Ten hours earlier, a dark vehicle sat parked down the street from the building.
It had been there long enough to stop being noticed. Six men were spread between the car and the pavement, two inside, the rest standing in twos near the corner, close enough to watch the entrance and far enough that nobody walking past would think anything of them.
They did not talk much. They did not smoke or check their phones or do any of the things bored men did. They watched the door.
The leader sat in the front passenger seat with his elbow on the window frame. When his phone buzzed, he answered on the first ring and said nothing, only listened.
"Is the boy gone?" the voice on the other end asked.
"Hasn't come home since yesterday," the leader said. "We've had eyes on the building all night. It's just the mother."
