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

with empty shelves. We’ve set up two camping stools inside. Jar and I each take a seat.

The two cars pass over the river and into the countryside. Evan gives us updates every half mile. Right before they reach the six-and-a-half-mile mark from Mercy, he says, “He’s turning left.”

That puts Chuckie only three-quarters of a mile away.

I unmute the phone. “Okay, Evan. We’ve got it from here. Head back to town. We’ll let you know when it’s over.”

“That’s it?” he asks, disappointed.

“You did exactly what we needed you to do. Now let us do our job.”

“Are you sure you don’t want us to hang around, just in case?”

“Not necessary. You’ve done great. Head on back.”

A pause. “Okay. Um, well, then good luck.”

“Thanks.” I hang up.

While he and I were talking, Jar switched her screen from the tracking map to the feed from the one camera we could spare to put on the route to the Whittaker farm. About a hundred meters away, coming toward the lens, is Chuckie’s blue VW.

“Be right back,” I say.

I step through the doorway into the gloom of the main basement and shine a flashlight beam through the space.

The floor has been swept clean to eliminate any signs that we’re here. If we were going up against a professional from our world, doing so would be a mistake, as the person would notice the absence of dust right away.

Even on a good day, I doubt Chuckie would make the connection, and today is not a good day for him. His plans have been upended, and he’s undertaking a task he has no desire to be doing. If his blood pressure isn’t skyrocketing, I’d be shocked. Better for him to see a clean floor than one with a shoe print we might have missed.

I walk through the space, making sure we haven’t forgotten anything. As I near the other end, I feel Liz materialize beside me. She’s tense. Jumpy, even. Liz does not—I mean, did not—hate many things. But right near the top of that short list were men like Chuckie—abusers who lay waste to those around them. She will not relax until she knows we are successful.

“He’s almost here,” Jar calls from the small storeroom.

“We’ve got this,” I whisper to Liz, then retrace my steps through the cellar.

In my absence, Jar has launched the drone. Its camera is pointing west down the main road. The VW is about two hundred and fifty meters away, still heading toward us. The drone’s camera tracks it as it draws nearer and nearer.

When the sedan is about thirty meters from the driveway, it slows.

I’ll be shocked if Chuckie drives directly up to the house, but as we’ve come to learn, he doesn’t always make the best choices. The VW continues rolling forward. When it reaches the driveway, it keeps going straight.

He must be checking to make sure there’s no one here.

Another couple dozen meters down the road, the car picks up speed again. Chuckie drives about half a kilometer down the road and then makes a U-turn, where I’m sure he thinks he’s out of sight. But our drone sees it all.

When he drives past the farm a second time, he slows again, though not as much as before. He goes down to the end of the large field west of our location and turns onto a service road, which he follows down to a spot where bushes grow about a meter and a half high on each shoulder. The foliage isn’t enough to completely hide his vehicle, but it’ll probably keep anyone at ground level from noticing it.

Several minutes pass without him getting out of the car. I’d think our screen has frozen if not for the fact a light breeze is gently blowing through the brush.

He’s just sitting there, likely contemplating whether to get out or drive away. He’s at his personal point of no return.

I feel Liz hovering behind us.

Another minute passes with nothing happening. Then another.

Then—

The driver’s door cracks open.

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Chuckie keeps to the back of the field, near a line of trees.

Now that he’s made the decision to actually get out, he walks quickly, likely hoping to get the task over with as soon as possible.

When he reaches the plot of land where the structures are located, he heads to the barn. The building has five entrances—big ones at the north and south ends, and smaller ones on the east and west sides, with the last having two.

Chuckie makes his way around the barn, checking each door, and is clearly surprised to find them all locked. He moves to the workshop and is stymied again.

When he looks to the house like he’s wondering if Bergen lied about everything being ready, I fear I may have made a mistake by locking everything else on the property, and that after finding the other two buildings inaccessible, he’ll leave.

He eyes the farmhouse for a good minute before he begins moving again.

Toward us.

I step over to the storage room door and put a two-by-four under the handle that will jam the door if he tries to open it.

When I return to Jar, Chuckie has just about reached the house.

In addition to the drone, we have two cameras set up outside the house. The sole purpose of these is to get shots of him casing the place. The remainder of our cameras are set up in the basement, to provide us—if all goes well—with footage that will be the proverbial nail in Chuckie’s coffin.

Chuckie works his way around the house, trying doors and windows until he comes to the basement window we left unlocked.

When it slides up, some of the tension in his face fades.

As you might remember, Chuckie is a big man, and getting through the window is not exactly easy. The worst part is when his belly reaches the frame. He has to suck in a breath and tuck his gut over the sill to get it past.

Once he’s in the cellar, he scans the room, using his