He is.
Across the room, the air conditioner turns on, a loud clank and whirr that startles us both. Time stands still, and I wonder if this will be the moment I remember for the rest of my life, the moment I failed to save Brian, never learned who he truly is or what he is really about, out of fear of him discovering whoIam. My whole body goes cold at the thought—or maybe from the frigid air pouring in from the AC unit.
“I have to find him.”
“Don’t worry.” Victoria tosses the phone to the bed. Her back is straight, rigid, as if she’s already assessed the situation and chosen a course of action. “I’m no fool. The moment I suspected him of something, I took measures.”
“Measures?”
“Let him think he’s the keeper of secrets, the one who knows everything. That sort of arrogance lets men feel they are untouchable. Which makes them easy to take advantage of.” She digs into the same purse, pulls out a small laptop. Victoria carries it to the desk, flips it open. As she connects to wi-fi, I pull out my own phone to find a single message from John:Working on it. Going to take a while.
“Here you go.”
I jerk my head up to look at where she points at the computer screen. A map. An address.
“What is this?” I crowd in closer, our elbows brushing.
“I don’t trust my husband,” she says as though that explains it all. “So I put a tracking app on his phone. The fact that he—someonelike him—hasn’t noticed, says a lot.” She smiles. “I’d go with you, but unfortunately, I avoid danger instead of running toward it.”
I could argue—she marriedIan, the most dangerous person I know. But instead I whip out one of my events planning cards. They’re only for show, but people expect you to have a business card. “If you ever need to get a hold of me, this is my number. Thank you. Really.”
She accepts it without a word. Gives me a moment to record Ian’s location, then goes through his bag and pulls out a few items—including a gun—and gives me a wave as she flees the room, going…wherever she’s headed. Home? To her child? Will she allow Ian to come back if I don’t kill him, or will she kill him herself? Maybe they’ll disappear. It’s probably what I would do if the situation were reversed.
But it’s not. The situation is that I must rescue Brian. And in doing so, I’ll be showing him my true colors—every last one of them.
Chapter Forty-Seven
I’m in the minivan, checkingin with Piper, who has learned of the wonder/horror that is the kid’s showCocomelon. Assured the girls are happy and that Piper is (mostly) maintaining her sanity, I’m able to focus on the task at hand.
For the first time since Brian got his shiny BMW, I wish I’d followed suit and gotten something a little flashier, a little faster—but I have to make do with what I have, and so I speed down the freeway in my mom-mobile, nearing a hundred miles per hour and hoping for the best.
The industrial part of town is busy today, but I don’t wait in traffic; instead, I whip through alleyways, jerk the wheel to avoid hitting dumpsters, pretend that the suspension in my van can handle the bumps, and narrowly miss T-boning two other cars.
I squeak to a halt outside the white-and-orange storage facility. A U-Haul truck creeps by, and two women with a dolly cross from the back of their pickup into a side door. It’s the same building I need access to.
I hurry from the van and race across the black asphalt, risking my fingers to catch the door just before it slams shut. Inside, it’ssuddenly dark, cavernous, and the climate control chills the sweat clinging to my skin. I take a breath and listen. Women’s voices, growing distant, thebrrrringof the elevator, shuffling as they step inside.
Then I’m alone in the frigid emptiness. The hallway extends seemingly into the infinite, the overhead lights dim, turning on only when they catch movement below, leaving everything shrouded in darkness. But I know what’s there—another dozen units, followed by a hallway that extends either way, then more storage, followed by another hall. A third passageway encircles the outside, creating basically a small track. Hell, I could run here when it’s too hot outside. Each floor is a carbon copy of this one—except, perhaps, for Ian’s unit on the third floor. I imagine no one else has apersonbehind their rolling door. Nor the tools he stores there for when he’s in this part of the country or heading south to Mexico.
The first time I came here was after too many drinks and a successful job where Ian and I nearly got killed—but somehow made it out alive andnotin the back of a cop car. We were high on triumph, on life. He’d wanted to show off, and the space overflowed with weapons. The sort that are definitely not legal but so utterly effective in our line of work. The poison is what surprised me most—he’s more thechop their head off with a machetesort rather than the kind to poison their tea and smile pleasantly as they fall asleep and never wake up. Or maybe it wasn’tthatsort of poison he offhandedly mentioned—maybe it was the far worse kind, the variety that leaves you bleeding from your orifices.
I cringe at the thought. Hopefully, Brian’s still alive and I won’t find him on the floor of the storage unit having ingested something awful, his insides on the outside. The other option is that Ian brought Brian here to torture him, though I’m not sure why he’d waste the time. I shudder—from that thought, or maybe thecool air—and step forward. Simultaneously, the light flickers on overhead, illuminating my exact location.
It’s unnerving.
I remember to silence my phones, then approach the elevator, almost expecting Ian to appear out of thin air. Like he knows I’m coming. Like this is a trap.
It hits me that it’s possible Victoria was actually waiting for me—that Ian went home exclusively to retrieve her, to have her point me in the wrong direction, or worse, point me toward an ambush. That maybe she’s working alongside Ian, and that he knew I wouldn’t really kill her.
Except he couldn’t have known that. Because if the situation were different, I would have, without a second thought.
A set of stairs sits to one side of the elevator, and I push through the door. It really wouldn’t make sense for Ian to set me up—I’m not his enemy. Or at least I wasn’t until today.
Up, up, up I climb, pausing at the top of the final staircase to catch my breath. A narrow window gives me a view of the third floor. It’s dark, like no one’s here, no one to activate the lights. Or someone has cut the power. Perhaps they are in a unit, the door closed, not setting off the motion sensors.
I pull out my gun and ease open the door from the stairwell to the third floor.
Nothing.
