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.She had no idea of the layout of the house, no inkling of how sound could carry.Three, four…Jazz paused for a heartbeat to get her bearings.The basement had once been a well-appointed room, perhaps a separate dwelling in its own right, but now it was crammed full of old furniture, boxes sealed with packing tape, and a huge bookcase packed solid with old hardback books.Her route across this space would be slow, and the far door was closed, perhaps locked.Five, six…There was a motion detector in one corner of the room, flashing red where it was fixed just below the ceiling.Once the alarm was set and the flashing stopped, it would be active.Jazz moved.Over an old sofa, clouds of dust puffing up around her and tickling her nose.Through a forest of dining chairs, upright and upside down, and her rucksack caught on one of the legs.She paused and spun around, catching the chair just before it hit the ground.Seven, eight…She stepped around a pile of small sealed boxes, wondering what they contained.Footsteps came from above as Mort hurried along his hallway, needing to set the alarm and close the front door by the count of thirty.After that, he’d set it off himself and have to explain to the police what had happened.Nine, ten…From her rucksack, she pulled a canvas cozy Hattie had made, elastic band sewn into the edges.Stretching it with her fingers, she slipped it over the motion detector, let it snap into place, and then ran on.Thirteen, fourteen…She made the far door and tried the handle.She sighed when it opened, then stepped out into a dimly lit corridor, the only light bleeding through a glass-block wall at one end.There were two doors on each side, and any one of them could be the one leading upstairs.A motion detector watched the corridor as well.This house was well protected.Seventeen, eighteen…She snapped another cozy over the detector in the hall.When the alarm activated, the motion detector would be effectively blind.She tried the door five steps along from the basement door.It opened onto a blank space, a basement that had never been completed.Bare concrete walls and exposed ceiling joists were swathed in spiderwebs and dust.She closed it and crossed the corridor to the door immediately opposite.Twenty-two, twenty-three…Last chance.She’d have to stop soon, because she couldn’t trust counting in her head.Three seconds off and everything would be ruined.I’m in his house! I’m in Mort’s house, and if the alarm goes and he comes in, catches me, he could kill me here and now.Or knock me out, tell the police it was a false alarm because he didn’t set it in time, see them on their way with a cup of tea and a friendly wave, come back down to where he left me, slit my throat.Kill me when I’m unconscious.Twenty-five, twenty-six…Jazz opened the door and saw the short staircase leading up.Here, too, a motion detector flashed its readiness.She closed the door gently behind her, hurried to the top step, and pressed her ear against the door.A third canvas cozy was clutched in her right hand.Twenty-eight…She heard hurried footsteps, the front door slamming shut, and then a few seconds later the alarm let out one long beep.That was it.Set.Jazz froze.She turned her eyes up and to the side and saw the steady LED of the motion detector.Now was when the long, slow, fun part began.She’d hoped to avoid it, but no such luck.Harry had told her that motion detectors used in domestic house alarms were only so sensitive.They could be fooled, but it took someone with a steady nerve and grace of movement to do so.He’d said that if Jazz moved as slowly as she could, she would be able to cross a room covered by a detector.It would take a while.And any slight jerk, sneeze, or slip could set it off.But it was possible.Jazz reached up slowly and closed her hand around the door handle.She shut her eyes—slowly—and willed it to be unlocked.It was an old-fashioned round brass handle, similar to those on the basement doors, and she had to grip it tight to provide enough friction to turn it.She moved her hand clockwise, hearing the lock squeal slightly, amazed at how tensed her muscles had become in her efforts not to move.She was crouched on the top step and her right leg was below her, already aching and burning where it took her weight.She could not ease up, stretch her leg, or shift position.Every movement now had to be relevant and necessary.Surely only the main corridors would have motion sensors, and even then perhaps only on the lower floors.It was going to be a long, slow journey through the house, but she had all day.The handle slipped in her palm, all the way back to the closed position.“Shit!” Tempted though she was to slap the door, she could not.She turned her eyes again, looking up at the red eye of the motion detector and silently cursing its electrical patience.It turned off.Jazz gasped.It was no trick of the light or a fault of her eyes.Did this happen once the alarm system was set? It had been maybe five minutes.Did all the detectors suddenly switch off the LEDs even though they were still active? She thought it unlikely—they were there for a reason, after all, and it seemed strange that they would no longer display their alertness.She heard a sound beyond the door.It was a light metallic click, like a tool snapping shut or a door latch finding its home.Mort! He hadn’t gone to work after all.He must have forgotten something, returned home, and…But she had not heard the front door open, nor the beeping of the alarm that would count down the period he had to get inside, enter the code, and disable it.She’d have heard all that.She had been concentrating on the handle, true, and the beaded sweat on her forehead attested to that.But she would have heard Mort coming home.Footsteps passed by outside, very soft, as though barefoot.Mort always wore expensive shoes.She remembered that of him; he’d prided himself on his appearance, and there was no way he’d have left the house in anything other than exquisite dress.Jazz had still not moved, for fear that the detector was active—but if it was, then whoever was out there would have set it off.If Mort had returned, then he must have deactivated the alarm system without her hearing.Remote control, perhaps?If it wasn’t Mort, then she had to see who was out there.Wincing, preparing herself for the shriek of the alarm, Jazz stood and backed down a couple of steps.Nothing happened.She let out a sigh of relief, then a groan as pins and needles rushed into her leg.Kneeling, she looked under the door, able to see right across the hallway.The dark-oak floor was highly polished, broken up here and there with rugs, and across the hall stood at least two closed doors
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