But this Tommy guy, I’m pretty sure his real name is Landis Fischer. And that is fucked up.
Is he the city development officer who signed off on the shell companies, who blocked Renner’s audit, and approved the property transfers that created the Rot? Is he the man who had his name on both sides of every corrupt deal that hollowed out Rothwell and killed my mother’s livelihood and the rest of the town?
If he is who I think he is, he’s in this goddamn building. He’s been eating at our table, counting our inventory, filing our paperwork. He’s been here the whole time, hiding in the oneplace nobody would look because who would suspect a crook like him would turn to the Rot?
Hiding in plain sight.
He bought this property with stolen money. When Rothwell collapsed, he came to the safest place he knew, a building buried so deep in phantom ownership that nobody could trace it. Smart. I’d respect the logic if I didn’t want to break his neck.
And he’s been talking to Mara.
I assumed it was some sort of mutual attraction. Although, he did lean toward her at the communal table with a little too much focus, too much attention, and too much interest in the new girl who happens to be best friends with the woman digging through her dead father’s papers.
He’s not making friends. He’s gathering intelligence. He wants to know what Vi has found, who she’s told, how close she is to the names in those documents.His name.
I look at the pages on the floor. The property transfer. The trade requisition. Same hand. It’s got to be the same man.
Landis Fischer has been living in the Rot under my nose for years. I’ve been running this place, managing every detail, filing every piece of information that crosses my desk, and I missed this. The man responsible for the corruption that built this building has been counting boxes in my supply room, and looking over his shoulder the whole time, hoping no one would ever figure out who he really was.
I’m not going to Vi, not yet. I’ll start with the guys, because this is a problem I actually know how to solve, and I know they’ll want in on it.
48
STING
I wake Armen first.One knock, and he’s at the door, alert, reading my face before I say a word.
“Skylight Room,” I say. “Now.”
He doesn’t ask questions. That’s Armen. He pulls on a shirt and follows.
Rogue takes more effort. Three knocks. A muffled, “what the fuck,” from inside. I open the door. He’s face down in his pillow, one arm hanging off the bed.
“Get up.”
“It’s the middle of the night.”
“I know what time it is. Skylight Room.”
He groans, rolls over, sees my face, and the groan dies. He’s up and moving in seconds. Rogue knows the difference between routine and real. This is real.
The three of us meet in the Skylight Room, door closed. I spread the pages I’ve been studying on the table—Fischer’s property transfer from the city records, Tommy’s trade requisition from last Tuesday. Side by side.
“Look at the handwriting,” I say.
Armen leans in, studies both pages, and takes his time. Rogue looks over his shoulder, squinting in the low light.
“The sevens,” Armen says.
“The sevens. The fours. The capital letters. All of it.”
Armen straightens up and looks at me. “Who wrote this?” He taps the requisition form.
“Tommy.”
Rogue frowns. “Tommy. The logistics guy?”
“Yeah.”
