downtown Atlanta and ripped the top four floors off the old mill.
My phone went off. Jesus. The volume was way too high and Rauser’s “Dude (Looks Like a Lady)” ringtone scared the crap out of me.
“Look, we know he’s moving, Keye. We’re on it, okay? My guys made you, by the way. I don’t mind another pair of eyes, but you cannot pursue, understood?”
“Understood,” I said, and hung my equipment bag over my shoulder, stepped out onto the street, closed the car door quietly.
“By the way, Dobbs slept off the brownies. He thinks he’s coming down with something. Poor bastard.” Rauser chuckled. “I almost felt sorry for him.”
“Can we just never talk about that again?” I was moving along the east side of Edgewood, staying in the shadows.
“Ah, she’s capable of remorse,” Rauser said. “Good to know.”
I ignored that. “Hey, nice of you to tell me you had Charlie under surveillance.”
“Yeah, well, you haven’t exactly been forthright, have you? What are you doing right now? Sounds like you’re moving. Keye? You’re out of your car! No, you are not breaking and entering. Tell me you’re not.”
“You don’t want to know,” I answered, and worked my way through a couple of well-tended backyards and headed for the town houses.
“Shit,” Rauser spat. “I’m on my way.”
“Oh, that’s smart. Chief Connor would love that. Better keep your distance in case this doesn’t work out. I’m putting my phone on vibrate. Make sure somebody gives me a heads-up if he’s coming back, would you?”
“Keye, wait—”
I dropped the phone into the pocket of the black cargo pants I wear when I’m working at night—loose with plenty of pockets for my tools, easy to move in, dark, soft cotton and practically noiseless. I studied the town houses. There were tall privacy fences around twelve-by-twelve backyards. Unless I was ready to scale a ten-foot wooden fence, I wasn’t going to be lucky enough to have access to the private garden doors, the ones that were more likely to be unlocked.
I moved quickly back around the building, staying close in the shadows, found the main entrance, and pulled on tight vinyl gloves. I knelt to examine the lock. It was a standard cylinder lock, pin and tumbler, the kind of deadbolt most people used, easy to open with a key and not so easy without one. I opened my kit, withdrew a tension wrench and a long pick. I twisted the wrench enough to apply pressure to the lock and slid the pick in over it. One at a time, as each pin inside was pushed up with my pick and aligned, I heard a tiny click. One, two, three, four, five clicks, a little more pressure with the wrench and the cylinder, and I pushed open Charlie Ramsey’s front door and heard the last sound in the world I wanted to hear at that moment. Steady warning beeps. An alarm system. Charlie-with-only-half-a-brain had an alarm system. Crap. I figured I had forty-five, maybe sixty seconds at the most before all hell broke loose.
The town house was nicely furnished, earth tones mostly, guy stuff. Leather furniture with beefy steel rivets and a recliner facing a huge television mounted over the fireplace. The television was on.
I had to make the most out of a few seconds. I went straight for the steps. No one puts anything they want to keep out of sight in a common area.
Two bedrooms upstairs. In the second, a mattress on the floor, no frame, unmade. It was strewn with newspapers and magazines, clippings, a laptop, a couple of Coke cans. A bottle of Astroglide sat on the bed table.
I wasn’t even sure what I was looking for. Something, anything, to exclude Charlie from my dark suspicions. He was my friend. Funny goofy Charlie who forgot to take his meds and simply freaked out when I stood him up. Charlie with a sweet crush on me. I didn’t want to believe the churning in my gut.