Hideout by Jack Heath (iphone ebook reader txt) 📕

Fred takes me through to the kitchen, which has a stone benchtop so big you could conduct autopsies on it, and the dining area, where someone has already added a seventh chair to the teak table. A bundle of yoga mats lean against a wall in the corner. These criminals do yoga?

A corridor to the right looks like it probably leads to the bedrooms and the stairs, but we go to the back door instead. Another electronic lock clicks and beeps behind us as we walk out into the December air. Fred has a little flashlight on his keys. He shines it at the dead grass as we walk.

No snow yet, but I can feel it on the way. The woods surrounding the house are dense, but the trees look dead, strangled by the frost. I guess Fred is taking me to the server room, where all the videos are stored. Servers need to be kept cool.

I’ve seen some of the recordings on Lux’s hard drive. A woman getting strangled in Tokyo, a man disembowelled in Mexico City, a teenager drowned in a bathtub in Manila, and many others which were far worse. I assume Fred is taking me to see even more.

‘I’ll get you to keep Abbey’s background on the down low.’ Fred’s breaths come out as plumes of steam. ‘The others don’t know.’

My mouth is too quick for my brain. ‘Her background?’ Fred clicks his fingers and points at me, like he’s shooting a pistol. ‘Perfect.’

Abbey Chapman was the young woman I rescued from Lux’s homemade prison. Lux was making videos of her and submitting them for Fred’s site. I have no idea what he thinks I know about her ‘background’.

We walk past a small greenhouse. It’s dark inside, but I can see red flowers—roses, or maybe poppies—touching the other side of the sweaty glass. There’s a vegetable patch here, too. A PVC pipe sticks out of the dirt nearby, maybe part of an underground composting system. On the other side of us, there’s a chest-high chain-link fence. Something is breathing heavily from the shadows behind it.

‘Back,’ Fred commands.

When the dog moves, I see it’s a big boxer—short fur and a square black muzzle, with the kind of jaws that clamp down and never let go. Long, muscular forelegs, stubbier hind legs. It sits, little tail flicking back and forth as it watches me. I have enough experience with dogs to know that a wagging tail isn’t always a good sign. A second dog slinks through the shadows further away.

‘They’re friendly … once they get to know you,’ Fred says.

When the boxer growls, I smell raw meat on its breath.

‘You okay?’ Fred asks.

I cough. ‘Yeah. Just cold.’

‘Sorry. I know you’ve had a rough night. We can do this tomorrow if you want?’

‘No, I’m good.’ I need to see the whole way around the house. There might be a way to sneak back to the car without anyone noticing.

Fred’s expensive hiking shoes leave faint patterns in the dirt. There are plenty of older footprints around in various sizes and facing various directions. Paw prints. Drag marks. Now the markings from my ill-fitting formal shoes are joining the mix. Everywhere you go, everything you say, everything you do leaves a trail. Those inspirational posts clogging up the internet—You matter! You make a difference!—are half right. Nothing matters, but everything makes a difference. The wrong person could notice those differences and decode them days or years later.

Which clues might lead the Guards to my real identity? The FBI never paid me with money, so there isn’t much of a paper trail to follow. The only agent I was ever close to, Reese Thistle, has quit, and fled from Houston. The Guards are unlikely to find any trace of me there.

But the FBI wasn’t my only employer. In addition to selling credit card numbers on Russian web forums and solving riddles for cash, I also worked for crime boss Charlie Warner, disposing of the bodies she left in her wake. Another of her employees might surface and blow my cover.

There are other trails the Guards might follow. The real Lux was a teaching assistant—a profession I know nothing about—in the mathematics department—a subject I know nothing about. I thought I’d only have to impersonate him for thirty seconds before clubbing Fred in the back of the head with a hammer. I didn’t think I’d need to fool five other people for hours at a time, maybe days.

Did the Guards know Lux’s full name? Maybe not. But if they see ‘Shannon Luxford wanted for false imprisonment’ on the news, they’ll put two and two together. Particularly if Abbey agrees to any TV interviews, taking a network’s money in exchange for her tears.

Fifty yards behind the main house, slightly uphill, there’s another building. A barn, with metal walls and a huge padlock on the front door. Three big buckets are stacked next to the door, with organic dog food labels on the lids.

When I was homeless, I often broke into buildings like this for shelter overnight. No need to pick the locks; a pair of tin snips would cut right through the wall. But I guess no one is out here looking for computers to steal.

‘This place used to be a hobby farm.’ Fred pulls on some gloves and searches through a ring of keys as we approach. ‘That fenced-off area was the pig pen, and this was the slaughterhouse. But rumours surfaced about cruelty to the animals. Nothing was ever proven, but people stopped buying meat from the farm. Pretty soon the owners were desperate to sell. I got it cheap.’ He looks pleased with himself.

‘Uh-huh,’ I say.

‘I renovated the house pretty substantially. But this part has stayed largely the same.’

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