The front door was solid wood and three inches thick—so even though he couldn’t engage the dead bolt, it was going to take a battering ram to get inside. His only concern was the glass doors and windows, but the frames were super sturdy and locked—and if you shattered panes the size of the ones in the kitchen, they made a hell of a noise.

So she was safe as she could be.

After cutting the exterior lights, he took his muscle shirt from his pocket and tore off a strip; then he stepped out and cranked that big ol’ door into place. Quick pause to double-check the handle was locked and secure and he tied the strip of cloth around the wrought-iron lantern to the left.

Next move was to walk off into the chilly April morning.

Not a moment too soon, either. As this was New England, the sun rose real early, and he probably had only an hour or so of good darkness before the dawn’s rays started to chase away the shadows. Going left, he headed across something called Pinckney Street, and less than ten yards down the hill, he found what he was looking for—one of the smaller town houses was under reconstruction, its windows on the first floor boarded up, a pathway of plaster dust running in and out of the front door.

And there were no lights on, inside or out.

Going in all Spidey and shit, he grappled up the house, using the moldings around the door and the windows to brace his feet and yank his weight up. A quick punch through a dusty pane and he waited for the scream of a security alarm. None came. So he flipped the latch, shoved the sash up, and hello, Lucy, he was home.

Total elapsed time: a minute and a half.

The place was rock cold and covered with more plaster dust, and he hoped like hell that this was a union job, given that it was Sunday—so he could stay as long as he wanted.

Casing the joint didn’t take long, and similar to Grier’s setup, the back of the house opened to a courtyardy thing that was gated—and there were no chalky footprints on the red brick there. Obviously, the workmen arrived and left the front way.

To clear the exit route for some parkour action if he needed it, he popped the latch on the window above the rear door’s transom; then he returned to where he’d broken in and picked out all of the glass shards on the pane he’d smashed—because no glass at all looked, from a distance, like nothing was wrong.