He turned into the driveway and walked softly around to the side of the house, grateful for the light from the dimming green aurorae still visible in the sky. He walked along the narrow strip that bordered the south side of the house, just past the cement apron beneath the kitchen window where he’d hooked up the generator a few days earlier.
The BMW still being there had been a bad deal, but it wasn’t enough to make Rusty fold his hand just yet. The true test was the storm-cellar doors. Years ago, when Aubrey’s know-it-all brother had deigned to visit their home, he’d told them the flimsy lock on the angled metal doors that led directly into their basement was a security risk and they needed a way to get into the house if they ever lost their keys. Before they even had a chance to agree, Thom went out and bought a biometric lock that must have cost a couple grand—money Rusty and Aubrey really could have used someplace else—and had it installed on the storm doors. It was one of the things Rusty hated about his brother-in-law; he was always buying them things they didn’t want, fixing things that weren’t broken, instead of just giving them money.
Now, there was only one question. Had Aubrey forgotten to remove Rusty’s fingerprint scan from the lock’s memory after he moved out?
Rusty edged over to the storm doors. He slid his hand up the vertical line from the bottom, feeling the lip where the doors came together. The flat, square panel of the biometric lock was about three feet up. Rusty took a moment and held his breath. This was the real make-or-break, the flop, the moment when the dealer flipped over the three cards they’d all play from and real betting would begin. If his fingerprint worked and the lock opened, he’d press on, go into the house, and see how long his luck held. But if Aubrey had deleted him, he’d have no choice but to throw in his cards and go home.
He pressed his thumb into the center of the panel.
It lit up green and the lock clicked open.
Rusty was all in.
Inside, he moved quietly across the basement floor, hoping she’d cleaned it up in the years since he’d lived here. It was black in the basement, like walking on the bottom of a lake. He slid his feet along on the cheap carpet, figuring that if he kicked something on the floor it was better to nudge it with his toe rather than catch it in full stride. She must have sent a bunch of his old stuff to the dump, because his feet didn’t bump anything until he got to the staircase in the middle of the floor.
He crept upstairs, opened the door at the top, and stepped into the back hallway just off the kitchen. He wondered, idly, if at this point his actions qualified as breaking and entering. He hadn’t broken anything, he’d just opened a couple doors, but it wasn’t his house, and he knew perfectly well he wasn’t wanted there. “Unlawful entry,” maybe, like that Ray Liotta movie he saw on cable once, but, wait, that guy was a cop and—he stopped, shaking his head at the unwanted thoughts, and tried to center his thinking. This was the sort of undisciplined mental energy that got him in trouble in a card game, spending too much time thinking about what he wanted for dinner or about the tits of the brunette sitting across from him, and losing track of what was out and who had what.
This was a simple plan. Get in the house, see if the money’s there, and decide if you can grab it. A one-in-ten shot involving a few simple go-or-no-go decisions along the way. All other thoughts needed to be banished.
He moved slowly across the kitchen floor, trying not to make a sound. When he got to the door on the other side, he caught a glimpse into the living room, which had a greenish glow from the light shining in the window. He’d hoped to see an empty couch and the duffel bag still sitting in the middle of the coffee table but knew that was too much to ask.
He did get the second-best thing, though, which was that the duffel, though not on the table, was still in the living room. He could see the outline of it clearly on the floor beside the couch.
The problem was on the couch itself. The big guy was sleeping there, his arm hanging off the side, and though it wasn’t touching the duffel, it might as well have been, his fingertips less than a foot away. Rusty winced, drew a deep breath, and let it out again silently.
This was not a good situation, but it was not an impossible one either. The bag was there. Why the bag was still there was another question, but it was irrelevant. The bag of money—and that’s what it had to be, he was sure of it—was just ten feet from him, and the guy guarding it was sound asleep.
One tiny adjustment was all that was needed. The couch ran parallel to the wall, about six feet into the living room, and the big guy’s head was on the far end, away from the kitchen. If he happened to open his eyes, he’d be looking straight at Rusty. Granted, it was only ten feet from the kitchen doorway to the bag, but that could be a long ten feet, and there was no accounting for the sounds the floorboards might make. Freezing in place was no good if the son of a bitch was going to be looking directly at him.