Total pages in book: 113
Estimated words: 106422 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 532(@200wpm)___ 426(@250wpm)___ 355(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 106422 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 532(@200wpm)___ 426(@250wpm)___ 355(@300wpm)
“You’re doing the right thing.”
As Ajay walked out toward an exit and the night air, his phone already in hand, I considered the most important piece of information I’d learned during the conversation: Bobby had gotten into trouble bad enough in his youth that Shumi’s parents had tried to talk their daughter out of an infatuation they’d previously indulged, or at least not opposed.
I had to unearth the details of that trouble. And I had to figure out some way to discover if Bobby was alive. If Ackerson was as good as my lawyer had indicated, she had to have all his monetary resources under surveillance. But the man had been a successful businessman for a long time.
Chances were he had a cash reserve.
But he’d also have to hide himself. The media had put the faces of the three likely victims online, and he was a good-looking man, the kind of man people noticed. He might’ve done something drastic like shave off his hair, I supposed, but even then, he’d have to be careful. If I was him, I’d hide until the heat eased up and the news cycle moved on.
Where?
His businesses had moved real goods. Goods needed warehouses. Not just offices. Warehouses.
* * *
—
Three hours later, the night dead silent around me, I walked up to a large warehouse in an industrial area on the edge of the city. The company did have other warehouses in other cities, but I had no way to get to those without arousing suspicion.
I had to start here.
The entire area was dark but for the anemic street lighting, the forklifts and trucks of the various businesses parked for the night, and the lights off behind security fencing. All the fencing bore the signs of various security firms, but I didn’t see any actual guards as I walked over from where I’d parked the car some way down the street. Live guards probably weren’t worth it for most of the businesses.
But they were for Bobby’s.
I ducked back, barely avoiding the scythe of light that was the security guard’s flashlight as he patrolled the Elektrik Ninja warehouse.
“Come on, boy!”
A huff of sound, then four feet scrambling behind him.
A dog? The security guard had a fucking dog?
Anxiety was a twisting snake in my gut. I could talk my way in and out of most situations, but I was no expert at breaking and entering. And I certainly wasn’t good enough to avoid both a live guard and his canine companion.
On the flip side, would Bobby hide out in a place as secure as this? He’d have as hard a time slipping in and out without being spotted. Or maybe he wasn’t slipping out at all, had prepared everything he needed before the massacre of his family, and was just hunkered down in a space to which no one else had the key?
Could be he’d kept an office in there that none of his warehouse managers could enter.
I stood paralyzed in the shadows, trying to figure out my next step. If only Ackerson could see me now.
Paranoia had me spinning around, searching for any hint of a tail. Would Ackerson do that? Just tail a random suspect as Baxter had tailed me so many times, an obsessive presence hovering on the edges of my life? If she was doing it, she was a ghost. Nothing moved nearby, and I’d glimpsed not even a hint of another vehicle on the road behind me when I’d parked.
Maybe your car is bugged, said the part of me that had learned to watch my back.
If it was, they might know I was lurking around the business, but what would that get them? Nothing.
Metal clanged, a gate was scraped back. A minute later and powerful headlights speared the night. I sank deeper into the shadows as a van trundled out. It emerged right under a streetlight, so I saw the doggy face hanging out one side, tongue lolling.
The dog saw me, too. Or scented me. It barked.
The security guard grumbled something at the dog that quieted it before jumping out and going to close and lock up the gate. He was back in his car a minute later, the red of his rear lights soon vanishing into the distance.
Not a full-time guard, just one who did the rounds at various properties.
It was possible he’d be back again sometime tonight, so I had to be fast if I was going to do this. And at some point in the last quarter of an hour of standing here, I’d apparently decided I was—because I was moving before I’d consciously processed the decision.
The gate was heavily padlocked, but I’d figured on that. It wasn’t as if the fence had barbed wire on top—it was basic chain link. Climbable. Even if I was caught on security cameras, all they’d see was a figure in jeans, their face shadowed by a black hoodie with no branding or markings to make it stand out, and covered by a disposable face mask I’d grabbed from the hospital.