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  “These rooms are tidy. Is no one living in the suite now?” he asked, to confirm what he suspected already.

  “I believe the owner’s sister is living here. She’s been visiting for a few months.” She barely paused for breath before she continued babbling on topics that he tuned out.

  She was wrong.

  Maybe Rose used the Lake Forest house as her permanent address on her tax returns and her driver’s license and what not. But Scorpio was a man who lived by his wits, and he would place a bet with every loan shark in Chicago that she had vacated the premises.

  The bed didn’t look as if anyone had slept in it for a while. He sniffed. No lingering female scents. No clothes in the laundry hamper or razor in the shower or hair strands in the sink. Unless an exceptionally thorough cleaning crew came in this very morning, there was no way Rose slept here last night or any night in the past week, at the very least.

  She might have been gone even longer.

  Scorpio sat in one of Rose’s chairs to think. Could she be with Reacher? Were the two of them blowing through his product right now? And what about the sister? Jane Mackenzie? Where was she?

  Suddenly, he noticed something he hadn’t heard for the past hour.

  Silence.

  Brooke had stopped babbling. When he glanced toward her, she had cocked her head and was staring at him strangely.

  He said, “I’m sorry. Did you ask me a question?”

  She cleared her throat. “I have only one more appointment today. They’re arriving any minute now, Mr. Scorpio. I don’t mean to rush you. Please stay as long as you like. Wander around the house as you please. But I do need to greet them downstairs when they arrive.”

  “No problem.” Scorpio hid a wry smile with a phlegmy cough behind his hand. “You go ahead. I’ll be down in a few minutes.”

  She nodded, turned, and left the room. When he heard Brooke’s spike heels clicking down the hardwood stairs, he satisfied his urge to look under the bed. He slipped off the chair and rolled his skinny body toward the bed, which was a lot easier than walking.

  While he rolled along the carpet, he used his microbeam flashlight to look under the sofa, chairs, and tables. He found exactly what he’d expected to see. Nothing.

  But under the bed, out of reach, he spied a foil pack the size of a fat playing card. The kind used by pharmaceutical manufacturers to keep twenty prescription fentanyl patches sterile and potent. He felt around behind him for his cane.

  His position was awkward, and the cane wasn’t meant for the job. Progress was slow. But he inched the foil pack toward him with every swipe of the cane until he could reach it with his fingertips.

  Breathless with the exertion, he pulled the pack into his hand and then toward his body, holding it like a kid might hold a squirming frog.

  He flopped onto his back to rest a minute while he let reality sink in. He held the empty foil pack above his face to examine it carefully. The blue logo. The silver foil embossed with the brand name. He’d seen them thousands of times before.

  The truth hit him like a wrecking ball to the gut. Even though he’d suspected it all along, confirmation was another thing. His heart pounded hard and his face flushed. He drew a few ragged breaths, attempting to regain control of the rage.

  He’d been right. He had the proof now. Rose had cost him hundreds of thousands of dollars. Along with Reacher. And Jane. They’d destroyed him and went on their way, assuming he was dead.

  Laying on the floor wouldn’t change anything. He shoved the foil pack in his pocket.

  He struggled to his knees and then pushed his body against the bed, using the cane to force himself upright and regain his footing. Fueled by increasing rage, panting and sweating, he straightened his clothes and dusted the carpet lint from his black wool coat.

  He heard Babbling Brooke headed this way. What the hell?

  CHAPTER 2

  Thursday, February 10

  5:20 p.m.

  Lake Forest, Illinois

  The last thing Scorpio needed was more interference from her. She’d want to know what he’d been doing up here all this time. He didn’t have the energy to lie to her, even if he’d wanted to make an effort. Which he didn’t.

  Her heels tap, tap, tapped on the hardwood along the corridor, ever closer. She was alone. He knew because she wasn’t talking. Had anyone been with her, she’d be running at the mouth, as usual.

