by Rachel Caine
I hand mine to Gwen, and she takes care of both. Lustig gives me quiet, terse directions as we glide through Atlanta; we leave the gridlock of downtown and head out into a less affluent part of town. It turns industrial, and then it turns into rusted, mostly abandoned structures that look ready to fall down in another stiff wind. The few people I see are homeless, or hopeless. A group of sullen young men in what passes for Atlanta winter wear sit on a corner and watches us drive by with impassive interest. The gang signs are everywhere.
I drive past the address, turn the next corner, and park. "We'd better take everything with us," I say. "Not the place you leave stuff in view."
"Good plan," Mike says. "Common wisdom is, you don't park in this neighborhood unless you leave somebody behind to watch the ride."
"You volunteering?" Gwen asks drily, then gets out. I know she's armed underneath that leather jacket. My gun is in a pancake holster on my left side; I like cross-body draw because it gives me time to assess before the weapon's in my hand. Too many shots get fired before the brain catches up. "So. How do we want to do this?"
I lock the rental and mentally kiss the deposit goodbye. "Split up?"
"No," both Mike and Gwen say. They exchange a look, as if surprised they agree on anything. "Outer perimeter only," Mike says. "Start at the back, work our way 'round. We see anything sketchy, we're out, and we sit on the place until I can get some guys here."
"What are you going to tell them?" Gwen asks as we start walking. To our right is an old, boarded-up convenience store. There are eyes looking out between the boards, so it's probably being used as a squat. "Since all your evidence is inadmissible."
"I'll say we heard sounds of a person in distress," Mike says. "Which, when we find this video, won't be too hard to believe. I'll drop it inside, some point."
"You seriously think that's going to play."
He shrugs. "Gets us a step farther. Right now, progress is all I got."
We turn right at the alley, which makes my skin tingle and hair prickle painfully on the back of my neck. With two-story crumbling warehouses on either side, it looks like a place shadows gather. I'd rather not get knifed out here. Mike isn't wearing a protective vest, either. This feels like an ambush waiting to happen.
The first warehouse we pass on the right-hand side is concrete blocks, so it's surviving better, though the corrugated roof has rusted heavily. The chain-link fence is cut in two places. But the next warehouse, the one we came for, looks worse. Yet this chain link is new and shiny, and there's a loop of barbed wire across the top to keep out anyone thinking of hopping it. The NO TRESPASSING signs are new and bright red, lacking the gunshot spatter that I'd seen on the ones in front in Google Street View. I wonder if someone has been out to renew all of it. Probably.
"Over here," Gwen says, pulling on the chain link right at the farthest pole. It rattles, and when I come over, I see that it's been cut and fastened with a couple of paper clips. I work them free, and Gwen shoves the opening back. It's big enough to crawl through.
I look at Mike. He holds up both hands. "Not my circus," he says. "You take care."
He's using us. Still. But I get why. I watched the video. I have a dim sense of what lies behind Mike's calm face and unflickering smile.
I want to rip my fucking eyeballs out, he'd said, leaning heavily on me as we staggered back to our quarters that night. I want to scream until I throw up.
All night, he'd been smiling that same smile.
9
GWEN
Inside the perimeter fence, it feels like we're alone on the face of the earth, and I instinctively check around me for escape options. It's not good. One exit, behind us. I prefer multiple ways out. If I have to, I can scale that fence, sacrifice the jacket to provide some protection from the cutting wire edges. What if he's in there . . .
He isn't, I tell myself firmly. Though, honestly, what better place for Melvin Royal to be holed up? A deserted warehouse, with his followers to bring him food and comforts and victims. It's so eerily possible that I slow, nearly stop, and earn a look from Sam. He doesn't see it. He's intent on finding clues.
I'm terrified we're about to find something much, much more dangerous.
