Page 71 of Destroyed With You

“Are you sure?”

“We’ve come this far.”

He nods, then uses the trackpad to click on the folder. It opens and we both gape at it. “What the hell?” Winston says.

I stare at the screen, my thoughts echoing his question.

It’s a text file with only two lines of text:

Bigelow-247

11-11-11

“What does that mean?” Winston asks.

I take his hand and twine my fingers with his. “I have no idea.”

Even as I say it, there’s something familiar about the message, though I can’t figure out what.

I stare at it for a moment, then tell Winston that I feel like I should know what this means.

“Why?”

“I don’t know,” I admit. “But there’s something.” I exhale with frustration. “Maybe I’m thinking about the 247. That’s familiar, right? Stores are open twenty-four/seven. What else?”

“Gas stations,” he says. “Some restaurants, hotels, airports, ATM machines. The list is pretty long. It could be—”

“No. No, that’s it,” I say, feeling as though I should actually shout Eureka!

“ATMs?”

“The Bigelow Hotel.” I turn to him eagerly. “That’s where Billy Hawthorne stays when he goes to Los Angeles. The Bigelow Hotel on Sunset.”

“So 247 is what?” he asks.

“I don’t know, a room?” I frown. “Except that’s not safe. All those people coming and going.”

“A vault,” Winston says. “That’s got to be it.”

“A vault?”

He nods. “I’ve used them before on various assignments. They’re easier to gain access to than a bank safe deposit box, and those hotels have long-term services. He has something stored in vault 247. I’d bet money on it.”

“You may be betting our lives,” I say. “If we’re wrong…”

“We don’t have another option. And if we check it out and fail, neither Hawthorne nor Bartlett will know, much less Seagrave or Collins.”

“You’re right,” I say with a frown. “We’re not in danger if we’re wrong, but we’re going to attract a lot of attention if we’re right.”

“Unbreakable laptop,” he says with more confidence than I feel. “They won’t even see us coming.”

“So the series of ones is probably the passcode for the vault,” I say, and Winston nods.

“You know what this means?” I continue.

“We’re going to Los Angeles?”

“Not just LA,” I tell him. “We’re going to the hottest party of the year.”