Chance (29 page)

“Can we get something to
eat?” she asked. “I’m really hungry.”

“I told you to get
something before we left,” he muttered, but there was a smile in his voice
rather than annoyance.

“I know, I know. I should've
listened, but I didn’t feel hungry before we left. I was too excited,” she
replied sheepishly.

“And now you’re bored,
right?” He turned to look at her, taking his eyes away from the house for the
first time.

“Yeah,” she admitted, with
an apologetic expression on her face. “A little. Sorry.”

“Here.” He reached into
his pocket and pulled out a Snickers bar.

“Oh, thank you! Do you
want half?”

Still smiling he said,
“No, you have it,”

He immediately looked
back to the house as she opened the candy bar and began to eat it.

“There!” he whispered.

Charlotte stopped chewing
instantly and ducked down, following Brett’s gaze. She saw the front door had
been opened, just an inch. The yellow light from the hallway was shining out
onto the darkness of the drive. Charlotte’s breath caught in her throat, her
heart began to pound again, as it had when they’d first arrived. Both of them
remained silent and completely still. Their eyes were once again, trained on
the door, eagerly watching for what would happen next.

After a few seconds, the
door opened a little wider and the silhouetted frame of Logan could be seen. He
was putting on his jacket then he turned and closed the door behind him as he
stepped out onto the drive. He unlocked the car with a quiet beep and got into
the driver’s seat. The door thudded closed and echoed through the stillness of
the residential street.

A moment later, they heard
the engine roar to life and the headlights lit up the driveway. The car drove out
of the driveway and onto the road. Logan normally took a left out of the driveway,
but much to her horror, he began to turn right… in their direction! Time seemed
to slow and Charlotte was conscious of Brett ducking down behind the wall, but
she was frozen in place like the proverbial deer.

Brett yanked her down
beside him just as the headlights lit up the yard they were in…

“Stay down,” Brett
hissed.

They lay there in
silence, listening to the throbbing of the Porsche’s engine. Why wasn’t he
driving away? The headlights were illuminating everything around them. They
didn’t dare move from the cover of the wall.

“What’s he doing?” she
asked in a low but panicked voice.

“Don’t worry,” whispered
Brett. “I haven’t heard his door open or anything. He’s probably just talking
on the phone or programming his GPS.”

Charlotte's mind refused
to be eased, as they lay there trapped. She found herself imagining the worst.
He'd somehow seen them and was sneaking up on their hiding place. That’s why
he’d stopped, to get out and have a look. Brett found her hand in the darkness,
and gave it a tight squeeze. It was supposed to reassure her, but it did
nothing. Logan would be armed and they weren’t. If he found them there, he'd
probably kill them both, or worse.

The tension was incredible.
It was overwhelming, more intense than she'd ever remembered experiencing. Charlotte
felt as if she was on the verge of standing up with her hands in the air. She'd
do anything to save Brett, even if it meant sacrificing herself. Luckily, Brett
must've felt her tense and he grabbed her, pulling her into a bear hug.

She settled down. Although
the wait seemed to last hours, it was probably only a matter of seconds in
reality, before they finally heard the soft roar of the car accelerating and then
fading, as the car disappeared down the road.

They both breathed a
heavy sigh of relief, sat up and brushed the leaves and twigs off of themselves.

“God, that was close. What
was he doing?” asked Charlotte.

“I don’t know. He didn’t
see us; otherwise he would've gotten out.”

“Yeah,” she frowned then
nodded more confidently. “Yeah, you’re right. Sorry that I froze, I guess I’m
not cut out for this kind of thing.”

“It’s all right…is your
leg okay?” Brett asked her, holding out his hand.

“Yeah.” She took his hand
and got to her feet. “Yeah, it’s fine and really, don’t worry about it. You
kind of saved me there…I don’t know, I probably would've just stood there and
given us away.”

“It’s alright, you did fine
given the circumstances, really,” he smiled and pulled her into a gentle hug,
holding her there for a moment and offering the comfort she needed before
letting her go.

She felt better immediately,
and was much more able to focus on the situation now that Logan was out of the
way. She knew they didn’t have much time.

“Let’s go,” she announced
with determination, beginning to walk across the road towards the house. “We
don’t know when he’s going to be back, we need to do this quickly.”

“Alright.” Brett quickly
agreed, and the two of them ran across the road and into the open gates of
Logan’s property.

Charlotte was leading the
way. Although Brett had been there a couple of times on similar stakeouts, he'd
never actually been inside, and didn’t know his way around. She led Brett to
the window she'd escaped from before her accident. It was the most accessible
point of entry into the house. When she arrived a few paces ahead of him, she
picked up a rock from the garden and drew back her arm.

Suddenly, Brett had his
hand on hers, stopping her.

“What the hell are you
doing?” He hissed, looking at her in amazement.

She blinked. “I’m um…I’m
breaking in. Isn’t that what we’re supposed to be doing?”

“Well, yeah but…can’t we
do it quietly?” he whispered, gently lowering her arm and taking the rock from
her hand. “We don’t want any neighbors alerted something’s going on, do we?”

“Right, but…how else are
we going to get in?”

He didn’t answer her,
just giving a soft smile while taking over. He led the way around the side of
the house towards the backyard and gestured her to follow.

“I told you, I’ve been
doing reconnaissance, right?” Brett said with a smile.

“So…you’ve found a way
in?”

“The back door. I just
need to pick the lock.”

“You know how to pick
locks?” she gaped at him, impressed.

“Jim taught me,” he
shrugged. “I’m not as good as him, and I’ve never actually done it before
except on my own locks, so…this will be a bit of an experiment. It might take
me some time.”

