Even though every cell in my body rears up, I oblige. Once blind to the world, he grabs my arm and drags me. I try to memorize the way—one left turn, straight, a heavy door creaks, then we’re going down a set of stairs. Twenty steps later, there’s a beep, then I’m hit with the stale air of a garage.
“Up,” my escort says.
Next thing I know, I’m sitting in a car, and we’re driving. After about five minutes, the car stops, and I’m hauled out. Warm air hits my exposed skin. Warm air, and the sound of a drill. Could it be the same one that’s blasting through the pavement in front of the deli? Could I have just been driven around in circles?
A short beep precedes the metallic grind of a door—I’m guessing an armored one. My escort shoves me inside. “Pull the mask off before the door shuts, and I’m allowed to blind you.”
I snort, but do as he says. The instant the balaclava’s off, I get a faceful of nicotine smoke and syrupy perfume.
“Lordy, are my eyes deceiving me? Is that you, Cook?” Lucinda Cochran—codename Custodian—blinks away from her daytime talk show, waving a hand through the cigarette haze as though to get a crisper picture of me. “Thought you’d been dispatched years ago, son.”
I tunnel my fingers through my damp locks. “No such luck.”
“Oh, honey, I was real sad when I was told you were gone. Especially after what happened to your mommy.” Smoking has roughened both her pitch and face. “I loved Charlotte.”
“Yeah.” My lungs ache at the sound of my mother’s name. “Me too.”
“Ain’t the same without her.” Lucinda gazes at me for a full minute longer. “Ain’t the same without Fox either.”
Fox, aka Quinn Hayes.
“Is her father-daughter trip going well? You got any news?”
I ball my fingers. Not only is Quinn not off on some trip with her asshole father, but if Lucinda is asking about her, that means she isn’t here either. I hadn’t put much stock in seeing my best friend today, but the notehadsaid “family reunion.”
“Hoping for some today.” I glance around at the low-ceilinged room with its wood paneling, timber floors, and leather furniture, which looks both lived-in and new. “So this is the new HQ?”
“Five years old. But I guess to you, it’s new.” She nods to the sofa she’s sitting on. “Fox reupholstered this one. She also put up the wall panels. Not much that girl can’t do.”
Even if Quinn did this renovation years ago, it’s a relief to see she didn’t let her shit-for-brains ex kill her creative streak.
“I really hope she’s getting to visit museums,” Luce says. That’s what she was most looking forward to.”
One day, she will.
“Where to, Custodian?” I ask.
Lucinda nods to the wall panel bearing a framed pencil drawing of herself puffing on a cigarette. I don’t have to check the signature on the edge of the paper to know it’s also Quinn’s work.
I move toward it.
“Knock four times,” she says.
A second later, the concealed door pops open, revealing a concrete vestibule guarded by another lieutenant dressed in head-to-toe tactical black. God, I don’t miss the uniform.
After the usual pat-down, the guy keys a code into a panel that unlatches another door.
“You’re late,” Trenton says.
“Quinn,” I snap. “Is she all right?”
“Why wouldn’t she be?” Hudson asks between noisy chews of his favorite cherry-flavored gum. The smell is as nauseating as his presence.
“Because you almost blew my cover,” I growl.
Hudson toes the empty chair beside his, angling it toward me. “Sit.”
I don’t. Not yet. “I want proof of life. Not just of life, of health.”
