The garage smelled of lawn mower, a mix of old grass cuttings and oil, and damp newspapers. The garage was old, a one-car wooden shack separate from the house, a Victorian he’d been watching all day. He could hear the noise of cars passing in the street, faintly. Not much traffic, a nice quiet block. He felt safe. The day swelled with potential. He wasn’t lucky, he was just smart and now it was going to pay off. He’d had strict criteria for what he’d been looking for. There were thousands of people looking for him, but this was no excuse for lowering his standards. He’d wanted an unattached garage, and luckily most of the older homes near Delaware Park had been built with them, offering him a range of targets. He’d wanted a woman, and that had been easy enough. The old-money families of the North were so traditional; he’d watched the men leave in the morning for their law offices and corporate suites downtown, leaving behind a neighborhood of females. But Wendy Lamb didn’t even have a man in the house.
