Chapter 17
“Are you ready?” Rufus asked.
The two of them stood on the quiet residential street in the North Shore suburb of Kenilworth. Lined with large, palatial homes, manicured lawns, flowering shrubbery, and luxury cars parked in cobblestone or bricked driveways, the area seemed a world apart from bustling, dirty, crowded Chicago proper, only a few miles south. Here the air seemed cleaner, rarified, smelling sweet. There was an aura of peace, underscored by very little traffic noise, so one could actually hear birdsong and the chittering of insects.
Across from them stood the Williamses’ house. It was a large fieldstone affair, looking more fitting for a place in the English countryside than here, in an affluent suburb of the nation’s third-largest city. Black trim and tall windows
