Death Prefers Blondes

by Caleb Roehrig

  “Then I’m staying with you.”

  “No. You’re not.” Margo gave him a grateful look. “Dallas, I can’t tell you how much it means to me that you’ve been by my side throughout all this—that you tricked Brand, that you jumped out of a fucking helicopter with me … but the original plan had you out of danger by now, and that’s where I want you; I told you before that this is my fight, and you have to let me make this call.”

  He still hesitated, looking miserable. “This is one of those situations where you’re the boss and I have to do what you say even if I hate it, isn’t it?”

  “Yes.” She nodded, but not without sympathy. “I’m afraid so.”

  “Okay.” He fought a smile onto his face. “For the record? I hate it. But I’ll see you on the roof.” Reluctantly, he turned and started out the office door. Just before he vanished into the shadows, he called over his shoulder, “Four minutes or I’m coming back for you!”

  “No you’re not!” she shouted, but he was already gone.

  She turned back to the bar cart. Two glasses stood separate from the others, their insides coated with a thin film of sticky amber residue. One showed traces of lipstick, and the other didn’t, but both were smudged all over with fingerprints. Her brain clicking like the tumblers in Brand’s lock, Margo reached out with gloved and greedy hands.

  * * *

  The police wasted no time blocking off Grand Avenue, cruisers arriving every few seconds. Some idiot was already shouting through a megaphone, his voice distorted and jarring as it bounced down the parking ramp and reverberated off the concrete walls. Addison set his teeth, skulking through the shadows, avoiding the elevators—visible from the street—and hurrying for the stairs instead.

  He didn’t think he’d been seen, and he’d long since shut off his phone, putting himself out of reach of the security service, the cops, and the media. Everything he’d worked for hung in the balance. He would find Margo, he would kill her, and then maybe he would check his voice mail.

  * * *

  When the elevator opened, Margo stepped out into a sterile, half-lit waiting room, a space that felt bleak and haunted. Past the small reception desk, a sturdy gray door bore a familiar placard: AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY BEYOND THIS POINT.

  The lab.

  She knew what she needed to get into Brand’s safe. The problem was that, assuming the items even existed, they would be inside the laboratory.

  From her burner phone, she sent Manning’s former chief scientist a text: Supposing one were at the reception desk, how would one bypass the security protocols and force open the door to the lab? Asking for a friend.

  Moments later, a response came back. Tell your friend there’s an emergency fail-safe. Pull the fire alarm beside the door, then access a program on the computer titled COVENANT. When prompted, enter “countdown” and the door will unlock after fifteen seconds.

  Dots bubbled, an additional message coming in. Unless everything has been changed. Then I don’t know.

  Margo rolled her eyes, nerves frayed; but she booted up the computer, pulled the alarm, and then opened Covenant. When a blank window appeared with a blinking cursor, she typed “countdown” and hit the enter key. Fifteen seconds later, when the door clicked open and the room did not fill with poisoned gas, she breathed out a sigh of relief.

  Precious minutes passed while she was inside. It took time to locate carbon powder and a fast-setting polymer spray to solidify the ghostly ridges and whorls on the tumbler with Addison’s fingerprints; to find tape to lift them cleanly from the glass, solid and intact.

  Nadiya’s duplicator would have done the job six times faster; but when she at last walked out of the lab, her temples damp and her nerves sparking, Margo had a perfect copy of Addison Brand’s thumbprint.

  * * *

  The helicopter was deafening as it settled onto the roof of Manning Tower, hurling a furious wind in every direction; and as the other boys tried quite literally to keep their wigs on, Dallas had his eye pinned to the door through which he and Margo had first entered the building earlier that night.

  On the ground, the skyscraper was now surrounded by police vehicles, their lights licking hungrily at the windows. It had been more than four minutes. Where was she?

  The helicopter evened out and Joaquin scurried for it, followed by Leif and then Axel, skirts dancing in the swirling gusts. Davon hung back, his dark eyes filled with the same trepidation Dallas felt in his gut. “Come on, Prince Charming. Our pumpkin’s waiting.”

