A Small Gray Dot

We crouched behind the holly bushes. I lay down on the ground and carefully parted some of the prickly branches and looked down on the house. There was no car or jeep parked out front. Whoever brought Morgan had either come and gone, or were parked elsewhere. It had taken us ten minutes to get to Maple Street and we left about twenty minutes after Terry came to the doctor’s door. He said it took him around ten minutes to get there – give or take five minutes – so I estimated about forty-five minutes had passed. More than enough time for Bedlow to inform Henderson of Morgan’s recapture, so it was possible she was no longer there. But, I had to be sure, and if she wasn’t there, I needed to find out where she was.

There were lights coming from the windows. It was not a good position from which to see into the front but I had a clear view of the big one on the side. I was surprised to see it had no curtains. Maybe Binqua didn’t like curtains.

I saw two armchairs and the edge of what appeared to be a monitor. I couldn’t see the other side of the room but I construed it to be where Bedlow had his surveillance system. There was a man sitting in one of the armchairs from where I gathered he was watching the monitor. Judging by the armchair, whoever was watching would be comfortable. That could make him less alert. The other chair was empty and I didn’t see any sign of Morgan though she might’ve been on the side of the room I couldn’t see. She could also have been elsewhere in the house. Or, not there at all.

There was something familiar about the man but I was too far away, and he sat with his head down and his face turned partially away from the window, so I couldn’t make out his features. I wished I had binoculars, but you can’t have everything. However, since the guy had light hair instead of black, and was wearing a guard’s uniform, I knew it wasn’t Bedlow.

I hazarded a guess that Bedlow always had someone watching the monitor, so it was probably one of the guards I’d seen at the entryway guardhouse. Whoever he was, it wasn’t very smart of him to sit in front of a lighted window. Duncan crawled up beside me to take a look. We watched for a few minutes and I noticed something. That chair must’ve been very comfortable because the guard definitely wasn’t alert. He was in fact, asleep. Duncan saw it too, and we looked at each other.

“Do you know which room Bedlow would be in?” I asked quietly.

“Yeah”, murmured Duncan. “When I was a guard I took a night stint a few times to watch his monitor, so I know the layout of the house pretty well. His room’s on the other side. There’s a garage on that side, too, and it has a side door for getting in without raising the garage door. The inside door opens into the kitchen.”

“Would those be locked?”

“The one outside should be, and the one to the inside was always locked when I was there. I had to unlock it to step out into the garage to smoke on my break.”

Perfect. I knew how to get through locked doors.

“Would there be more than one guard?”

“Well, there’re usually two and the other one should’ve been in the same room with the one watching the monitor – that’s so they can keep each other awake – but he’s not so that could mean Bedlow’s only got the one tonight. Or, he had to take a leak.”

I thought for a moment. “Are there motion triggered lights on the property, or a camera inside the garage? Alarms?” Either of those features would be harder to bypass.

“Nah. No motion lights or alarms. Bedlow’s not worried about break-ins here. The cameras watch the front, back, and sides of the house. He’s got ones watching the neighborhood entrance, and a few places on the surrounding wall. That’s probably how they spotted Morgan.” He gave a tight smile. “He tried putting them around the entire neighborhood, so he could watch everybody all the time but they kept disappearing – or coming up broken. Somebody finally reported the snooping to the city police and they came out and talked to him. Then they went down to the Semptor and talked to his boss. Henderson called him in. He didn’t like having the cops come in here so Bedlow had to remove the ones still working and quit putting them up.” He cocked his head. “We going in?”

I nodded. “Yes.”

I looked back at the window. The guard was still asleep and the other one hadn’t showed up. Either he was doing more than taking a leak or he wasn’t there. It was cold and growing later. We had to get a move on.

“Okay. Stay low and follow me.”