That thought flashed through Anja’s head as she and Leo moved along the exterior of the gym with quiet efficiency, their footsteps muted, their flashlights kept low.The building sat too cleanly on the lot with new signage, fresh paint, and glass that gleamed under the streetlights.It looked respectable and harmless.Parents would drop off their kids without a second thought, never questioning what lay beneath.
That was always the trick.Make it ordinary.Make it safe.
Which was exactly why her skin crawled.
“People who traffic children don’t improvise,” Anja said quietly, scanning the foundation line.“They plan.They build systems.”
Leo nodded, jaw tight.“They wouldn’t risk cameras and certainly no witnesses.”
“Or daylight.”
She crouched near the back corner, running her light along the concrete.There were no obvious access points, cellar doors, or exterior stairwells.If there was a way in, it wasn’t here.
That didn’t mean it didn’t exist.
Absence, she’d learned, was rarely an accident.
Her thoughts slid uninvited to case files she wished she could forget.Homes with fake walls.Businesses with back rooms that didn’t show up on blueprints.Respectable façades that hid hell underneath fluorescent lighting, smiling while they swallowed people whole.
“This place used to be owned by villains who hid kids under people’s feet,” she murmured.“There’s a way in.It’s just not obvious.”
Leo exhaled sharply.“So where do we look?”
Anja straightened and pulled out her phone.“We think laterally.”
She dialed Tyler, hating that she would wake him up but doing so anyway.She paced as the call connected.“I need you to run a property search on the former owners of this gym.Everything from shell companies, to LLCs, to adjacent properties, anything that changed hands quietly.”
“On it,” Tyler said without hesitation.“Give me two minutes.”
She hung up and scanned the surrounding block with fresh eyes.Businesses were closed for the night.There was a vacant storefront, a nail salon, and a small auto shop with afor salesign leaning crookedly in the window, as if it had been forgotten on purpose.Forgotten things were her specialty.
Her instincts sharpened.
Vehicles came and went.Nobody questioned grease stains or late-night access.Nobody blinked at trucks pulling in after hours, at doors opening when they shouldn’t.
The phone buzzed.
“Got something,” Tyler said.“They owned another property close by.Auto business.Different name, same financial trail.It was listed for sale six months ago, the same time the gym hit the market.”
Anja closed her eyes briefly.“Of course it did.”
Leo followed her gaze.“You thinking what I’m thinking?”
“Drain pits,” she said.“Below-grade access.Easy to conceal and modify.”
They crossed the short distance without another word.
The business was dark, the interior lit only by streetlights bleeding through dusty windows.Anja jimmied the door quickly.There was no alarm and no resistance.That made her think that someone had been coming and going recently.
Inside, the air smelled of oil and old metal.She swept the space methodically until her light caught the pit.Long, narrow, and recessed into the concrete floor where mechanics would normally stand to drain oil out of engines.
She dropped down carefully, boots landing with a dull echo.
“Anja,” Leo warned softly.
“I’m good,” she said, though her pulse had kicked up.She ran her light along the pit walls.
There.
