Spectre Black by J. Carson Black Read Free Book Online Page A

getting out of hand. Smother trouble in its sleep. If at all possible, run to meet trouble and hit it before it could hit you. That was the reason her wall was higher—the new blocks creating a sort of waterline. Gray on the bottom, and coral on top. He had no doubt her house would be hard to get into. There was already a regular obstacle course. High wall, big dog, alarm service sign.
    He could jimmy the back door if he could get past the dog. But Landry doubted if Jolie would leave it just at that. Cops—at least cops like Jolie—tended to be anal when it came to personal protection.
    Landry looked around.
    Nothing going on. Just the heat, the sun bearing down on his head.
    He climbed up onto the wall.
    The dog was a Rottweiler. He was lying down in the shade of the house, by the sliding glass door out to the yard.
    The yard wasn’t dry and parched and half-dirt, as some Landry had seen as he drove past chain-link fences and old pickets. In the shade on the terrace was a paradise of potted plants and flowers, colorful blooms—pinks, whites, deep-rose-colored petunias, small cacti in pots, a veritable rain forest of ferns and exotic bushes and small fruit trees.
    Smelling of water.
    The terrace dark from a recent spraying.
    Her neighbor? A friend?
    A boyfriend?
    Or was she holed up there, hiding?
    The Rottie woofed once from his spot on the cool terrace.
    Hard to know if he was friend or enemy.
    There was water in his bowl.
    There was food in another bowl. Big bowls for a big dog. A full bag of Pedigree Large Breed dog food was propped up against the redbrick house.
    Someone was taking care of the dog—and the plant. Maybe it was Jolie, hiding inside the house or staying elsewhere and coming by to look after him, or maybe it was a neighbor, or maybe it was someone she worked with at Branch Sheriff’s Office.
    If he knew one thing, it was that nothing would likely happen here except at night, under the cover of darkness. If he stayed around here much longer, landscaping van or not, he would draw attention.
    He was ninety-percent positive that if Jolie moved in and out of the house, or if her agent moved in and out of the house, they would do so by night. If she had someone to care for the dog, that person would likely come either early in the evening or early in the morning. Usually people who took care of pets had to work around their own schedules, unless pet-sitting was all they did.
    No car in the driveway—at least not now. So Landry was leaning toward the theory that whoever took care of the Rottweiler and the plants wasn’t staying there.
    He drove two blocks to the Subway shop he’d noticed on the way in to the neighborhood, and bought two sandwiches. One for himself, and one for the Rottie.
    It didn’t take him long to install the two hunt cameras—one focused on the back door and one at the front. First, Landry tossed meat from the sandwich to the Rottweiler. The dog ate it and lumbered over for more, tail wagging. Landry thought: now or never . He hopped down from the wall into the yard and was nearly licked to death. He found a lawn trimmer in the storage shed, put it in the van and drove back around to the front. There, he ran it around the little patch of lawn.
    He had an audience of none. The carports and driveways were still empty and no one was about, not even the hippie woman with the long black hair. The sound of the lawn trimmer, he knew, would be an expected sound and no one would question him being here. He stopped partway through, found a suitable place for the camera, made sure it lined up with the door, and installed it—two minutes tops. He did the same in the backyard.
    He wanted to know who was taking care of the dog. Jolie, or someone else? He wanted to know if her place was being monitored, or whether or not the house needed monitoring at all. If they had her—whoever “they” were—they would not bother monitoring her house. Unless they thought someone was coming.
    Unless they