She also had a second Glock 17 pistol that had been fitted with a silencer and drilled to remove the serial number. It had been confiscated during an arrest at a motel off the interstate during Chief Roberts’s time. For some reason it had not been destroyed after the trial. Leah had looked at the transcripts and the evidence paperwork and discovered that the gun was listed as having been destroyed eight years ago, but there it was in the evidence room. She had left it there until a few months ago. Then she had taken it out, cleaned it, fired it at the range, and then cleaned it again and put it away. She had placed it in the metal carrying case where she kept her own service weapon and flown with it, listing it with the serial number of the spare Glock she kept at home. Tonight she removed it from the case, loaded it, took out the silencer that went with it, and brought them with her when she walked up the street to the house.

Leah Hawkins walked quietly around the side of the house, looking for the best way in. As she came around the house, Leah saw something that might help. This was Florida, so the backyard pool was inside a screened enclosure to keep the area free of pests and leaves.

She knelt at the edge of the screen, studied it, and peered through it at the house. The pool was meant to be entered directly from inside the house, as if it were another room. The entrance to the pool from the house was through a sliding glass door that was closed.

She opened her folding knife, cut an opening at the lower edge of the screen, extended the slice about three feet, and then crawled through the opening. She moved quickly to the sliding door and tried opening it, but it was locked. She inserted the knife blade into the space between the door and the jamb. She wiggled it and forced it upward a couple of inches to the hooklike latch that dropped over a bar. She pounded the knife upward with her other hand and it moved. She hit it again and the latch unhooked.

She slowly opened the door, slipped inside, turned on her flashlight, and walked quietly toward the front of the house, scanning the space ahead of her. She stopped at the edge of the living room, where she had a clear view of much of the first floor.

Leah remained still and listened. She couldn’t detect any sound. There were no lights anywhere, not even the faint glow of a low-voltage nightlight from a bathroom, the kind some elderly people used to prevent falling. She went up the stairs to the second floor.