Before dropping him at the guardhouse I gave him a handful of twenties. “This is enough for bus fare from Columbia back to Chicago, if you decide you can’t stick it out here any longer. Sew it into the waistband of your shorts, but for pity’s sake, don’t use it until I know if your dad is going to drop the kidnapping charge. Or until after my trial, whichever comes first.”

The escape hatch seemed to breathe a little bit of optimism into him. I apologized to the guard for making my nephew late and begged him not to blame Robbie: I had gotten lost, and that wasn’t the boy’s fault. I had thought another dazzling smile would take care of matters, but now here was Major Enderby calling the Baladines to tell them Aunt Claudia had violated lights–out.

I waited in the kitchen bathroom until I heard the loudspeaker heralding the start of the swim meet. The bathroom had a second door, locked right now, that led into the maid’s room. It took about fifteen seconds to pick that lock. I moved quickly, in case Rosario was getting a break while the swimming started, only stopping for a moment in front of a tin icon to the Virgin of Guadalupe, which was nailed over the prim single bed. I whispered a little plea for protection, although perhaps the Virgin would feel that not even Baladine’s iniquities warranted protecting an intruder.

The back stairs led to Utah’s and Madison’s bedrooms and their playroom. On the other side of the playroom was a hall leading to Baladine’s home office. I studied the location of the monitoring cameras in the bedrooms, playroom, and hall on my pencil map and ducked around the lenses, creeping into Baladine’s office on my hands and knees.

Robbie said the system was voice– and motion–activated. My hands and knees rustling on the carpet wouldn’t turn it on, but a cough might.

Inside Baladine’s office, I crawled along the edge of the room and came to the desk from behind. Lying flat, I stuck up an arm and found the switch for his in–office video monitor and turned it off. I got to my feet and held my breath. After a couple of minutes, when no security guards appeared, I relaxed enough to look around.

I found myself listening tensely for noise. The house was well–soundproofed, and the cheers from the pool came through as only a faint echo. I might have half an hour; I needed to control my nerves and make the most of it.

The room held everything a manly man wanted in his home office, from the buttery black leather couch in a window alcove to the electronics on the zebrawood desk, which included a shredder, a fax, a scanner, and a videophone.