A skill Harry had picked up over the years was how to pick a lock. He’d once arrested a break-in artist who’d agreed to show him the tricks of his trade. They’d even become friends after, and every once in a while Harry took him out for a beer in exchange for a refresher course.

But even then, it was never as easy as it looked on the TV shows, where someone whipped out an array of lock-picking tools and broke into a secret government installation in under twenty seconds. Real life was not an episode of The X Files.

Harry didn’t know whether he’d acquired sufficient skills to get into Nabler’s shop through the alley access. If he couldn’t, he might have to resort to using a blunt instrument, like a rock through the front window when no one was looking. Then, as a trusted officer of the law, he could enter the premises as part of an investigation into an act of vandalism. But that was definitely Plan B.

He once again phoned and told Janice he would be late getting home.

“Same thing as last night,” he said.

“Roger that, over and out,” Janice said.

God, he loved her.

He muted his phone, slipped it into his pocket, then settled into the spot he’d used the night before, perched on the cinder blocks by the Dumpster. He was there when, at fifteen minutes to seven, the back door of Choo-Choo’s Trains opened and out walked Edwin Nabler.

Good ol’ Susie, Harry thought.

Harry watched the man double-check the lock, then walk around and get into his van. Harry slipped off the blocks and crouched down low as the van wheeled by him.

Seconds later, Harry was at the shop’s rear door, taking the lock-picking kit from his pocket. He knelt down and had a close look at the lock, wondering which pick his burglar buddy would choose.

Even before inserting the first pick, he thought he could hear something on the other side of the door. A mechanical sound of some kind. A chorus of metal spinning on metal. And something else. Something faint.

A muted chuffchuffchuffchuffchuffchuff.

Harry knew Edwin left a train running all the time on a loop in the front window of the shop, but it wasn’t likely that he would be able to hear it all the way back here.

He gently worked one wire, then another, into the slot where a key would normally go, moving it one way and then another, feeling a little like a surgeon performing a delicate operation.

It took him just under five minutes. The lock disabled, he opened the door, holding his breath, hoping an alarm wouldn’t go off.

None did.

But the sound he’d heard earlier was now louder, closer to a din. Much more than a chuffchuffchuffchuff and more like—

ChuffchuffCLICKETYCLACKclicketyCLACKwooWOOchuffCLICKETYchuffCLICKETYchuffWOOchuggachuggaclackclicketyCHUFFCHUFFclicketyCLACKwooWOOchuffCLICKETYchuffCLICKETYchuffWOOchuggachuggaclackclicketyCHUFFCHUFFclicketyCLACKwooWOOchuffCLICKETYchuffCLICKETYchuffWOOchuggachuggaclackclicketyCHUFF . . .