“That explains the hair.” The tape snapped free. He shook out his fingers and shot to his feet. “How did you know where to find me?”
“The security footage at Ramón’s garage. We saw the men who kidnapped you, and we traced them here.”
“Those guys are carjackers, V! If they find you here, they’ll kill you. And iftheydon’t, your cousin will when he finds out you came here to look for me!”
“A simple thank-you would have sufficed.” They were nose to nose, jaws set and faces close, the tension palpable between them.
“I found it!” Neither one of them looked up as I waved the key to the Aston.
A voice boomed through the garage. “Why don’t I hear any tools? I’ve got four cars out back that need to be stripped and out the door by midnight! Which one of you assholes ordered pizza?”
Javi positioned himself between Vero and the door. “It’s Hector. We need to get out of here.”
I pointed out a metal grate high on the wall. “What about the vent?”
Javi moved the chair, climbing up to study it. “The screws are all stripped.” He reached above his head and gave one of the ceiling tiles a push. It lifted off its frame and he shoved it aside, revealing a maze of ductwork and wires. “Come on,” he said, using the desk to boost himself higher. Vero climbed up after him as he disappeared into the ceiling.
“Will it hold our weight?” I called up as loudly as I dared. “Be very careful how you answer that,” I warned Vero before she could utter a reply.
“There are steel crossbeams every fifteen feet or so,” Javi called down. He reached for my hand. “Stay on the beams. You’ll be fine.” With a grunt, he hauled me up into the ceiling with them and nested the ceiling tile back in its frame, covering our tracks.
Vero turned on her phone light, and I suddenly felt sick. We were standing side by side on a beam no wider than my feet, no less than fifteen feet above a concrete floor, with nothing below us but a sea of ceiling tiles made of foam. I clutched Vero’s hand as Javi maneuvered carefully around us to take the lead. He lost his balance and overcorrected, pinwheeling to right himself. Vero whispered something that sounded like a prayer. The walls swam, and I dropped down on all fours, my breathing shallow as I gripped the edges of the dusty metal.
“See those pipes?” Javi said in a strained voice. He pointed at some dripping copper lines on the far wall. “They probably lead to a bathroom. We can climb down and wait inside it until the coast is clear.”
Vero nodded. Steadying her breathing, she put one foot in front of the other, her arms stretched out beside her. “Easy,” she said, a laugh trembling out of her. “Like dodging Legos in the playroom.”
This was nothing like stepping on a Lego. If we stepped on a Lego, we weren’t going to die. Rusty grit and cold metal cut through the knees of my jeans as I inched after her. Water dripped somewhere close. “Are we almost there?” I asked, disoriented by the sudden shift of her phone light.
“There’s a vertical beam about five feet ahead of us,” Vero said. “You’re going to have to stand up.”
“Why?”
“It’s the only way around it.”
I glanced up to see Javi gripping both sides of the square column. He sucked in a sharp breath as he threw one leg around it, then the other, teetering as he spread his arms wide again to regain his balance. I felt like I was watching a low-budget episode ofSquid Gameas Vero followed, taking his hand and letting him swing her to the other side of the column.
Her phone slipped from her fingers. She lunged to catch it. I gasped as her foot left the beam. Javi grabbed her hand as she fell, muscles straining in his forearm as he struggled to keep hold of her. One of her shoes punched through the foam tile below her, sending it crashing to the floor of the room underneath us.
A shout echoed from the garage. The music stopped. Power tools wound down as if they’d all suddenly been shut off. A booming voice carried through the ceiling tiles. “He’s not in the office! Find him!”
Javi hauled Vero up beside him, sending a shower of foam dust and bits of tile to the floor.
“Up there!” someone shouted.
I curled in on myself, hands over my ears as bullets rained through the ceiling, pinging into the ductwork, dust motes swirling through the rays of light that sliced the air around me.
“I’m gettingsotired of being shot at!” A ceiling tile collapsed to my left. A flashlight beam cut through the resulting hole.
Someone shouted, “It’s that pizza delivery chick! I can’t get a clean shot from here. I’m going up!”
Javi reached around the column, urging me to take his hand. “Come on, Finlay! We have to move!”
I pushed myself to my feet, feeling much higher than I had a moment ago, when I couldn’t see the floor.
“Don’t look down,” he warned me.
But I already had. I gripped the column, unable to tear my gaze from the gaping hole below me. The blue tarp beneath it was covered in tile dust.
