I slip in.
The office smells like paper, ink, and leather. A bulletin board on the far wall is crowded — names, photos, a couple of maps, including one of Ironwood Falls with pins marked in it, all calling out club resources, safe houses, storage facilities. There’s a desk with stacks of invoices and a ledger that looks like it’s been handled a thousand times.
I pull my phone out, quick and practiced, screen dimmed low.
One shot of the board.
Click.
A second shot, this one close enough to catch the names in the top corner.
Click.
The map, the photos — they all get captured by my camera.
Then I angle toward the desk, snapping a photo of the ledger’s open page, of business in Ironwood Falls, of names of people that Molly probably knows.
Click.
I move in closer, look it over, note the businesses, the contacts, the income, the expenses, and take photo after photo. I open the desk drawers, find a stack of papers, including a schematic of the clubhouse and its security systems, and spread them all out.
The schematic — the heart of the operation. I stare at it longer than I should.
This is for June.
I photograph it quickly, and then set the papers back in the drawer exactly as I found them.
Then I step back into the hallway, shutting the door behind me with a quiet click.
I head back down the hallway toward the garage, and I’m halfway there when a shadow enters the hallway in front of me, coming from one of the rooms marked PRIVATE.
My whole body goes still.
Bishop fills the space in front of me. He doesn’t step in. He doesn’t have to. He’s broad-shouldered, calm, and his eyes are sharp in a way that makes the hairs on my arms lift.
“What’re you doing back here?” he says.
I let out a breath like I’m irritated to even be asked. “Trying to find the damn breaker box. Figured I’d see if I could fix the fucking thing and save you all the trouble.”
“Which brought you all the way back here? You shouldn’t be back here, Evan. You lost?” he says.
I do a one-shoulder shrug. “Building’s a maze. Half your doors are labeled like you’re hiding gold bars. All I want to do is look at your fucking electricals. See if I can make myself useful after you all helped me out with this roofing job.”
“Those doors are labeled that way so people don’t wander,” he says. “People who wander find trouble.”
“Yeah? Is Mayhem back here? Cause I thought he was in the clubhouse.”
Bishop’s eyes flicker. It’s a tiny movement, but it’s the kind that says he’s not buying the act.
“What door did you open?” He says.
I glance back down the hallway and give a half-hearted shrug. With someone like Bishop, who seems to have a functional bullshit-meter, lying isn’t going to do me any good. Honesty with a layer of lies is the way to go. “One with the words PRIVATE on it. Thought it might’ve had the breaker box in it. Turns out it was just some office.”
Bishop stares at me for a long second. The silence stretches, thick and tense, and I can hear my breathing like it’s too loud in my skull.
Finally, he steps aside — just enough to give me room.
“Breaker box is in the maintenance closet. It’s three doors down on the right,” he says.