  “Margo isn’t here yet,” Dallas stated the obvious.

  “I know.” Davon’s expression was sad as he stepped backward, inching toward their one and only chance at escape. “But that’s not the point.”

  Sometimes, stating the obvious sucked.

  * * *

  Reaching the door at the top of the stairs, Addison froze. Through the small, square window, past the lobby, he could see cop cars and policemen in the street outside, their lights splashing garishly against the stone of the atrium. Even as he stood there, another cruiser pulled up—and another, and another. A break-in on Bunker Hill and thirteen unresponsive guards was an event they’d decided to take seriously.

  Addison hesitated, shifting his jaw. Unless he wanted to climb endless flights of stairs, he had to take the elevator; and to do it he’d have to enter the alcove in full view of the entire LAPD. Well, fuck it. The only thing that mattered was eliminating Margo without witnesses; he was rich enough now that the cops would believe what he told them to.

  The Luger a dead weight in his coat pocket, he shoved the door open, ignoring the response from outside. Officers at the front doors pounded on the bulletproof glass, wide-eyed and barking orders. He didn’t even glance in their direction. Jabbing the call button, a grin spread across his face when the bell resounded with an immediate and cheerful ding.

  * * *

  Lost in thought, mentally rehearsing her next moves, Margo was taken by surprise when the elevator up from the lab came to a stop with a crisp tone of the bell. The second the doors opened, she lunged out onto the fifty-fourth floor, and sprinted for Brand’s office.

  The addition of a biometric sensor to the safe’s locking mechanism meant all bets were off; even if the reproduced fingerprint actually worked, there was no guarantee the code hadn’t been changed, but Margo was ready to believe. She’d done her homework, and she’d recognized the number sequence Brand had chosen—it was the day he started working for Manning. She had his dossier committed to memory, a wealth of significant dates, and she was sure she could do it.

  The safe opened on the fifth try, and her pulse tripped like a snare drum as she drew out a small metal case. The lock broke easily, and when she lifted the lid, she found five glass vials full of a clear, colorless solution. Margo’s throat closed. This was the substance that killed her father; Brand had ordered it, paid for it, administered it systematically for months—all while she sat by in ignorance.

  She took only one of the samples. Leaving the rest was a difficult decision, knowing Brand would eliminate all traces of what remained when he realized she’d gotten to it; but she only needed enough for Nadiya to understand how it worked, to connect it incontrovertibly to the substance found in Brand’s whiskey. If he really planned to implicate her in her father’s murder, she couldn’t risk being caught with the entire supply, when she had no legally acceptable explanation for how she came by it.

  She’d have to rely on the fingerprints on the vial, and the communiqués she hoped Castor had been honest about, to chisel Brand’s guilt into stone. Returning the case to the safe, she activated her comm. “I’m on my way.”

  Turning, she rushed out of the office—and stopped short the second she passed through the doorway. Her feet turned to lead and her heart stuttered when, for the second time that night, she found herself staring down the barrel of a gun.

  “Good evening, Margo,” Addison Brand said, his voice cool, the orbital fractures in the window panes cast
ing spidery, moonlit shadows over his pale skin. “You know, I thought I was very clear during our last encounter that you were no longer welcome in the building.”

  “I don’t like it when assholes tell me what to do,” she replied, but the room didn’t feel big enough for both her and the gun. “My father could’ve told you that. But you killed him.”

  Brand rolled his eyes, bored by the complaint. “Harland should’ve sent you to a military boarding school. You’re just another example of his misguided sympathies, bringing nothing but disgrace and humiliation to the Manning name.”

  Fire streaked through Margo’s veins, stealing the oxygen from her blood. “What the fuck do you even know about the Manning name?”

