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anything. It didn’t mark the end of either group’s intentions towards me. I was pretty sure neither group would know what I was doing in LoDo. The best place for me at the moment should be Troy Huber’s apartment. I was just around the corner from it. I calmed down and walked there slowly, just another person in the night. Almost.
     

 
    Chapter 7
     
    When I reached the lobby door of Troy’s apartment building my breathing was back to normal, but I opened it with fingers still shaky from the aftereffects of adrenaline. I noted the security camera as I walked to the elevator and went up to the fifth floor. I pulled some latex gloves out of my kit and snapped them on.
    One hand in my backpack, holding the HK, I let myself into Apartment 503. It was dark.
    “Troy?” I called out as I flicked the lights on, on the small chance that he had come back, but the place had an empty feel to it and there was no response. I locked the door behind me.
    I dropped my backpack, sank down beside the door and let out a long sigh. Strangely, I felt much better now. It was like when I was in the army. I had always been stressed before an operation, but once it started, it went where it went.
    I had to expect both groups to try again.
    The crime boss would get a replacement for Mr. Obvious and maybe the replacement would be better at the job, or use a sniper rifle or whatever. I needed to take the initiative on that. If I could find out who the boss was, the playing field became more level. I could even get the police to do the work, if I could find some hard evidence. I’d need to start that tomorrow.
    The vampires would come again. It was reassuring that they had put so much effort into capturing me, rather than killing me. If things escalated, then I guessed I would have to call in the colonel. I couldn’t think of any way I could precipitate things or find out more about them in a hurry, so that was wait and see for the moment, however much I disliked that option.
    Those things mentally filed away, I needed to work to pay the rent, which was the reason I was here in the first place. I took a pair of plastic booties from my kit and slipped them on over my boots. So sexy.
    I stood still in the middle of the floor and surveyed the room. The apartment faced over the creek towards Elditch Park. Good living space with pale cream walls and quality wooden furniture was my first impression, immediately followed by too neat . Troy was a very tidy bachelor. Or he had a maid. Or someone had cleaned up thoroughly.
    There were two bedrooms off the living area, a master bedroom with the same view of the park and a second bedroom for an agoraphobic dwarf. I started there. Troy was an avid cyclist and he kept his fancy street racer in the second bedroom on a sheet of blue plastic, along with a wall of photos from bike racing events all over Colorado. The small pine dresser held a jumble of brightly colored bike gear. Nothing seemed out of place.
    The master bedroom was no more illuminating. The bed was neatly made, but only with sheets. Clothes hung in the closet, looking forlorn. I noticed jackets and pants were all mismatched and shoes were just tossed in the bottom.
    “Not so neat in here, Troy,” I muttered.
    The storage space above the clothes rail was taken up by a couple of suitcases, both empty. I got a chair and checked if there was anything suggesting another missing suitcase, like a dust pattern, but there wasn’t. There were some spare sheets in a plastic bag, but no other bed coverings.
    A stack of magazines lay in a pile by the bed—a company magazine which featured Troy and the Golden Harvest, some biking and cooking magazines, and a few general interest.
    His razor, toothbrush and toothpaste were in the bathroom. If he had gone on a trip without telling anyone, he hadn’t used his suitcases and he hadn’t taken the things you would expect.
    The kitchen looked well used. Everything had been washed and put away. In the fridge,