“Well, try not to take
too long,” she said, as she apprehensively looked around, wondering how much
time they had before Logan returned.

Brett crouched down by
the backdoor and got out two pieces of firm, oddly shaped wire from his coat
pocket. He slipped them inside the lock. Charlotte watched open mouthed and
fascinated as he wiggled them about, twisting them first one way, then the other.
Finally, he took one wire in one direction and the other wire in the opposite
direction. He quietly cursed under his breath when his hands slipped and it
didn’t work.

She was getting more
anxious now, repeatedly looking at her watch every thirty seconds, trying to
work out how long he’d been taking. She didn’t want to pester him and ask him
to hurry up. She didn’t want to add any more pressure than she was sure he was
already feeling.

“Brett…” she murmured
quietly.

“I know, I know,” he
whispered. “I think I’ve almost got it. Just a…little bit….more…” He frowned,
his eyes furrowed in concentration as he twisted and turned the two wires until…click.

“Yes!” he whispered.

He turned the handle and
the door opened. They were inside in an instant, closing it behind them.
Charlotte was glad for the warmth and clung close to Brett when he turned on
the mini flashlight he'd produced from his pocket.

“That was amazing,” she
said, in hushed tones as she pointed in the direction to go.

“Really?” he chuckled.
“Hardly James Bond, was it? It took me way too long.”

“Yeah, but you did it.
You did it and you got us in. It was much better then smashing a window.”

“Well, yeah, that's true.
It was.” He winked at her and took her hand, squeezing it for a brief moment
before letting it go. “You’re in charge now. Where’s this office of his?”

“Follow me,” She said.

She put on a brave front,
but inside, her heart was hammering. She was terrified that Logan would come
back and discover them. In addition, bad memories of the place were also creeping
her out. They went down the hall and approached the open office door. She was
almost surprised to find it open, after he'd always been so paranoid about locking
it, obsessed about hiding the key…but then, she wasn’t there. She guessed he
didn’t bother anymore, without anyone living with him.

It felt so strange to be
back in the house. Even though it had only been about six weeks, it had felt
like years. Now though, being here, standing in this hallway, all of the old
memories and feelings came flooding back to her in a flash. Suddenly, it felt as
if hardly any time had passed at all, almost as if she still lived there, under
his control. She shivered and stared down at the floor.

Brett noticed the change in
her immediately, and she felt his hand on her shoulder turning her gently
towards him.

“Are you okay?” he looked
into her eyes, bending his head so he could attract her attention, and stop her
from staring at the floor. She met his gaze and nodded slightly.

“Yeah,” she mumbled. “It
just…feels a bit…weird.”

“Being back here?”

She nodded again and
swallowed hard.

“I can understand that.
Don’t worry about it, sweetheart. We won’t take long.”

He placed his hand on the
door and opened it wide. The two of them stepped into the office where
Charlotte had spent hours trying to find the
dirt
Logan supposedly had
on her father.

The new filing cabinet
stood in the corner, the key to its lock was still kept inside the same drawer
of his desk. Charlotte smiled grimly, as she pulled it out. If anything, Logan
was a creature of habit. Perhaps arrogance was his weakness.

“What exactly are we
looking for?” she asked Brett, frowning.

“Anything that implicates
Logan in any kind of crime. You check all those files, I’ll check the
computer.”

He darted over to the
desk, leaving Charlotte to root through all the folders in the filing cabinet.
She grabbed a handful of papers, pulled them out, dropped them onto the floor
in a heap, sat down cross-legged and began going through them. She felt tense
and on edge. This could quite feasibly take hours, and it was unlikely they had
hours.

Meanwhile, Brett quickly joined
her on the floor, a sleek black object in his hand. “A drive,” he explained,
with a smile. “He left it plugged into the computer. Hopefully, it’s not just
porn.” He slipped it into his pocket.

“Like this,” he pointed
out after ten minutes of silence. “Something like
this
.”

He handed her a sheet of
paper. It was a letter from an attorney to Logan. She held it in her hands and
read part of it aloud.

“I can confirm your cash
deposit has been successfully invested into 200,000 shares of Duncorp
Investments at a price of 5.28 per share,” she shrugged and looked at him
blankly.

“That’s over a million
dollars, Charlotte. It was deposited in cash. It implies money laundering,”
Brett smiled.

She re-read the sentence.
“Oh my God…where did he…so much money. Do you think it’s good enough as
evidence?”

“Well it’s probably as
good as we’ll get. It’s unlikely a man like Logan will leave too much evidence
lying around on paper, but it seems pretty damning.”

With a better idea of the
type of thing she was looking for, she began to search through the documents
again, quickly scanning over the words, skimming and trying to see beneath the
surface. Unfortunately, nothing else seemed to stand out.

“We should check the
drawers as well, Brett,” she said, standing up. “That’s where he keeps his guns
and weapons.”

“Alright, but…we can’t
take any of those.” He jumped to his feet and joined her, going around the
other side of the desk and beginning to open up the drawers one by one. “He’ll
notice if they’re missing.”

“No, but we can do this…”
She took out her cell phone and brought up the camera app, pointing it at the
drawer full of bullets and weapons, taking a couple of pictures. She did the
same with the fake IDs and passports.

“Clever girl,” Brett
grinned. “I think we make a good team.”

“I think we do, too.
Maybe we should open up a detective agency or something.”

“You looking for a new
career?” he teased.

“Are you?” she teased
back.

Once that was done, they agreed
they should probably go—quit while they were ahead. They had only a small
amount of physical evidence that could be used against Logan. They hoped the
drive would give them more of what they needed. Brett assured her Jim would do
his best to make everything legal, despite their break in. He also wanted her
to believe, as he did, that in this case, the result would justify the means.