Through the frosted glass of the side office, I saw the silhouette of a man in a dark jacket.

He had a flashlight, its beam sweeping across the alleyway outside, cutting through the darkness.

“The back door leads to the gravel lot,” I said.

We moved silently, our boots pressing into the cold concrete.

I reached the metal crash bar of the rear exit and pushed it down millimeter by millimeter.

The door groaned slightly, but it opened.

Cold night air hit my face, smelling of damp earth and river water.

We slipped out into the darkness just as we heard the front glass pane of the warehouse shatter.

We ran toward Nora’s sedan, parked two blocks away under an overgrown maple tree.

The fallen leaves crunched under our feet, sounding deafeningly loud in the quiet night.

Nora unlocked the doors with her key fob, and we scrambled inside.

She started the engine but kept the headlights off until we turned the corner.

“That wasn’t code enforcement,” she said, her hands tight on the steering wheel.

“No,” I agreed, looking back through the rear window. “That was a sweep.”