It feels like the zombie apocalypse has arrived inside this yard. The Atlanta sky has grown cloudy above us, and the coverage is low enough that I can't see jets cutting through to remind me that the world still turns. I hear nothing but the wind hissing through the fence and the rattle of graying plastic trash as it listlessly drifts and flutters. The area where we stand was a parking lot once, but it's long surrendered to the assault of weeds, grass, and weather. It's a minefield of up-jutting, broken asphalt, mixed in with dead or dying stalks. Easy to lose footing in here. Impossible to run safely. Even from here, I can see the shiny padlock on the back door. The clasp that holds it looks newly installed.
"Gwen?" asks Sam, who's retreated to stand next to me. "You okay?"
I don't want to do this, I want to tell him. I want to remind him that I was right about the basement. But I know the difference between a genuine instinctive warning and the chaotic product of fear. So what if Melvin's squatting here? There are two of us, both good shots, both with reason to see him dead. It means my nightmare could be over in a few minutes instead of days, or weeks, or never.
"Okay," I tell him, and I make myself give him a nod. I'm still simmering about him watching that horror show of a video alone, because it feels like protection, like a man making decisions for me. We'll have that conversation later. For now, it's business. "Let's do this. Careful of the footing."
We move around the side. Wherever the corrugated siding might have peeled away, it has been nailed back; the nail heads are still bright, no sign of corrosion. Windows way up high, broken, but also unreachable; no handy stacks of crates or discarded ladders we could use to boost up to them, and even if I get on Sam's shoulders, I'll be several feet short of the goal. This is starting to look like a waste of time, I think, and then I see a side door. Like the back, someone's put a new lock in place; unlike the back, they didn't bother to swap out the original steel clasp. The nails look old. Rusted.
I point it out to Sam, and he nods. He reaches into his backpack and pulls out the kind of multitool pocketknife they don't allow at airports anymore; he chooses the thickest blade and uses it to pry the nails, and it doesn't take much for the entire clasp, lock still stoutly fixed, to swing away. It's almost silent.
Sam stops me and hands me a pair of blue nitrile gloves; he puts on a pair himself. Smart. The last thing we want to do is leave fingerprints here. The fewer traces, the better.
I open the door and step inside, carefully and as silently as I can manage, and despite all my focus and control, I can feel sweat beading on my forehead, under my arms, on my back. I'm trembling with the thunder of adrenaline dumping into my body, and I'm flat-out terrified that I'm about to see Melvin's pallid face looming out of the shadows, eyes as empty as a doll's as he reaches for me. The fear is so real that I have to take a second to imagine locking it behind a door, where it can pound and rage without damage.
He's not here.
But if he is here, I'll kill him.
It's a mantra I think to myself, and it helps.
The floor is gritty, cracked concrete, but at least I don't need a flashlight to see my footing; the milky light that filters in shimmers on floating dust, but it provides enough light to see that this part of the warehouse is open space, littered here and there with rusted parts, a discarded engine, and a pile of old debris.
"Watch your feet," Sam whispers to me, a thread even I can barely catch. "This place is a tetanus factory."
He's right. We've both got on thick-soled boots, but I keep watch for nails, broken glass, anything like that. Broken glass is often used as a cheap alarm system by squatters in these places, and nails are hammered through boards and placed points-up as home defense. Last thing I want to do is step on one of those improvised booby traps.
We stop and listen. Except for the whistle of the breeze blowing and creaking through the roof and windows, there isn't much to hear. No movement at all. But there's a smell. Rust. Blood. Decay. It's so familiar, so loathsome, that I feel dizzy.
Melvin's signature perfume.
There's an open doorway ahead, and I make my way carefully toward it. I stay out of the line of sight of anyone on the other side, and I halt when I see what looks like a pile of clothes along one side of the wall beyond. I draw my gun, and Sam does the same. He moves to flank me on the other side of the door and raises three fingers. He counts down, and we both pivot in, smooth and quiet.
I almost run into the dangling chains. I flinch back at the last second, and I can't help the silent explosion of breath that comes out of me, but at least it isn't a cry. I look down. More chains, anchored in fresh, shiny steel loops driven into the concrete. The chains above are hooked to a pulley system, and I follow the line of the rope back to a tie-off on the wall beyond me.
