Mercy (The Night Man Chronicles Book 3), Brett Battles [best books to read in your 20s TXT] 📗

on it, one of which is under construction. I kill the engine and we get off, then Jar follows me as I roll the Yamaha behind the unfinished house. The spot keeps us out of sight of the neighbors and anyone who might walk by on the street.

Jar extracts our drone from inside her backpack. The craft is palm-sized and has a battery that will keep it in the air for at least two hours. Its camera has both zoom capability and a wide-angle option that can give an excellent overview of a large area. Like my binoculars, it has several modes—infrared, thermal, polarized, night vision, and the standard day vision. The craft comes with several shells, so you can change its outer housing to match the current color of the sky and basically turn the drone invisible. But the best part, and the main reason it costs so much, is the whisper tech that keeps the engine and rotors all but silent.

Before leaving the Travato, Jar attached the night shell to the drone. She passes the craft to me and I hold it out in my hand. Using the controller app on her phone, she sends the drone into the night sky.

I look down at her screen. A graphics interface for the controls overlays the feed from the camera but doesn’t distract much from the view.

We watch the feed as the drone comes at the Baccas’ house from the street along the back of the property. The area immediately on the other side of the wall is mostly brush and dirt, well maintained. This runs all the way up to an outdoor living area consisting of a wide, arcing deck; an outdoor kitchen; an oversized swimming pool; and an extra large Jacuzzi. No one’s using the area tonight, but I imagine that would change as summer approaches.

The drone is currently too high for us to see through the back windows of the house, but there’s no missing the spill of interior lights falling onto the patio.

Jar flies the craft in a spiral pattern over the lot, just like I trained her to do. With few exceptions, it is critical to start any recon with an overview of your subject before taking in any details. In addition to giving you a sense of the place, this also allows you to look for anyone lying in wait, ready to spring a trap.

Not that anyone will be springing a trap here.

The house is a big one, but we already knew this from the satellite image. What wasn’t quite as clear in the photo, but is now, is that part of the structure on the west side is a three-car garage. The driveway that leads up to it curves past the front of the house and loops back to where it started. Parked at the side of the driveway, about six meters in front of the garage doors, is the Prices’ Winnebago.

Interestingly, there are lights on inside it, too.

I wonder if the family is staying in the RV instead of the house. I remember as a kid visiting some of my parents’ friends in Northern California somewhere. I think their last name was Forrester. They also owned an RV, though much smaller than the Prices’, and me and the two Forrester kids, who were both around my age, got to spend the night in it. I thought it would be fun but it was kind of a nightmare. Not because of the RV, but because the older kid was an asshole, and I ended up staying awake most of the night to make sure he didn’t punch me in the face while I slept.

Whoa. Repressed memory alert. Sorry about that.

Side note: William Forrester, wherever you are, I haven’t forgotten you.

Jar finishes her circuit of the building and returns the drone to the rear, where she lowers it until she has a good view of the back of the house. From the number of windows and the way they are positioned, I’m guessing the place has at least four rooms along the backside. A kitchen, for sure, because we can see a large sink and what looks like an island beyond it. We can also see a living room—or maybe bonus room if that’s what they’re calling it—just beyond a set of French doors to the deck. Past this is a small, frosted window that I’m sure belongs to a bathroom. The last several windows are covered with curtains. They might all be for one bedroom but there’s more than enough space for two.

Chuckie is in the living room, sitting on a couch, his arm around his wife and his mouth moving. He has the look of someone telling a story. Kate, on the other hand, looks as if her mind is a million miles away. I’m betting this isn’t the first time she’s heard this tale. Chuckie’s main audience is the only two others in the room. They are both adults around Chuckie’s and Kate’s age, so presumably they are Kristen and Tyler Bacca. Kristen sits in an easy chair at the end of the couch nearest her sister, while Tyler sits in an identical chair at the other side.

The sisters look a lot alike, though there’s a lightness to Kristen’s bearing that I have yet to detect in Kate. What I find most interesting is the Chuckie-Tyler dynamic. Tyler looks small compared to Evan’s dad, both leaner and probably a lot shorter. But make no mistake, he doesn’t look subservient to his brother-in-law at all. If anything, he looks the king and Chuckie the jester.

We see no signs of Evan and Sawyer. And if the Baccas have children, they aren’t around, either.

“Check the Winnebago,” I say.

Jar flies the drone back over the house.

The RV’s curtains have not been drawn, allowing us a clear view inside.

Evan and Sawyer are sitting next to each other at a table, looking down at a book. From the book’s position—mainly in front of Sawyer—and the way Evan