TWENTY-THREE
Decima
I layawake on my cot long after I’d supposedly turned in for the night. The men had made a show of turning off all but the dim security light that shone over the front door and heading toward their own bedrooms, but I hadn’t believed their act for a second. They were just dodging any more questions I might have asked.
It might have been two hours or maybe three when my perked ears caught the faintest rustle of movement in the main room. I retrieved my new phone from where I’d stashed it under my pillow tonight and slunk to the door. There, I eased it open the slightest crack.
The four cops had already gathered near the entrance. They weren’t talking, just equipping themselves with a few last weapons—Talon tucked a pistol out of sight by his waist; Blaze checked a holster strapped to his calf and then tugged his pantleg over it. Julius stood closest to the door.
The flip phone was an old model, but it still had basic camera functions. I pressed the button to zoom the screen in as much as it’d allow me, just as Julius reached to tap in the lock code. He didn’t bother to hide it now, since he had no idea I was watching. Most people wouldn’t have been able to pick out the numbers he’d pressed at that angle in the dim light, but my well-honed eyes translated the movements into a sequence I immediately memorized.
It was far from the first code I’d had to stealthily obtain, and I doubted it’d be the last.
As soon as I’d seen that, I let my door ease all the way shut again. No point in risking them noticing the tiny gap when I didn’t need to.
I sat on the floor next to the door with my ear tipped close. There were a few more rustling sounds, and then the soft click of the door shutting behind them. I waited several more minutes to be sure they didn’t unexpectedly come right back. Then I nudged my bedroom door carefully open and slipped out into the main room.
There was no sign of any of them. I checked each of their bedrooms to be sure, getting whiffs of their varying scents that brought a tendril of heat into my belly alongside my eager anticipation.
Tonight, I was going to get some real answers.
I ducked back into my room to stuff my remaining cash and the phone into my pockets. I’d need both out there in the big bad world sooner or later, depending on what I ran into on the way.
My reaching hands hesitated over my tote bag. The stuffed tiger’s worn head poked out the top.
Part of me wanted to snatch it up, but that was ridiculous. I couldn’t bring it along on a mission. Even if I’d had a bag that wouldn’t get in the way, there’d still be a small chance of it throwing me off balance or snagging in a tight space.
We go into every mission with just the bare bones,Noelle used to say. That way we can stay focused on what we really need and what’s really important.
What the hell did I want a toy for anyway? I might be back. And if I wasn’t, oh well.
But for some silly reason, a weird pang shot through my chest as I stood up and walked away from it.
I didn’t like going out unarmed, but the sharpest thing I could find in the kitchen was a dinner knife. Did the guys just never use anything sharper with their food or had they hidden them all after I’d arrived? I frowned at it, and then my gaze slid toward the sofa.
There was a different kind of weapon here.
With a wry smile, I marched over to Talon’s knitting bag and dug out a spare needle. I could wield that more effective than the blunt knife. He could get a little satisfaction from knowing I’d taken his comments to heart even if the theft annoyed him.
Tucking the needle into my pocket, where a few inches of it still protruded, I strode over to the front door and typed in the code. The bolt thudded over in an instant. Another smile sprang to my face, my triumph washing away any lingering uneasiness about what I was leaving behind.
The short hall outside held only an elevator, no entrance to a stairway that I could see. That seemed like one hell of a fire hazard, but I wasn’t here to complain about how up to code the building was. I pressed the button to summon the elevator.
It whirred to a halt, and the doors parted. When I stepped in, my first time riding it without a blindfold, I noted the rows of buttons on the righthand side. Fourteen floors. I’d estimated well.
But none of them were lit up, and the little screen over the door that usually would have shown the current floor was blank. Interesting. Another mystery I didn’t have time to investigate now.
There were a couple of underground levels for a parking garage, but I didn’t know how to find the guys’ secret passage that most likely involved a subway tunnel. The main entrance should work just fine. I hit the button for the lobby.
As the elevator descended, the carpeted floor under my feet thrummed. I shifted my weight, staying limber and on guard.
There were an awful lot of things I didn’t know in my current situation, but that was okay. I’d get through it. I had an address, and I knew at least a few of the people I expected to see there. I’d completed plenty of assignments with no more information than that.
There was nothing all that impressive about the lobby the elevator let me out into. The paisley-print carpet looked clean, the glass doors that led out past the mailboxes to the street unsmudged, but it didn’t hold the same sense of wealth that the household’s mansion did. It actually reminded me more of my own rooms in that house: simple and practical but well-made and maintained. Somehow that brought back the pang in my gut.
I was going to avenge all those lives lost. Tonight might be my first step to really achieving that vengeance.
As I pushed past the outer door, the night air washed over me, refreshingly cool but tinged with the familiar reek of gasoline and tar you couldn’t escape down here on the street. No wonder the guys liked their rooftop deck.