I consider her a moment, the fake niceness I’d walked in there with slowly waning. “Merchandise,” I say plainly.
She scoffs. “Take your mask down, and I’ll tell you what I know.”
I don’t like it.
I don’t want to.
I could easily just hop over the counter and grab her by the throat to make her talk, but something inside has me hesitating to hurt her, to force her to talk.
Still, the scars on her hands and face tell me maybe she’s been through enough.
And if I find out she’s one of their snitches, well…
That’s for future Gemma to deal with.
I glance up at the camera again, seeing the wires cut around it and covered in cobwebs, then peer back to the lanyard around her neck.
Claudia.
I’ve played this game enough times to know when someone is lying to me.
I memorize the name as I meet her gaze again, and this time, I slowly pull my mask down.
Claudia blinks, straightening slightly. “Wow. I did not expect… You’re very pretty to be someone’s henchman,” she says, gaze wandering over me.
“A girl’s got to make a living,” I say before sliding my mask back up, eager to hide behind it. “Do you know where they are?”
She shakes her head. “I don’t. They didn’t pay the last three months rent, then tried to break the lease and not pay the fine. Every month they’d promise the money was coming, and then it never did. I was in the process of getting a court-order eviction, and the day I went to post it on their door, I found the lock cracked, and the entire apartment was in disarray. It looked like they’d packed up in the middle of the night. Only essentials.”
“What did you do with the things they left?” I ask, hopeful that she has it stashed for some reason.
“Paid a couple of guys from a homeless shelter to clean it out, told them they could sell or keep whatever they wanted.”
Shit.
Fucking dead end.
She takes another drag on her joint, and the blood flowing through me seems to slow at the way she’s watching me.
“You’re quick to talk about them,” I choose to say.
“I don’t owe those boys anything after the state they left their place in, or the girls and friends they used to bring home at all hours of the night. You think you’re the first person who’s come in here looking for them?” She shakes her head and shuffles a couple of papers around. “Not hardly.”
Girls… Friends…
I swear to fuck if they used to bring girls here for Damien—
“Can I see the apartment?” I ask.
She chuckles. “You think you’ll find something after three years? You think you’re a detective or something?”
“I represent interested parties,” I lie.
Except the only interested party is me, and this little exchange is starting to get on my nerves.
“Sorry. The current tenant pays his rent on time and stays out of trouble. I don’t really want someone going in and spooking him,” she replies.
I glance toward the end of the hall where the elevator is. Only five floors, four apartments on each one. A place like this would never be without the insurance of video footage, especially if she’s accustomed to people coming in searching for her tenants.
