He grunted and pointed at a corner of the clean but mostly bare room. I gasped because the security camera had been ripped from the wall and hung there by a cord. RJ headed toward the old freight elevator, which was the only thing of interest in the lobby.
“It’s locked,” I said, taking out my key, but when he reached the control panel, he pushed the call button and the doors creaked open, painfully slow as usual. I’d asked the mayor, Vane Elwood, who owned the building, to replace the elevator with something that wasn’t installed sometime in the sixties more than once, but he just kept telling me it was “on the list,” whatever that meant. I stared as my entire body felt like it liquified and drained out into the center of the earth. “What the fuck?”
RJ turned to study me with a frown. “At least with the camera down, they won’t know we’re here, either.”
“They who?” I asked faintly.
He shook his head, and I felt even dumber than I already had. He knew something I didn’t. When we got inside the elevator, I punched the number for Beaulieu and the car went up a couple of levels, then made a horrible clunking sound and stopped. I whined and gripped RJ’s arm embarrassingly tight as the floor tilted to the left and stayed there.
I groaned.
He glared at me.
“The building is a rental. Don’t look at me that way.” I stuck out my tongue at him.
“Has it done this before?” he asked, gesturing around.
“No,” I grumbled. “Usually it just sounds near death.”
He nodded and glanced upward toward the repair panel in the corner of the ceiling, and I was already shaking my head as he reached up, since he was so tall, and easily pushed the small door open. The metalclankedonto the other side as it fell. The elevator shaft was an inky void beyond.
“Nope.” I said, backing away toward a corner, but an awful crackling sound echoed out in the shaft, and RJ’s eyes widened. There was a strange whistlingwhoosh.
“Come here.” RJ tried out a smile on me, but I was too close to a panic attack to be able to do the same in return. “Haven’t you ever heard of elevator surfing? You’re going to get on top. This building is old, so there should be a manual release to let me open the door above us. Simple.” He stowed his gun back in the holster under his suit jacket.
“Assuming you can reach it!” I shook my head harder because the last thing in the world I wanted to do was move.
“I’m pretty tall. We’ll reach it. Come on. We’re not waiting.” He gestured with a small wave, obviously wanting me to come closer.
“What do you think you’re going to do?” I scrabbled at the rusty metal walls on either side of me but couldn’t find a good handhold.
“Hoist you up, then pull myself up.” He shrugged.
After a long minute of him glaring, I gingerly walked over. “I’m not an athlete.”
He cupped his hands and ducked down. “Just put your foot here and I’ll get you up there.” He gazed upward.
Sighing, I rolled my neck and nodded, doing as he asked. I felt like I was flying as he lifted me, and my entire body flushed warm when my crotch brushed against his face, but then I was contending with grabbing the metal sides of the elevator roof and dragging my body upward. It wasn’t as easy as he’d made it sound. I was sweating by the time I sat on my ass on the ledge with my feet dangling.
“Move over. Watch out for the metal rope in the center. You don’t want to touch it.”
“You say this like you’ve been in an elevator shaft before,” I grumped, my voice echoing strangely. I glanced up into the darkness and it was the most amazing and horrible thing I’d ever seen.
He chuckled. “I’ve done a lot of things in my life.”
I pulled my feet up to get out of his way and turned on my phone light, then immediately searched for the elevator door as I stood. Thankfully we weren’t too far away from the next level, and I could almost reach the bottom of the door, so he definitely would be able to make it. I turned and held in a gasp as my heart started to patter at a million miles per hour. The metal rope that held the elevator car had clearly been cut, almost in half, and as I stared that strange noise happened again and a few more wires snapped and unfurled, leaving a frayed horror show in front of me.
There was grunting and rocking as RJ hoisted himself up onto the roof, and I squeaked, not able to get out real words as another wire snapped and the elevator shifted to the right. RJ huffed as he got to his feet next to me, then bent to flip the trap door in place so we had a solid floor under us. When he straightened and grunted like he’d been punched, I knew he’d spotted our predicament.
“RJ,” I whispered with a harsh exhale of breath.
“Elevators have emergency brakes,” he said at once. He dragged me into his arms like he would be able to keep me safe if the whole thing plunged to our doom.
“Ones this old? Built in the sixties and barely maintained?”
He shrugged and I felt it since he had me cradled so close. “You always take the elevator when you come and go?”
I nodded numbly.
