Greg Rucka - Walking dead

Somehow, I'd remembered to keep taking pictures.

I lowered my camera, thinking that I had a gun. Thinking that I could march across the street right now and put a bullet into Bradley, Bella, and anyone else I didn't like the looks of. Somebody in that house had the keys to the Porsche SUV. I could break in, free Tiasa, and be in Salt Lake City by morning.

There were other girls in that house.

I had a plan. I had to stick to it, no matter how hard it was to remember that at the moment.

So I didn't move, waiting, watching. When the Town Car returned, parked itself in the garage once more, I lowered the camera, stowed it again inside my messenger bag. I left the house as I'd entered.

It was dawn when I reached the Jetta and started back to Las Vegas, and despite myself, I felt like I had abandoned Tiasa.

I felt like a coward.

Thirty-three I started printing out the new pictures I'd taken, all but the ones of Tiasa, as soon as I got back to the rented apartment. They were still printing when I fell asleep, but they'd stopped when I woke midafternoon, because I'd run out of ink for the printer again. I got myself sorted, then took my laptop and the unused set of cotton gloves with me when I went out.

With a little searching, I found a postal service store in a strip mall. I put on the gloves before leaving the Jetta. The store had ink cartridges, so I bought replacements, and then pretty much took their stock of FedEx packs and labels. I got some looks, and explained away the gloves to the cashier by saying that I had dermatitis.

Back in the Jetta the gloves came off, and I drove around until I found a coffee shop that also offered wireless access. I got myself a cup of mint tea, then got myself online, began searching up the addresses I wanted. I compiled a list, finished the tea, and headed back to the apartment. Before touching the envelopes or the labels, I made sure I was wearing my gloves.

The gloves stayed on my hands for the next two hours, as I resumed printing. When I finally took them off, I had sixteen FedEx packs loaded and labeled, each one containing a set of all the pictures I'd printed, the CDs I'd burned, and the narrative I'd written.

Then I settled in once more to try to sleep, and to wait for morning. Sharala called at 10:17 the next morning.

"Congratulations," she said. "It's a monster fucking Wave Bubble."

"I'll be right over," I said. I lied, but only a little bit. I had to get my things cleared out of the apartment and loaded into the car first. Having done that, I donned my white cotton gloves for what would be the last time, and took my stack of FedEx envelopes to a drop box I'd located earlier. I'd marked each of the domestic packs to be at its destination by ten-thirty the next morning. The internationals, of which there were four, would likely take longer.

With the envelopes on their way, I stripped off the gloves, threw them in the first trash can I could find.

That completed, I headed back to UNLV.

They were waiting for me in the RF lab, the same place I'd first met them three days prior. The toolbox was a large one, traditional bright red, resting on the worktable in front of them, and each of them beamed at me like proud parents. Auggie opened it up as I approached to allow me a look, removing pieces and explaining what each component was. I listened as if I understood, but for all his care in explaining it, to me it was simply a sandwich of yellow circuit boards with hand-soldered wires joining them together, all of them secured to a flat piece of wood. They showed me where the antennae would attach.

There was also, as promised, a big red button.

"Thank you," I told them.

"You kidding?" Solomon said. "We should be thanking you. This was a blast."

I shook my head, bemused.

"Nah, you don't get it," Auggie said. "This is why we got into this stuff in the first place. We all wanted to make the shit Batman carries around on his belt."

I laughed, then took out the envelope I was carrying in my jacket, handed it to Sharala.

"What's this?" she asked.

"Six thousand dollars," I said. "Figure that's two grand for each of you."

"That's too much. Maybe this was a thousand dollars parts and everything, shipping. This is too much to pay."

I just shook my head.

Six grand was nothing next to what I was hoping my new toolbox would buy me.

Thirty-four I left Vegas for the final time at four that afternoon, and was back in New Paradise before seven, just as the sun was starting to disappear over the desert. Then I had to make a choice, because what I needed to do next was kill time. My other option, one that I'd discarded, had been to leave Vegas later, much later, around one in the morning, to try to time my arrival closer to when I planned to hit the house.

The problem with that plan was that New Paradise wasn't very large, and a car driving down main street at three in the morning was more likely to attract police attention than one that did so at seven at night. It's why I had parked so far from the house on the cul-de-sac the night I'd made my surveillance; the last thing I had wanted to earn was police attention. The Jetta had been purchased in Matthew Twigg's name, and the plates that had come with it led back to him. If the police knew I was coming, all my careful planning would be for naught.

So arriving earlier, when the town was still awake, seemed a better idea. The problem was it left me with time to kill, and time to kill brought with it nervousness. This was complicated by the need to find a place where I wouldn't draw attention while I waited.

For that, though, Nevada provided its own solution. Twenty-four hours, rain or shine, holiday or no, there is always a seat for you in a casino. At three in the morning, I left Paradise Rollers and returned to my car. There were still enough vehicles in the lot that mine had remained inconspicuous. I was glad to get out. Cigarette smoke, lights, and noise had done nothing for my nerves. To top it all off, between blackjack and the craps table, I'd lost five hundred and thirty-seven dollars.

I hoped it wasn't an omen of things to come. From the casino to the Albertson's parking lot took two minutes. From the lot to Oasis took another six, and I doused the headlights on the Jetta before I made the turn toward the still-open gates that led into the development. I slowed, lowering my window. The desert air had gone cool with the night, still dry. My stomach was already working its way through a Boy Scout's handbook worth of knots. During the entire drive I had seen only four other vehicles, none of them police, and all heading the opposite direction, and I thought that maybe I'd caught a break.

No such luck.

The spotlight hit me as soon as I was through the gate, coming from behind, its reflection in the rearview mirror blinding me for a moment. Then the other lights came on, blue and red, and the New Paradise police car that had been parked in the shadow of the wall as I'd passed pulled in behind me.

I stomped the Jetta's brakes, coming to an abrupt halt, and whoever it was behind the wheel of the cruiser had to do the same, surprised that I'd stopped so quickly. The light from the spot shifted, trying to scan the interior of the car, and I didn't turn around in my seat, staying still, furious with myself for not having counted on this, for not having a contingency.

The driver's door on the police car opened, followed immediately by the one on the front passenger side. Two cops, and I didn't need to check my mirrors to guess who they were. Again I cursed myself; I'd been so damn concerned with getting into the house, with what I'd do once inside, I hadn't considered the possibility I might not even reach the place at all.