Walker’s laughter doubles in volume on the speaker. Before I can reply, Jansen hops out of the back of the van, making his escape back into the winter night.
Jansen continues his streak of ridiculousness, and it takes me longer than it should to realize he’s trying to keep our moods up. Not that hovering somewhere between annoyed and frustrated with the man is typically fun for me. But once I see what he’s up to, I laugh more than grumble when he steals Walker’s hat and throws it on the roof, or when he fakes dropping an armful of blackmail not once, not twice, but three times on the same trip down the stairs.
Tonight might be important, but it’s not what’s dangerous. That comes tomorrow. We might as well laugh while we still can.
By the time they empty all the spaces, I’m feeding the second stack of paper through my newly adapted OCR scanning software, slowly collecting the phone numbers helpfully penciled into the directory. Type A villains are officially my favorite.
I glance at the drone as Walker bumps into Jansen from behind, lifting the keys to the truck from Jansen. Jansen cackles, while Walker demands an exchange of the keys for his hat back on his head. The most surprising part of the lift, though, is that we’re all laughing, giving in to the ridiculousness Jansen’s forcing on us.
“This is supposed to be fun. Otherwise, why are we doing it?” he says as he clambers onto the roof. I can think of adozen reasons why we’re doing this that have nothing to do with fun, but I get where he’s coming from.
It hasn’t been fun, not for months. It’s been heavy, suffocating, tinged with fear and grief. But if tomorrow goes the way we hope, maybe it could be fun again. Maybe we’ll have years of Jansen making us laugh when we get too serious.
And that eventuality is something I’m looking forward to—I can’t last much longer the way things have been. It’s not sustainable.
And I’m not the only one who’s feeling it.
Fun might just be the right goal to aim for, assuming tomorrow goes well.
Until then, I’m prepping for frozen fingers and fear.
Because while tonight has shaped up to be fun, there’s no way tomorrow will be anything but torture.
Chapter 52
Jansen
The last unit had very little to clear out. Walker said it looked like a photography studio, which makes no sense, but whatever. We loaded up the big lights and expensive cameras along with all the blackmail and medical supplies before I headed toward the boonies.
RJ and Walker went home, just in case everything goes to shit and their tail has to account for their time. (Sneaking out the back of a movie theater is substantially easier than sneaking back in, but luckily, I taught them well.)
So now I’m on a lonely road, heading to another address RJ found. They weren’t happy sending me alone, but when it comes down to it, I’m invisible to our enemy right now, so we should take advantage of that.
Back a lifetime ago, when we were down in Mexico planning how this might work out, Trips had mentioned this place. He didn’t want to share much about it,though, only saying that it’s terrible and he hoped that we’d never have a reason to visit it.
It turns out it was under a shell company tied through some crazy hoops to the blackmail locker, which makes all of us nervous about what I’m going to find out here. Only the blackmail unit and this cabin were isolated from the other shell companies, so it’s probably more than a terrible place. It’s got to be something much worse.
I drive past what has to be the entrance three times in the dark before I’m sure I’m in the right spot. But still, I stop a ways down the street and dodge through the trees on foot so I can check the first bit of the path for a camera. I don’t find one, so I guess we’re lucky on that front. Once I climb back into the truck, I call RJ on Bluetooth as I turn down the abandoned-looking road.
“What do you see?” he asks without a greeting.
“Nothing yet. This place is so off the grid, it’s nearly invisible. I’m not sure the truck is going to make it, if I’m honest.” I hit a rut under the snow and lurch half out of my seat. “Yikes.”
“What?” There’s a hint of panic in his tone, and I’m quick to calm him.
“I just hit a bump, that’s all.”
I keep driving into the unknown, the white of my headlights making the snow glow and the trees look like monstrous arms welcoming me to hell. “Trips wasn’t wrong. This place is creepy.”
“Once you can see where you’re headed, make sure you stop before a camera catches you.”
“I know, I know,” I mutter, barely making a curve in the road, the tail end of the truck slipping out behind me. Inching around another turn, I note the trees thinning up ahead.
“I’m hopping out.”
“Stay hidden. We don’t know if this place is staffed.”
I try not to roll my eyes, but then I figure nobody is here to see me being a brat, so I do it anyway. “No worries, dude.”