  He swiped his good hand across his face to remove the thin sheen of perspiration, and then straightened his hair while he leveled his breathing.

  She strode into the room as if she owned the place and, without so much as a brief pause, offered him an explanation. As if he cared. “My appointment canceled, Mr. Scorpio. Too cold to bring the baby out, they said. So, it’s just us for the rest of the day. Would you like to see the remaining guest suites, or would you rather move on to the rest of the house now?”

  He gripped the head of the cane until his knuckles whitened. “Actually, I’d like to talk with the owners. When will they return?”

  “The owners? You mean Mr. Rex Mackenzie? He’s the sole owner of the house. He’s married, of course, but his wife has no ownership interest. I can reach him by phone. Is there anything, in particular, you wanted to know?”

  Without stopping for an answer or a single inhaled breath, she continued like a fire hose opened to full capacity. God! The woman would never stop.

  Scorpio’s rage had reached the boiling point. He’d developed a throbbing headache. The lights in the room pierced his skull like a cleaver. He couldn’t summon the strength to scream at her to Shut the hell up!

  She probably wouldn’t have, anyway.

  There was nothing in this room he wanted or needed now. Why was he wasting his time with Babbling Brooke?

  Still leaning against the bed, he released the cane, slid his hand into the deep pocket of his coat, and pulled out a nine-millimeter pistol. He pointed the gun directly at her torso, center mass.

  She took half a second to comprehend. When she did, her eyes widened, and her mouth circled, and she gasped. The silence that followed was the first momentary peace she’d offered since he arrived.

  He pulled the trigger three times in quick succession, but the first shot was the one that did the job. The last two almost supplied full satisfaction.

  She fell to the floor, eyes wide, mouth still open. Gravity pulled the blood from the exit wounds in her back and pooled it around her torso like a small lake.

  He fired again, just for the pleasure of hearing the soft thump when the bullet went through and exited her body into the floor.

  After that, for more practical reasons, he shot her in the face. The blood had already stopped pumping, but three shots at close range were sufficient to maul her features beyond recognition by her own mother.

  He slipped the pistol into his pocket and plopped down into the upholstered chair next to the bed. Scorpio waited three full minutes. Plenty of time to compose himself.

  He pulled his phone out and called Thorn.

  “Yes, boss?”

  “Come inside,” Scorpio said. “Second floor, in the back.”

  “Roger that,” he replied before he disconnected.

  Scorpio listened for sirens but heard nothing. The mansion was a significant distance from other homes in the area. He thought it conceivable that no one would have reported the gunshots immediately.

  Thorn appeared in the doorway. He barely gave the body a second glance.

  “Check behind the artwork on the walls for a safe. Check everywhere else, too, just in case Mr. Mackenzie has one of those concealed storage spots,” Scorpio said.

  Thorn performed the task efficiently and returned empty handed. “Nothing.”

  “Check the other rooms on this floor,” Scorpio said and glanced at the bedside clock.

  Thorn performed as instructed. Same as always.

  Scorpio heard his footfalls on the hardwood floors, receding and returning.

  “No l
uck,” he reported. “All the heat registers are just that. Nothing concealed in the plumbing or anywhere else.”

  “Any of the rooms look like someone’s living up here?” Scorpio asked.

  “No. The whole place looks like it’s been sterilized or something,” Thorn replied.

  “Grab her phone from her pocket.”

  While Thorn bent to the task, Scorpio struggled to his feet. Thorn handed him the phone. “Take a look around downstairs. I’ll meet you at the elevator on the first floor.”

  “Yes, boss,” Thorn said on his way out.

  Scorpio didn’t expect him to find anything remotely useful. The house had been abandoned. It had that vacant feel. He knew that now.

  He scrolled through the last dozen calls, looking for Rex Mackenzie’s number. He memorized it. Then he checked the voicemail messages. Mackenzie had left two. Scorpio listened to both twice, to be sure he’d recognize the voice when he heard it again.