The floor is thick with old blood, long ago clotted and dried to a rough, flaky crust of black. Still some flies, but nowhere near as many as would have stormed this place when the gore was fresh. I'm trying not to feel anything, but the door I've shut on my fear is breaking under the strain. I'm sweating, shaking, and I feel like I can't breathe. I'm a second away from hyperventilating, and I know I need to calm down.
Focus, I tell myself. Lock it up. Don't think about it. I know why I'm freaking out. It's too similar to what I saw in my husband's garage, even down to the smell. I'm having flashbacks, and I just want to leave here.
But I can't.
"Gwen," Sam says. He isn't bothering to be quiet this time. When I turn, he's crouching over the pile of clothes, and I move to join him.
The smell of decomposition hits me within one step, far worse now, and I know what I'm going to see before I make it out in the dim light.
The body's been here a long time, long enough to have been reduced to ragged, chewed meat by scavengers. About half skeletonized. What skin remains on him--I assume it's the same man we saw on that video--is thin and dry as wax paper, and the maggots are long gone. They've left their pupa casings in a scatter like dropped rice.
"How long--" My voice isn't steady. I stop talking. Sam looks up at me.
"The weather's cold now, but it was probably still warm when he was killed. So maybe a couple of months." Sam is silent a moment, head bowed, and then he gets up. "Look around. If there's anything else here--"
I try to ignore the corpse, but it's difficult. I feel it constantly, as if its dead, empty eye sockets are tracking me. The rest of this part of the warehouse consists of a pile of old desks that yield nothing but rat droppings and a curling, ancient stack of forgotten invoices twenty years old, and probably of no interest.
But there's an office at the far end, and as Sam checks his side of the room, I head for it. There's a metal door with a wide glass panel, reinforced with wire mesh; it's been pocked and cracked, but it's still holding firm. I try the door handle.
Locked. But the lock looks old, original to the door, and a few solid kicks bust it wide open. One of the hinges pops free at the bottom, and the door lists drunkenly and scrapes the floor for balance.
Someone was using this place. It's still dilapidated and dusty, and spiders have claimed the filing cabinets along the back wall as their hunting ground, but on the other end of the room, an old-fashioned desk with the clunky, functional lines of World War II surplus is relatively clean. There are scuffs in the dirt on the floor, but no meaningful footprints.
There's some paper stacked on one corner--plain copy paper, no watermarks, no writing. I try a trick I learned from old Nancy Drew novels; I gather up a handful of the fine, powdery dust and sift it onto the top sheet, then gently slide it around to see if it will reveal any hidden depressions.
Nothing.
I start pulling open drawers. I startle some spiders, and am startled in turn, but eight-legged predators are the last thing I'm afraid of right now.
In the next-to-last drawer, I find a man's wallet. It's well worn, shaped to someone's rear, and I put it on the desk surface and open it up carefully. No spiders erupt from it, but I see a bristle of cash in the back divider. Plenty of cash, at least two or three hundred. I don't count it. I look at the license that's slotted into the plastic case in front on the left side. It's a Louisiana driver's license for a man named Rodney Sauer. I take a cell phone picture of the address on the license; it's in New Orleans. Behind the license are the usual mundane plastic squares of modern life: debit cards, credit cards, a couple of loyalty cards for supermarkets and big-box stores.
On the right, I find a picture of a plump, contented blonde woman cuddling two adorable kids. On the back, it says, in childishly awkward cursive, Love to Daddy from Mommy, Kat, and Benny.
I have to catch my breath against the pain in my chest. Does this pretty, happy woman know he's dead? Did he just vanish into thin air one bright summer day? Do the kids still ask when he's coming home?
I slip the picture back in and keep looking. I find a small stash of business cards marked with Rodney Sauer's name and what looks like an official law-enforcement star embossed in thick black ink.
He's not a cop. He's a private investigator. I pull one of the cards free and put it in my pocket.
There's nothing else of any use in the wallet. If Rodney had a notepad, voice recorder--anything like that--it's not here.
They left everything that wasn't useful to them, including Rodney.
"Gwen?" Sam asks quietly from the door. I nod and drop the wallet back in the drawer, shut it, and leave.
