Page 42 of Cyn
Her eyes drifted to the clock on her bookshelf. If she left now, she could be in town in ten minutes. That would give her about an hour to search the boys’ apartment, assuming Waters came straight home after his lab. If she was out of there by noon, she’d even have time to stop by Antonia’s for lunch before needing to be back.
Fifteen minutes later, she pulled into a spot on a side street four blocks from the apartment the three suspects shared. Crawling into the back seat, Cyn quickly changed into a nondescript set of winter clothing. A black wool coat, black knit cap, black jeans, and black winter boots—thank god for tinted windows or she might have mooned a pedestrian or two.
Once back in the driver’s seat, she pulled her key fob from her purse, slipped it into a zippered pocket, then exited her car and made her way up the street. She did a quick survey as she walked by. Not surprising for a building that was mostly student apartments, the locks on the doors appeared broken, and there were no security cameras in sight.
Ducking her head, she turned as if realizing she’d just passed her destination, then walked straight into the building. Opting for the stairs, she climbed the four flights to the top floor. When she stepped out into the hall, four identical doors greeted her—two in the front of the building for the apartments that faced the main street and two for the apartments in the back that faced the alley. Pulling her lock pick kit from her pocket, she moved to the back left door. Again, it came as no surprise that the security was lackluster, and she immediately started working on the top deadbolt, knowing that many people often only locked the one.
Sure enough, once the bolt slid into the door, the knob turned easily in her hand, and she walked right in.
Pausing inside the threshold, she took in the kitchen and small sitting room to her left, which meant that all the bedrooms were to her right. She didn’t think the suspects would leave anything incriminating out in the open, but criminals were often stupid, so she spent ten minutes searching the sitting room and kitchen. Finding exactly what she’d thought she’d find—nothing—she moved onto the bedrooms. There were only two, with two of the boys sharing the larger room and a single bed in the smaller one. Given that Harrow and Persons received financial aid, and Waters did not, she assumed Waters had more means and that the single room was probably his. The double was the messier of the two, and if she had to do something she didn’t like, she preferred to get it over and done with as quickly as possible, so she started there.
Stopping at one of the small desks, she riffled through papers and leafed through books, finding nothing but school-related materials. Moving to a dresser, she found the usual assortment of clothes in the drawers, along with two Smith and Wessons that she was pretty sure none of the boys had a permit for. She went through the same process with the other desk and dresser and found the same sorts of things, but instead of handguns, there was an AK-47 leaning against the wall between the two. Taking a quick look, she confirmed that at least they hadn’t left it loaded.
The last place she checked was under the mattresses and beds. Under one bed, she found a plastic bin filled with ammunition of all sorts. It made her wonder if they had all the weapons for the ammo since most of what was in the bin wouldn’t work with either the Smith and Wessons or the AK-47. But as she slid the bin back under the bed, she supposed that was a question for another time.
Finally, under the second mattress, she found something that piqued her interest. She didn’t have time to figure out its relative importance or impact, but the list of chemicals printed on a piece of paper in a file under the bed was definitely something she and her friends would need to look into. From her quick scan of the contents, she knew of at least four kinds of explosives that could be cobbled together from the materials on the list. If Six were with her, Cyn would wager she’d find even more.
She snapped a picture, then replaced the paper in the file and placed it exactly where she’d found it. She’d just pushed the mattress back into place when she heard the elevator doors open and voices fill the hallway.
Everything in her stilled except her eyes, which jumped to the window to gauge if it was a possible escape route. As she assessed her options, she strained to listen. Were the footsteps in the hallway coming toward her or away?
Silently, she rose and moved toward the window, pausing beside it as laughter filled the hall. The footsteps were coming toward her, but the laughter was a woman’s. Cyn didn’t want to take anything for granted, but she was nearly certain none of the young men who lived in the apartment had a female in their lives who wasn’t a mother or sister.
Reaching for the window, which opened out onto the fire escape, she started to raise it up as the sound of jangling keys filtered into the room. She couldn’t help but be grateful that the days of student apartments—and their thin walls—were long behind her.
