Marco chuckled, and slid my record into a paper bag before giving it to me. “Sure.”
“I mean it. It’s not like that.”
“And I meant it when I said sure,” Marco replied with a knowing look.
I gave up, and so did Aiden. It didn’t matter anyway.
We stepped outside into the night air, the door chiming behind us. The street was quieter now, with only a few cars passing at the far end of the block.
“I’ll take you back to the arena to get your truck.”
But Aiden didn’t move to the passenger side of my car. Instead, he held out his hand.
“Keys,” he said.
I looked at his waiting hand then back at him. “I know she’s a piece of shit, but nobody drives my car. I brought us here; I’m more than capable of finding my way back to the—”
“I don’t wanna go to the arena just yet.”
I held onto my keys and studied his face closely. “Then where?”
His answer was to curl his fingers, patiently waiting for me to hand over my driving rights. Curiosity burned stronger than my rule to never let anyone else behind the wheel.
“Fine,” I said, and dropped the keys into his waiting palm.
9
Aiden
“Are you gonna tell me what this is, or should I start thinking about an emergency exit strategy?”
I kept my eyes on the narrow drive between rows of corrugated metal doors and killed the engine. Sodium lights threw a dull wash across the asphalt. The place always looked abandoned at this hour, which was exactly why I liked it.
“If I answered that,” I said, stepping out and locking the car, “it’ll defeat the purpose.”
She circled around the hood, arms folded against the bite in the night air. “You brought me to a storage facility. This is either deeply boring or deeply psychotic.”
“Have some faith.”
“In you?”
“That would be a good place to start.” I started walking, and Sage hurried to keep up.
“You do realize this is how a lot of documentaries begin?”
“Relax,” I said. “I left my ski mask at home.”
She exhaled a quiet laugh that worked its way up my spine. Thank God she couldn’t tell.
The facility was a grid. Identical doors. Identical locks. Fluorescent lights that flickered overhead with all the warmth of a hospital hallway. I wove through two rows, then cut down a third. I could feel her watching everything, cataloging exits, distances, the rhythm of my stride.
“You should at least give me a category,” she called ahead. “Crime of passion? Financial ruin? Secret second family?”
“You watch too much TV.”
“On a night like tonight, I think TV’s gonna be the thing that saves me.”
We reached the far corner where the units backed up against a chain-link fence. Mine was halfway down, wedged between someone’s forgotten furniture and a door with a new lock that probably guarded nothing but holiday decorations.
