“I really hope we don’t have to call the fire department to get him out of there,” Cassie said.
“That would definitely blow our cover,” Jagger agreed.
We headed for the back of the warehouse, hunting for the stairs, and found them a minute later behind a door marked Stairwell.
I held open the door, then followed Jagger and Cassie through.
The concrete stairwell was dark and claustrophobic, the gray walls seeming to close in on us as we climbed the stairs.
Vigo was waiting, bat in hand, when we emerged into a large room on the third floor.
The elevator stood open at the center of the lobby, and he flashed us a grin. “Suckers.”
I flipped him off before turning my attention to the room. It had been a lobby once, the sheetrock now full of holes, carpet stained and smelling of mildew. A desk stood at one end of the room, tilting crazily thanks to three missing legs. Several rusty chrome chairs were turned over in the space, stuffing emerging from their rough blue upholstery.
On one wall, a cheap print of a forest hung sideways from a single remaining nail.
A broken window looked out over the back of the building, long ild grass stretching to the Blackwell River glinting through the trees.
“What’s up?” Jagger asked Cassie.
She seemed frozen, her gaze sweeping the room.
“I’ve definitely been here before,” she said. “I remember this.”
“Really?” Jagger asked.
She nodded. “Come on. I think I remember my dad’s office.”
51
CASSIE
It was weird,remembering something you didn’t really remember. Like grasping at a dream right after you wake up, some of the details barely there but already fading.
I thought I remembered the picture of the trees on the wall in the lobby, the blue chairs lined up instead of askew, a gray-haired women with glasses behind the desk with one leg.
I remembered the window too, remembered standing on tiptoe to look outside at the river, more visible because in my memory it was winter and most of the trees had lost their leaves.
“This is some spooky shit,” Jagger said as we made our way down the hall.
“I’m glad we came during the day,” I said.
Because it was spooky for me too.
I counted the doors according to Anna’s direction, but it wasn’t really necessary. I felt pulled toward my dad’s old office like… well, like a mouse hunting for cheese.
We stepped into it — fourth office on the right, just like Anna had said — and I was hit with another wave of memories.
My dad sitting behind a big desk, looking huge and handsome in a blue button-down shirt, the sleeves rolled up to reveal his forearms, dark eyes warm behind his glasses.
There had been a potted treeing the corner next to the window and two chairs in front of the desk, nicer than the blue ones in the lobby, and kind of wooden shelving unit had stood behind the deck.
“This is it,” I said. “I remember.”
The only thing left was the desk, probably too big for the average squatter to move. It wasn’t broken like the one in the lobby, but its wood surface was scarred with carvings.
H + B Forever.
