Total pages in book: 113
Estimated words: 106422 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 532(@200wpm)___ 426(@250wpm)___ 355(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 106422 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 532(@200wpm)___ 426(@250wpm)___ 355(@300wpm)
Now I grunted through that mask as I landed on the concrete on the other side of the fence.
The entire area was motionless, not even a rat skittering across the neat frontage.
Running quickly to the warehouse building itself, I began to look for an entrance. It was sealed up tight. Not only that, it had warning stickers on every door and window that bore the logo of a security company—same logo as on the guard’s van. The place was wired to sound an alert on break-in.
Of course it was.
I wanted to slap myself. I really wasn’t good at this breaking and entering thing. My expertise was in financial sleight of hand, and only when it came to Audrey. I’d been scrupulous with the money that belonged to my clients, focusing all my skill on making them more money.
But I was here now, and I wasn’t about to give up. And…how fast would the security company respond to an alert anyway? This wasn’t a central location, and they weren’t cops, with the ability to run red lights. Even if they got that same guard to turn back around, it had been at least five minutes since he’d left.
If I waited a few more minutes to hopefully let him drive further away, I might get ten solid minutes.
Good enough.
In the meantime, I found a suitable projectile in the dumpster—a cracked mug someone had thrown out. At least I’d been smart enough to grab a set of disposable gloves from the box on the wall of the ICU.
I wouldn’t be leaving any fingerprints.
The mug had World’s Best Boss written on it in big black letters. Be ironic if that had been Bobby’s mug. Or maybe the better term was “poetic justice,” I thought as I decided I’d waited long enough, and threw it toward a window that looked into a little public-facing office. Likely a pickup zone for people who lived locally and didn’t want to pay shipping costs.
No alarm shrieked, but the alarm pad inside the door was flashing red when I crawled through the window. It had alerted the security company.
I ran into the bowels of the warehouse.
Chapter 42
Private notes: Detective Callum Baxter (LAPD)
Date: Feb 18
Time: 10:23
Forensics finally fucking emailed me the full report on Virna Musgrave’s car. Our boy Tavish may have made his first mistake. I don’t care if Grace Green thinks the sun shines out of his ass—he did this, and I’m going to nail him for it.
Chapter 43
There was no sign of life anywhere inside the echoing vastness of the warehouse, and I realized the stupidity of my entire plan about two minutes into my heart-pounding run through the long alleyways between metal racks stacked up to the ceiling with various goods. Purple toasters, sleek white heat pumps, and an endless array of table lamps of every variety, a blur of shiny boxes peopled by perfect faces.
The place was too damn big and too damn dark. Bobby could be standing one rack over and I’d never know it. But even more important—there was nowhere to hide in here. No special office as I’d imagined. Bobby couldn’t have stayed here without being spotted, and there was no way countless employees would’ve kept his presence a secret.
Giving up, I was about to run back and out before I was busted when I spotted the small room tucked into the back right corner of the warehouse. Unlike the pickup area out front, this one was a full cube, with a door and windows. Sweat sticking my T-shirt to my skin under the hoodie, I turned the handle on the door.
It opened with ease.
Pushing my way inside, I looked around for anything that might be helpful. Invoices littered the desk, anchored by a mug still half-full of a thick black liquid that might’ve been coffee. Yellow sheets of paper sat on another end, carbon copies of the delivery drivers’ logs. More papers were stuffed into the filing cabinets in back, while files sat spine out behind the desk.
I frowned, my eye caught by the red lettering under the mug.
I carefully moved the mug to another pile. Even if I forgot to move it back, there was no chance the person who worked here would remember exactly how they’d left this mess of a desk.
OVERDUE!
That was the red stamp, the edge of which I’d glimpsed. On its own, it didn’t mean much. Even businesses this big sometimes slipped. A human input error and a supplier didn’t get paid in time. It happened.
Except…
I flipped quickly through the pile of invoices.
OVERDUE!
OVERDUE!
OVERDUE!
The entire stack blazed red ink, and when I looked at the dates, I saw that they went back at least two months. The wall clock ticked, the second hand sounding like a hammer. Realizing I’d passed the ten-minute mark three minutes ago, I grabbed a handful of invoices out of the pile, then closed up the office and ran.