“No, I just have a date with that guy again. So I need to go. Thanks a bunch for your help. I’ll probably be OK tomorrow. Vic and my dad will be here at two, so you don’t need to come in.” He’s about to protest, but I put a hand up. “Carson, believe me, you do not want to come in. All those clichés about dads, daughters, and shotguns… well. They’re cliché for a reason. Some fathers really do that shit and mine is one of them.”
He looks at me for a few seconds, but then he nods and drops it. “OK, then. Call me and we’ll go car-hunting. Spencer is still really adamant about you getting a safe car.”
This makes me smile. My Spencer. He cares about me. He wants me to drive safely. “OK, sure.” I say it but I don’t mean it, because after tonight, Spencer will want nothing to do with me.
I go back to cleaning my machine and getting it ready for the autoclave, and Carson takes the hint and lets himself out the front door. I throw the bagged parts of my machine into the sterilizer and then walk down the hall and lock the door, leaving the neon sign that’s flashing open to the outside world on. I parked in front tonight, but I’m not taking the bike home. I’m walking. It’s not even six o’clock, but it’ll be dark soon, so I grab my pack and hoof it out the back door.
The condo building on Mason is only about a mile away, so I take off at a jog. I glance over at Shrike Bikes as I make my way across Maple, but there’s nothing going on over there. Everyone is in position for that secret job they’re pulling tonight, I suppose. By the time I make it to the building I’m sweaty and out of breath. I have no key to get inside the security door, but I don’t need one. The place is unlocked.
I pull the door open and step in. My stomach sinks. Because it’s dark too. And deserted. Something is wrong.
Have I ever seen anyone besides me, Bobby, and the doorman here?
No. Never.
I swallow hard and go to the elevator, but when I push the button, it stays dark.
My phone buzzes again. Get in position now, Veronica, the text says. I look up at the camera domes and give a hesitant nod.
I pull the door to the stairs open and climb up to the second floor. I’m just about to pass the exit to my condo but my curiosity gets the better of me and I leave the stairwell and head to the closest apartment. When I turn the handle I expect the door to be locked—or maybe I hope the door is locked. But it’s not.
I open it and my suspicions are confirmed. No one lives in this building but Bobby Mansi and me. The condo is empty, the floors are unfinished concrete, there’s no kitchen, only the plumbing sticking out of the walls.
My phone buzzes again. I check the ceiling for cameras and pull the door closed as I exit and then make my way back in to the stairs and resume climbing. I don’t look at the text until I’m upstairs in front of the penthouse door.
Service terminated.Wonderful. I hope to f**k this phone will still record, because I’m not gonna be part of this with no record to save my ass if it all goes wrong.
When I walk inside this time, I am stunned. Because everything is gone. Even the kitchen. Just bare concrete. And something tells me that if I went to my apartment downstairs, it would look the same way. I bet my real apartment has mysteriously been vacated of all asbestos workers and is one hundred percent normal as well.
Who has the money and resources to play this kind of game?
The insistent buzz of my phone jolts me out of my pondering. Later, Ronnie, I tell myself. But right now, I need to make sure Bobby Mansi comes out of this alive. Bobby’s instructions were to hide. But what the f**k? He never said the place would be dismantled when I got here.
Think, think, think, Veronica. I walk over to the stairs that lead up to the rooftop deck and kick open a grate that covers the lower steps. A door slamming in the hallway near the elevator jolts me out of my stupor and I drop to the floor and wiggle into the small space.
I grab the screen and pull it in front of me. I can’t fasten it or anything, but here’s hoping that doesn’t matter because Bobby walks into the room with a tall blonde girl and a guy who looks exactly like him.
I aim the phone camera at them and press record.
“I saw her over there, Tet,” the new guys says to Bobby. The new guy pushes the gagged, bound, and blindfolded woman to the center of the room. She stumbles, but Bobby reaches out and grabs her arm before she can fall.
“Don’t, Cy.”
A few small whimpers escape past the woman’s gag, and this is enough to anger the new guy. Are they twins? No. Bobby looks older than this guy. But they definitely look like brothers, they are that alike. “She better shut the hell up or believe me, I’ll put this bitch down like a dog.”
He’s got a gun—the same gun I have, in fact, the FN Five-SeveN—and he pushes it under the woman’s chin. Bobby slaps the gun away and pushes the brother back. “I’m f**king warning you, Cy. Do not f**k with her.”
“This bitch has it coming and I swear to God, if this shit goes bad, she’ll be the first to get hit.”
“And you’ll be the second, brother, so use some of that control they spent all these years beating into you for once. It’s not her fault you’re in this position. It’s yours. So keep with the f**king plan and do not stray.”
The new guy is wearing all black. He looks like an assassin. Bobby said he was a soldier, but he’s still wearing a suit. He looks like a businessman.
The woman is about the same age as him, maybe mid-to-late twenties. She’s wearing a fancy dress and some brown leather boots. Only they don’t say f**k me, they say envy my credit card. Bobby leads her over to the fireplace, which has a ledge about knee-high as the hearth, and carefully urges her to sit without speaking. She’s got earbuds in her ears and the wire leads down to an MP3 player strapped to her arm like joggers wear. So she can’t see, talk, or hear. Bobby ties her feet together and then backs away.