Chapter 6 · No Safe House

The school pin sat cold in Charlotte's palm. She'd been staring at it for two hours now, parked three blocks from Ivy's den, and she still couldn't make the edges fit. Lisa wore a uniform once. That much she remembered. Navy blazer. White collar. The rest was static.

She tried to picture the drop-off line. Tried to hear her kid's voice saying the school name. Nothing came.

Charlotte shoved the pin into her jacket pocket and checked the Glock's magazine. Fifteen rounds. She'd burned through two loops testing routes into Ivy's building. First time she'd gone through the garage—got clipped by Ivy's backup before she made it past the stairwell. Second time she'd tried the service entrance and walked into a motion sensor that lit her up like Christmas. This was loop sixty-eight. She was done being polite.

She crossed the street at 4:47 a.m. No pedestrians. No cabs. The city was still sleeping off Monday, and that gave her maybe ninety seconds before Ivy's perimeter guy radioed in. She pulled her hood up and kept her head down. The front door to the building was older than most of the tenants—