He glanced toward the window. Good, it was long dark. He’d feared that his wanderings in the dimness above might have thrown off his internal sense of time. But he’d obviously made the right choice about when to scout this area. This was an hour when most humans slept.
He crept down to the floor level, sniffing about. His nose wrinkled at a bad scent, but this was good news. The One Who Reeks had been in here not too long ago. As he came to the wall, he detected a more welcome smell. Shadow quickly stepped forward to eat and drink.
Shadow ate enough to take the edge off his hunger and drank greedily. It was dry and dusty up beyond the ceiling. Then he took a quick trip to the litter box and started climbing back up again. Humans were supposed to sleep at this time of night, but he couldn’t be sure about the One Who Reeks. Best to be gone in case she came in to check the room.
*
Dawn Featherstone told Sunny and Will to back up. “You a cop?” she asked Will, who nodded.
“Okay. Take out the gun, just with the tips of your fingers, and put it on the ground. And then both of you, drop your cell phones,” Dawn ordered, following the TV cop show writer’s rules of procedure.
Will disarmed himself, and he and Sunny dropped their phones.
“You have handcuffs?” Dawn asked. “Yeah. Toss me the keys. Then take the cuffs and put ’em on your right wrist. Stick that hand over here.” Dawn pointed to a sturdy metal ladder on the side of the play structure. “Now, you. Come around and click the other side of the cuffs to your left wrist.”
When Sunny complied, they were pretty well attached to the jungle gym. The ladder was kid-sized, the rungs set too closely together to squeeze through. Its base was set in concrete, and the top was welded to one of the metal pipes supporting the structure,
“Good.” Dawn might get most of her ideas from TV, but she seemed to know her way around firearms. She picked up Will’s pistol and efficiently removed the magazine. After throwing that and the handcuff keys in one direction into the darkness, she kicked the empty pistol and the phones the opposite way.
Then she checked the bag that Sunny had brought. “Newspaper. It figures. Those rich old broads, they’re really cheap.”
Dawn shrugged. “Well, I still have what I came with. And by the time anybody finds you, I’ll be long gone.” She repacked the duffel, slung it over her shoulder, and left.
Sunny tugged against the cuff, wincing as the hard metal cut into her wrist. “What are we going to do?”
“Looks as if Dawn knows lots about TV cops, but not so much about real ones.” He twisted around, trying to get his free hand into his right pocket. “For instance, in the real world, it’s a good idea to carry a spare set of keys.”
He fished the keys out, freed himself and Sunny, then retrieved his pistol. “You also carry a spare magazine or two.” He clicked one in place, worked the action, and started after Dawn.
“Stay back,” he warned Sunny. “I don’t know if that gun she was waving around is loaded, but she seems to know how to use it.”
Sunny let him lead, but she was almost on his heels as he ran in the direction Dawn had taken. “Carrying all that cash, Dawn won’t want to run far. She must have a car close by.”
They exited the darkness of the park and looked up and down the street ahead. It was empty. Keeping his pistol down by his side, Will ran to the first intersection, looking first right, then left.
Halfway down the block, Sunny spotted Dawn dangling from a big figure’s right hand. His left hand held out her gun. Olek gave the girl a shake and then deposited her in the street. Beside him, Dani was shouldering the duffel bag as Will and Sunny came up. “It was just as well we give you the backing,” Dani said. “She was a trickier one than you thought.”
Olek kept a cold eye on the pistol in Will’s hand, Dawn’s gun ready in his.
“Okay, you got what you wanted.” Will’s voice went into tough cop mode. “You’ll be heading out of town now?”
“Right now,” Dani promised. “We finish with the doctor’s business, so you tell the other cops to check his bank. Not so good. I don’t know if I come back.” He sighed. “More trouble.”
Then he looked at Sunny. “But remember this. I owe you a favor.”
She watched the Ukrainian odd couple head off for their car. “Guess we’d better start looking for our phones so we can call Trumbull,” she said. “I bet he’s going to love this.”
*