Hoping that the sounds of keys jangling, bags being dropped, and the other noises people made when entering their homes would mask the sound, Cyn braced herself to lift the window when the door opened. The key slipped into the lock, and she tightened her body, ready to move.
Then one of the two people dropped something, and she jumped at the loud thud. But in the commotion, she realized that whoever was in the hall wasn’t at the suspects’ door but rather the one beside it.
Relief seeped through her as the neighbors entered their apartment. She remained still until she heard their door close, then she took a deep breath and moved onto the next room.
Since she’d found the closest thing to evidence—the list of chemicals and the ammunition—under the bed and mattress in the other room, she went straight to the single bed in the second room rather than starting with the desk and dresser.
In a head-shaking predictable move, she found another file tucked under the mattress. With zero hesitation, she pulled it out and opened the deep red folder. Inside, she found a piece of paper that had been folded into quarters. Setting the file and the paper on the bed, she carefully unfolded it and knew she’d hit pay dirt.
Plans. Building plans, to be precise.
Her eyes scanned the image as she readied her phone. It was a remarkably generic building design, and unfortunately, it had no indication or notation telling her what—or where—it might be. All the drawing included was an image of a rectangular room. There were notations for doors and a stairwell, but nothing that told her if the stairs went up or down. The plan itself didn’t tell her much, but the fact that one of the suspects had it hidden under his bed did. In all likelihood, it was a building they intended to target.
As she took a quick picture, footsteps once again echoed in the hall. Done with taking any chances, she quickly folded the paper, placed it back in the folder, and slid the entire file back into place under the mattress. Glancing at the time on her watch, she estimated she should have at least another twenty minutes before Waters came home. Then again, the arrival of the neighbors had reminded her that schedules were flexible, especially for students, and leaving class early wouldn’t be unheard of.
Deciding the fire escape was her best bet for a hasty retreat, regardless of who was in the hallway, Cyn moved to the window and unlatched it. She wouldn’t be able to relock it once she was out, but hopefully, the occupant of the room wouldn’t notice. It was the dead of winter, he wasn’t likely to be cracking the window open for several months.
She was sliding the window up, jiggling it from side to side to get it unstuck, as a key slid into the top lock. This time there was no mistaking which apartment it was. Her heart rate kicked up with a familiar rush of adrenaline and she pushed the window up enough to slip through. The door had just opened, and a bag was dropped on the floor when she shoved the window closed.
She had one foot on the fire escape ladder when she heard the first shout.
Chapter Sixteen
Cyn didn’t hesitate.Instead of climbing down the ladder, she turned and vaulted up, two rungs at a time, toward the roof. Roofs weren’t ideal, especially not in icy winter conditions, but when the person who’d entered the apartment looked out the window, if she was going up, rather than down, her back would be to him. Sure enough, she heard the telltale scrape of the old window moving in its casing.
Not bothering to look back, Cyn gauged her options as she stepped onto the roof. A half second later, she turned right and headed in the direction of her car. Taking a running leap, she caught the edge of the next roof and scrambled up and over. The side was crenellated, and she crouched for a moment, waiting to see which of the suspects was coming after her.
Thanks to the snow and the tracks she’d left, it would only be seconds between when her pursuer reached the top rung of the ladder and when he figured out which direction she’d gone. It was a calculated risk, and she hoped that in those few seconds, she could get a good look at his face without him seeing hers.
A brown knit cap came into view, and Cyn tensed, preparing to launch herself out of her crouch and into a run. A forehead appeared and then eyes and a nose. John Waters’ head swung left, and that was her cue.
Taking off again, she heard him shouting and running across the roof behind her. She didn’t know if the six-foot leap to the next building would slow him down, but she wasn’t taking any chances and she hurled herself over the four-foot gap between the roof she was on and the next and kept running. Two buildings down was an old five-and-dime store that had been turned into a trendy sports bar. It was only two stories tall and would allow her to disappear from Waters’ view long enough to slip through the rooftop door and make her way down to the bar below. From there, she could make a pit stop in the bathroom, switch her clothes around a bit, then casually stroll away.
