When I cross Burgundy Street, I tap the brakes. Dauphine Street is just up ahead. The safe house should be around that intersection.

I’m not sure I’ll know it when I spot it. I’m not sure what to expect might be inside, either. Maybe a couple of guys just sitting around, talking strategy. Or maybe a couple dozen of them, loading cartridges into magazines. Strapping on body armor. Building bombs.

I take a few deep breaths and scan the sleepy block.

There’s nobody out on the sidewalk this late, let alone a stream of folks coming or going from one specific house. I don’t see any obvious clusters of parked cars, either. Or any vehicles I recognize, like that maroon Jeep from earlier.

Nearing Dauphine Street now, I do spot two darkened, derelict homes right on the corner. Either one of them could be the place.

One is pretty small, with peeling paint the color of lemon meringue and an overgrown front yard. But in the driveway is a freestanding basketball hoop … with a fresh white net hanging from its rusty rim. That’s all the proof I need that someone calls that place home.

The second house is a little bigger, with boarded up windows and a section of roof sagging like a collapsed soufflé. It has a detached garage in back, too, just like the safe house in St. Roch did. This one looks big enough for two tractors.

I make a left onto Dauphine to get a look at the vacant building from the side.

Seeping through cracks in one of the boarded-up windows, I glimpse a faint purple glow coming from inside.

A cold tremor runs through my body, head to toe.

Someone’s in there.

CHAPTER 67

I pull over down the block and cut the engine.

Keeping my palm on the grip of my pistol, tucked into my jeans, I crouch low and creep back toward the vacant house.

Here we go.

I tiptoe across the crackly dried brown lawn and up to the window with the light inside. I lean in and try to squint through the cracks.

But I can’t see shit.

So I put my ear up to it.

And hear some muffled voices.

My pulse practically doubles as I slowly back away from the window and move around the rear of the house now.

I’m looking for the best way to make a stealth entry, but I don’t see any side doors. Guess I only have one option.

When I reach the front porch, I hurry up its rickety wooden steps and lean my back against the wall next to the door—which I see is slightly ajar.

I draw my pistol. Keep it pointed at the ground. And try to steady my nerves.

I’ve made tactical entries like this a million times before. But always as part of a team. Usually wearing a Kevlar vest. And never with stakes this high.