“We’ll check the back,” Eli said, his SUV crawling down the deserted street.
He turned into the side alley that curved behind the building, leading to the loading bays. Each silver garage-style door was lowered and locked shut—except the one numbered 417. Eli parked the SUV by the stairs to the bay.
“Stay behind me,” he said before he got out.
“I know the drill,” I said. I wasn’t an idiot. I could learn from my mistakes.
“And this time you’ll listen?” he pressed.
“Promise,” I said, injecting more confidence into my tone than I felt, and mostly meaning it.
Eli slowly climbed the concrete steps up to the loading dock. “Don’t move,” he said, disappearing through the dark sliver revealed by the partially open bay door.
I stayed where I was at the top of the steps, my back pressed to the side of the building, ears straining for every tiny sound: a car engine in the distance, the shuffle of leaves in the trees.
My nerves skittered, despite my bravado. Why had I agreedto wait here? Hadn’t Eli ever seen a horror movie? We shouldn’t have split up.
The metal door beside me creaked, and Eli was there.
“Building’s clear,” he said, grabbing my hand and guiding me under the still half-lowered door.
When I was inside, he turned and flipped a switch. Overhead lights flickered on, casting the room in a dull yellow.
The loading bay was mostly concrete, the high ceiling overhead wreathed in cobwebs, metal shelves at haphazard angles as if they’d been pulled away from the walls. There were cardboard file boxes all over the place with files inside, some of them tipped over, the papers spilling out onto the carpet floor.
“Someone got here before us?” I asked.
“Maybe.” Eli glanced around. “Walk through here with me and tell me what you see.”
I followed Eli out of the loading bay area, picking my way through the puddles of papers and around overturned boxes. He opened a heavy metal door, and we emerged into an open office space with ancient, worn carpet in dark green and yellowish walls with bright squares showing where paintings had been removed.
It was a typical setup: reception desk by the front door, offices with doors circling the room, and a kind of cubicle farm in the middle. Some of the desks looked like they’d been abandoned after a regular workday—sticky notes still stuck on the dividers, a desk calendar open to March of two years ago.
Most of the workspaces were covered in a thin film of dust, but otherwise looked as if no one had ever used them. I couldn’t see footprints or disturbance in the dust on the tables that indicated anyone had been in here recently.
“There’s no electronic equipment,” I said, realizing what looked so odd. “This office park looks pretty old, but it doesn’t predate computers. And anyway, this place was being used two years ago.” I nodded toward the calendar. “It seems weird that they’d clean out every piece of electronic equipment but leave the phones, file cabinets, all these desk chairs.”
“Yeah,” Eli said. “That’s what I thought too. It’s almost—” He scanned the room again, searching for the right word. “It looks like nothing in here has been touched in two years.” He pointed to the undisturbed dust on every desk we could see. “And then someone ransacked the loading bay.”
“Maybe the data broker was squatting,” I said, trying to run through all the possibilities in my mind. “This seems like the right place to do it. So many offices here unleased. Not a lot of traffic. If he was working out of the loading bay—no windows to give away the lights being on—that would make sense.”
“It would,” Eli agreed. “I’m going to check some of these cubicles.”
“Okay,” I said, and despite my earlier concerns about being separated, my curiosity won. “I’m going back to the loading bay, see if there’s anything there worth taking a closer look.”
Eli’s eyes narrowed as he considered. “Keep your eyes on that open door. If you hear anybody, get out of there and come get me. Don’t engage on your own.”
“I won’t.” I reached for his hand, squeezing his fingers in mine. “I’ll be careful.”
He cleared his throat and tightened his hand on mine before letting go. “Keep your phone accessible.”
A chill slipped over my skin. “You’re freaking me out a little bit,” I said.
“Good. I don’t like the way this feels.” His gaze swept the abandoned office. “Stay alert.”
“I can do that.” My nerves were so on edge, I doubted anyone could get within a hundred feet without sending me screaming and running for Eli. But the office park outside the half-open loading bay door was quiet.
I pulled a pair of plastic gloves from my coat pocket and knelt down beside the closest overturned file box. From what I could see, it looked like information on a company looking to IPO—go from private to public. I couldn’t tell what the point of gathering the intel was. Maybe they were just interested in investing. Maybe they were working for a client.