  “I am the Manning name!” Addison roared, his eyes flaring. “This is my empire now, you smart-mouthed little tramp! Your father was an anchor holding this company to a past that no longer exists, and he battled against every rational move to expand our profits, our influence, our dominance! All his silly lines in the sand, throwing good money after bad and jeopardizing our success for the sake of his fossilized principles—”

  “You mean like in Malawi?” Margo interjected, hands clammy on the straps of her pack. “Because instead of helping destabilize a sovereign nation and arm child soldiers, he wanted to do the right thing?”

  “The ‘right thing’?” Brand scoffed as if she’d referenced the tooth fairy. “Those mines in Malawi employed hundreds of people, did you know that? Thousands depended on the income from those jobs, but the government got greedy and interfered.” He shook his head. “They’ve all been out of work for months. Manning’s productivity has dipped, our costs have risen, and now we have to cut jobs to maintain our profits; and the same is true for a dozen other corporations that rely on the output of those sites! You have no idea how many lives hang in the balance because of Harland’s overpriced altruism.”

  “People are dying over there, you sick fuck!” Margo stared at him in disbelief. “All those families? They’re in the middle of a war now, thanks to you. You designed a military weapon meant for children, and you’re trying to talk to me about lives in the balance?” She wanted to hit him in the face. With a car. “You are literally a war criminal, Addison Brand. You’re exploiting the entire population of an economically depressed country so you can increase your profit margins, but you have the gall to lecture me about greed?”

  He didn’t seem moved by her speech; if anything, his eyes only grew colder and more determined. After a beat, he asked, “Where’s the Yang boy?”

  “He’s gone already.” It was sort of truthful. “Sorry.”

  “I’ll deal with him later, then.” Brand’s tone was ugly. “What’s in your bag? What did you take from my office?”

  “Nothing,” Margo answered reflexively, but her tone was a dead giveaway.

  “Hand it over.”

  “No.”

  Brand thrust the gun forward, closing another inch or two of precious space between her and the bullets inside. “I’ll shoot you if you don’t.”

  “If I know you at all, you’re going to shoot me anyway,” she countered, her mouth so dry she was surprised her tongue didn’t catch fire.

  He actually grinned, his teeth pearly and sharp, his hand steady on the Luger’s grip. “You are going to die tonight, Margo. But if you cooperate with me, it doesn’t have to happen right this very second.”

  It wasn’t much of a proposition, but she knew better than to bargain, and way better than to refuse on principle; the satisfaction wouldn’t follow her into her subsequently early grave. Freeing her pack—briefly considering the possibility of throwing it at him or over the partition—she tossed it with a thump at his feet. There was no sense in attempting some half-cocked Hail Mary; if he even flinched, her head would burst like a piñata.

  Crouching down, Brand kept the gun on her while he dug through her things. He turned up the sunglasses, the spent EMP, and the dart pistol. At last he found the poison, drawing the vial free with a nasty grin and tucking it into the safety of his pocket. Getting to his feet, he leveled the gun with her forehead—and the universe spun like a tornado, tearing Margo’s nervous system to shreds as she prepared to blink out of existence.

  Her lungs compressed and her eyes slid shut, and Addison Brand said, “All right, let’s take a short walk.”

  * * *

  The conference that took place inside the helicopter, between four drag queens and a former legal intern, was tense.

  “We have to go!”

  “We’re not leaving without her.”

  “We’re already off schedule, and every second we stay here brings all six of us that much closer to fucked!”

  “Double penetration fucked! The cops, the media—when they get their birds in the air, they don’t even need to catch us; all they need is a picture of our serial numbers and it’s game over!”

  “She’s on her way!”

  “Is she? I didn’t want to be the one, but … she should’ve been here by now.”

  “We have to go—those are her orders. It’s what Margo wants!”

  “Yeah, well, Margo isn’t here.”

  “I know. It sucks. But if anyone can beat the odds, it’s her.”

  “And if she can’t?”

  The response was silence.

  * * *

  The phrase “a short walk” had conjured a hopeful fantasy in Margo’s mind of a rooftop execution. The trip up would give her more chances to turn the tables, and if by some miracle the helicopter was still there, it would be six against one.