  He scrolled through the contact list until he found Rex Mackenzie’s office address and committed it to memory.

  Finally, he removed the sim card from her phone. He’d explore the rest of its contents later. He tossed the phone next to her body and left the room.

  He shuffled to the elevator and rode down two floors. When he reached the basement, he pushed the button to hold the door open and glanced around the cavernous, empty space. No boxes. Nothing stored here at all. Like it had been cleaned out before they put the house on the market.

  “Crap!” He swiped a palm over his face and let the elevator door close again.

  He rode up one floor to the massive foyer and stepped out. Thorn was waiting. “Well?”

  Thorn shook his head. “Even the garage is empty. No vehicles in there. I found the wall safe in the master suite like you expected. It’s empty. But there’s a second safe, hidden behind a bookcase.”

  “Show me.” Scorpio’s intel had shown a wall safe in the master bedroom, but not big enough to contain full pallets or large, shrink-wrapped boxes.

  The cleverly concealed safe was a surprise. Mackenzie must have added it later, knowing that most thieves would stop looking for a safe after they found the first one. Mackenzie was smarter than Scorpio had assumed.

  “This way,” Thorn replied, leading Scorpio to make his slow, labored progress toward the opposite side of the big foyer.

  Like the rest of the mansion, the master suite felt abandoned and not simply unoccupied. At the door to the suite, Scorpio said, “Wait here. Tell me if anyone approaches.”

  Thorn turned his back to the room and filled the open doorway with his bulk, performing as expected.

  When Scorpio reached the safe and opened it, like everything else in the house, the interior held nothing he sought. He flipped through a few papers and moved them aside. He didn’t care about wills and trusts and real estate deeds. He closed and locked the safe’s door.

  He moved on to the second safe behind the bookcase. Inside, way in the back, was a nine-millimeter pistol, and a hinged jewelry box. Nothing else.

  He leaned his left shoulder against the wall and reached into the safe with his right hand. He grabbed the pistol and dropped it into his pocket.

  Then he pulled the jewelry box out of the depths. Probably contained baubles worth a few thousand, which was pocket change compared to the value of Scorpio’s property. Still leaning against the wall, he tried to open it to check the contents, but the hinges were too tight. He slipped the box into his pocket, too. He’d open it later.

  He closed and locked the safe and returned the bookcase to its proper position. He glanced around the suite one last time. The whole house had been scrubbed and staged for buyers. He considered looking under the furniture, but he didn’t have the energy. He wasn’t likely to find anything useful there.

  “Let’s go,” he said when he’d finally made his way across the room to the exit.

  Thorn walked ahead. He crossed to the front door, opened it for Scorpio to step through.

  “Close the door.” No reason to entice the curious to come inside.

  Thorn pushed the door lock and closed it solidly. “I’ll get the car.”

  He took the steps two at a time and hurried across the snowy driveway while Scorpio watched from the porch. A few minutes later, Scorpio was seated in the SUV, as they headed away from the house.

  “Where to, boss?” Thorn asked. Scorpio gave him Mackenzie’s office address from the woman’s phone. Thorn entered the address into the navigation system.

  CHAPTER 3

  Thursday, February 10

  8:10 p.m.

  Detroit, Michigan

  FBI Special Agent Kim Otto was alone at the underground training range beneath the Detroit Field Office. The last of her colleagues had completed the virtual simulation exercises and left a while ago.

  She should have been headed home, too. The temperatures had been below zero for days, and the forecast called for wind chill to hit negative double digits overnight.

  “Welcome to February in Detroit,” she said aloud.

  She glanced at the digital clock mounted high on the soundproofed concrete block wall, surprised to notice the time was well past eight o’clock. She’d been practicing alone for more than two hours. She’d achieved a perfect score on the eight-stage FBI Qualification Course of Fire. Twice. She was tired, but she couldn’t allow fatigue to be an excuse to quit. Active shooters in the field wouldn’t walk away from close-quarters combat because she was exhausted. She had to be ready for anything.

