Cath will drive home tonight and call me tomorrow from the burner phone Viktor gave her. We'll arrange the rest. Her daughter's family. The relocation.
New city, new start, Dom's money covering everything until she's settled. Lily will be safe. Cath will be safe. The Castellanos will see a fired pit boss with a grudge, not a witness who turned.
Viktor folds the list. He looks at me.
Something in his expression.
"Stokes," I say.
"Not here."
I look at the remaining staff. Sixty-odd faces, the ones who are staying, the ones who are clean. I don't need to scan them. I knew the moment Viktor called the last name without calling Stokes's.
"He was on the roster," I say.
"He was. Clocked in at six.”
The thing about a plan is that it only works if everyone does what you expect them to do.
Stokes was supposed to be on the floor. He was supposed to be standing with the rest of them, hearing his name called, being walked out the door. Instead, he's been gone for ninety minutes and no one flagged it because tonight the floor was busy with the shutdown and everyone's attention was on the exits and Stokes is a pit boss who moves freely through the building. He has a keycard to everything.
Freely through the building.
The cold starts at the base of my spine.
Stokes wasn't coerced. Stokes took money. He was willing. And Cath told me weeks ago, sitting in Viktor's office with mascara tracking down her face:They know about him. I overheard Stokes talking about 'Novikov's omega'.
"Where's Theo?" I say.
Viktor is already on his radio. "Suite twenty-three, confirm status on Holland."
Static on the radio. Then: "No answer at the door, sir."
"Open it."
I'm moving.
Viktor is beside me. His radio crackles.
"Suite is empty, sir. No sign of the occupant."
Viktor doesn't look at me. He knows what my face is doing and he's giving me the courtesy of not seeing it.
"Pull the corridor cameras," he says into the radio. "Twenty-third floor. Last forty-five minutes. Service corridors included. Now."
The doors open. We step in. Viktor presses twenty-three.
The doors close and the floor number climbs and neither of us speaks.
Viktor's phone buzzes. He answers. I can hear the voice on the other end, tinny and fast, but not the words.
"When?" Viktor says.
The voice talks.
"Which camera?"
More words.