  But their journey ended at the elevator bank, a rectangular alcove stifled by shadows, the only light coming from a small square window in the door to the staircase. The building was serviced by six lifts, three on one side and three on the other, and Margo’s stomach rolled when she saw one set of doors gaping open to expose a pitch-black void.

  “Here we are,” Brand announced cheerfully. “I was thinking a nice fall down an elevator shaft would be nice. The car for this one is in one of the subbasements, which will give you a few extra seconds to stay alive. I am capable of generosity, after all.”

  Margo had trouble with her words. “It would be easier just to shoot me.”

  “Easier, yes. And also harder to explain, and full of possible future unpleasantness if you’ve put contingencies into place in the event you don’t make it out of here—I know how your mind works.” His breath was hot and rank against her cheek. “You’d prefer if I shot you, and I would prefer if you had a nice, clean accident. But make no mistake: I could empty my gun into you and still get away with it. Courts love to give guys like me the benefit of the doubt. At least if you do it my way, you go with some dignity.”

  “That’s it?” Margo tried to sound scornful, but scorn was hard to manage with a gun pressed to the base of her skull. “That’s your plan? An accident? At least if you shoot me you can claim it was self-defense. No jury on this planet will believe that I somehow snuck into the building unseen, took out thirteen men, and then ‘accidentally’ stepped into a randomly open elevator shaft and fell to my death!”

  “To be honest, I’m not looking for constructive criticism.” He gave her a hard shove that propelled her almost a foot closer to the elevator’s gaping maw. “Jump down that shaft or I’ll shoot you in the head.”

  Margo stared at the black pit that yawned before her, a cold sweat spreading under her clothes, her throat clogged by her heartbeat. It seemed impossible. She’d cheated death so many times in eighteen years that she’d almost believed Death had given up; but now? Two choices and no options: the frying pan or the fire. There was no zip line to safety, no parachute to break her fall.

  Now was the time to surprise Addison with a precise kick, to show him what the Manning name truly meant—but he was too far away for that. It would be convenient for him if she died with no trace of his involvement, but his eyes had betrayed just how much he was hoping for an excuse to pull the trigger. If Margo so much as sh
ifted her weight wrong, he would shoot; and if she didn’t die instantly, the impact might just send her hurtling into the shaft all the same.

  She took a step forward, struggling to believe there was still a chance—that maybe she could grab the elevator cable on the way down without it ripping the flesh clean off her hands—and that’s when she heard the faint clatter of noise in the stairwell. A shadow passed across the small window, the door crashed open … and time split into fragments, a rapid-fire set of images like playing cards being slapped down one atop the other.

  Dallas, teeth bared, his leather jacket slicked with gold from the lighted staircase as he lunged into view; Brand, pivoting sharply, surprised and fearful, his finger closing instinctively on the trigger; the deafening report of the gun in the narrow alcove, like lightning striking her eardrums; Dallas flying backward, slamming into the wall beside the door, the impact fissuring the plaster; and then his body sliding limply to the ground.

  A howl escaped Margo’s lungs, and she finally delivered that precise kick just as Brand was turning back to face her. Her boot caught his gun hand, knocking the weapon free and sending it into the dark. Before he could think to react, she slammed a fist into his jaw, a satisfying pain rocketing up the length of her arm.

  Advancing as he reeled, she swung again—but he blocked, retaliating with a hard blow to her stomach that stole her air and left her dazed. Grabbing a handful of her loose blond waves, he pulled hard and forced her head back, stepping close enough that she could feel his spittle against her face as he snarled, “I should’ve known you were lying about being alone in the building. Now, let’s get you into that fucking shaft before the police finally decide to do their jobs.”

  He started marching her across the floor, pain lighting up her scalp as she fought for some kind of leverage, struggling against the deadly plunge behind her—six hundred feet of greedy darkness, ready to swallow her alive—but her spine was twisted and she couldn’t find purchase with her feet. Finally, so close to the edge of the pit that warm air breathed up her back, Margo’s fingers found Brand’s collar, and she gripped it as tightly as she could.