  The world had changed. Suspects confronted agents at point-blank range these days. Seventy-five percent of shooting incidents involving FBI agents included suspects who were within a distance of three yards when shots were exchanged. Which meant the suspect was not likely to miss. The agent would be down before she had a chance to draw her weapon.

  She squared her shoulders. She wouldn’t quit yet.

  Whenever she was asked about her ethnicity, she teased that she was tall, blonde, and one hundred percent stubborn on the inside, like her German-American father. Truth was, her body was petite to the point of absurdity for an adult woman, thanks to her Vietnamese-American mother. Not quite five feet tall, not quite one hundred pounds. Without her more essential qualifications, she’d likely have been rejected by the FBI because she didn’t meet the heft requirements.

  Hand-to-hand combat would too often be a losing game. She kept herself in physical condition at all times, but she was no match for an average-sized man determined to win. Sure, she could deploy self-defense techniques well enough. She simply didn’t have the mass to subdue a charging meth-head, or even to lay out a mean drunk.

  Fortunately, her work for the FBI didn’t often require her to use brute force. Problem-solving and marksmanship were the skills she relied upon. She kept those skill sets in peak condition at all times, too. She had no choice.

  She shrugged. Nothing she could do about her DNA, so she honed her marksmanship skills as if lives depended on them, which they too often did.

  She loaded another fifteen-round magazine into her service weapon and returned it to her holster. Although the gun’s compact size meant some compromise, the Glock 19 Gen4 was an outstanding choice for a woman with small hands.

  She pulled up another Q target reduced silhouette, started the eight-second timer, and cycled through stage two of the FBI standard qualifications again, ignoring her fatigued muscles.

  Three yards from the target, she drew her weapon from the holster and fired three rounds using her dominant right hand. She transferred the gun to her weaker left hand and fired three more rounds well before the timer buzzed.

  Her arms quivered as if the loaded thirty-ounce gun weighed thirty pounds instead. She reset the timer for three seconds, gritted her teeth, gripped with her left hand, and fired in sets of three rounds each until she emptied the magazine with time to spare.

  She dropped the gun to her side, pulled off her ear protection, and checked the target. Agents were re
quired to hit somewhere on the silhouette with eighty percent of the shots to pass the test. Ninety percent was required for an instructor’s score. She’d hit fifteen of fifteen dead center, like always.

  She nodded. She had won enough marksmanship awards and competitions against her colleagues to know that no one in the Detroit Field Office could shoot more accurately or faster than she did. Few agents anywhere could do better. She had to hope gun-wielding idiots performed a lot worse than trained agents, even as she knew the idiots sometimes got lucky.

  She glanced at the clock again. Eight forty-five. Definitely time to pack it up and get home. At the front desk, she signed out.

  “Hang on a second,” the agent manning the desk said. “I’ve got a package for you.”

  “A package?” She cocked her head.

  He returned with a padded envelope bearing a plain white label with her name on it. No other identifying marks. Not that she needed any. She knew where it came from and what was inside.

  “Thanks,” she said. She dropped the envelope into her coat pocket and headed for the exit leading to the bureau’s secured parking garage.

  The garage was enclosed and protected from the elements, but frigid cold nonetheless. She stuffed gloved hands into her pockets and pulled her hood closer around her face. The crisp air burned her lungs as she inhaled.

  “I need to get assigned to Miami or Los Angeles or somewhere that isn’t so damn cold,” she said under her breath.

  She hurried across the concrete floor to her SUV. In her peripheral vision she saw a man advancing from her right.

  “Agent Otto?”

  Every muscle in her body tensed. He was probably okay. Only authorized personnel should have been in the garage. But complacency was a luxury she could not afford.

  She turned toward the voice, hoping he wouldn’t prove to be a field test of her close-quarters combat training.