We go past the body, through the other room, out the side door and into the cloudy afternoon, which is the brightest, friendliest thing I've ever seen. I feel sickly dizzy, and I gulp in air to steady myself. My adrenaline level is toxic, and now that I'm out of there, I'm shaking all over.
Lustig's waiting for us at the fence. I still have my weapon out, I realize, and I put it back in the holster. Lustig holds the links back for us as we climb out, then carefully fastens them back with the paper clips.
We tell him. The only thing we've left is boot prints, and our path is clearly new, not contemporary to the horror show that played out in that place. We make our way back to the car--which is, thankfully, still intact, though the locks have been jimmied, and the radio's been jacked right out of the console--and at a pay phone halfway across the city, I make a phone call to report a body.
"Thanks," Lustig says, as I hang up. "Now, call me." He reads his number off to me, and I put in another handful of quarters for that call, too. I leave him the same message, and tell him there's some link to an ongoing FBI case. I hang up and look at him questioningly, and he gives me a thumbs-up. Since his phone is still off, he can't be tied to this location. He's now covered on receiving an anonymous tip.
Back in the car, on the way to the coffee shop, I begin to feel a little better. My skin feels warmer, my nerves less jangled. I know I'll dream about the dreadful stillness of that place, the way that it masqueraded as peace. By tonight there'll be police tape up, and crime scene investigators, and Mike Lustig will be whipping up a reason for local FBI involvement. Maybe they can track the ownership of the building, but I doubt it will lead anywhere significant. Absalom doesn't own that place. They probably don't even have any ties to it, beyond using it when the owners aren't looking. Corporations aren't great at checking over dilapidated buildings. If someone did inspect, they'd see the fresh signs, the new fencing, the new padlocks, and assume someone else in the company had taken care of it already. Bureaucracy at work.
Absalom lives in the cracks. Like cockroaches, and Melvin.
"So what now?" I ask, turning to look at Sam. He glances at Mike.
"We drop him off," Sam says. "And then we pay a visit to Ballantine Rivard."
"What makes you think he'll see you two?" Lustig asks.
"We're going to tell him what happened to
his guy."
10
CONNOR
The Rice Krispies treats truce between me and my sister lasts until afternoon, and then I screw it up. By then, Lanny's already moody and grumpy and snapping at me every time I breathe. Glaring at me like I'm personally to blame for the fact she's stuck here in this cabin without much to do. I'd try to get her to read, but the last time I did, she threw the book at me and called me a nerd, which is a name I usually don't mind, but not the way she said it.
She begs, seriously begs, for Internet permission, which Mr. Esparza finally, reluctantly grants, but only for thirty minutes, and he warns her he's set up the parental controls just the way Mom requested. Not surprised; Mom's serious about that stuff, and she has good reason.
I drift over and watch what she's doing, because Lanny's in a weird mood, and I don't know why.
She just pulls up pictures, that's all. School pictures of her friends, out of her secret cloud account Mom doesn't know about. After about two minutes of staring, I realize every picture has the same person in it.
I lean over her chair and say, "Are you crushing on your best friend?"
Lanny goes nuclear. Her face turns streaky scarlet, she shoves me back against the counter, she yells, "Leave me alone," then flees into her bedroom and slams the door hard enough that the pictures flap on the walls.
I look at the picture of Dahlia Brown. She's pretty. I always thought she was. "Totally crushing on you," I tell the picture. No wonder Lanny was so crazy. She probably didn't want anybody to know, and here I was, knowing.
The front door opens, and Mr. Esparza looks in, sees me, and says, "What was that?"
I shrug. "Nothing." He knows it isn't nothing, but I clear the browser and shut the laptop and pick up my book instead of telling him anything else, and he finally shuts the door. He's cleaning a gun out on the porch, all the parts laid out on a clean towel, and I can smell the oil he uses from in here.
Lanny's got a secret. I feel a surge of glee about that, but I won't tell. We don't do that. We don't spill on each other, not unless it's life or death. This isn't, but she probably feels like it is. I feel kind of bad about embarrassing her. And she made me Rice Krispies treats.
