7. Alice
7
ALICE
I watched the agent’s face as I opened the panel. His eyes widened. Good.
“The maintenance shaft connects to the old pneumatic mail system,” I explained, pulling out two climbing harnesses. “It runs through most of the building’s support structure.” I tossed him one of them. “You do know how to rappel, don’t you, G-man?”
His hands moved over the equipment with practiced ease. Military trained, just as I’d suspected from the way he carried himself.
I secured my backpack, making sure the envelope I retrieved from the safe was still inside.
“Your sister died a week ago. Why haven’t you opened what she left for you?”
I wanted to tell him it was none of his fucking business, but the words caught in my throat. God, Sarah, what had you gotten yourself into? Another thud echoed through the walls, followed by the distinct sound of metal grinding against metal.
“They’re in the elevator shaft,” he said, adjusting his comms piece. “Tank, status?”
I tuned out his conversation with his team, focusing on the digital readout near the panel. Air pressure was stable. No signs the space had been compromised.
“You coming?” I asked, securing my line to the anchor point.
For a moment, he looked like he might refuse. Then another crash echoed above us, closer this time. “Ladies first,” he said, checking his harness once more. I began my descent into the darkness, the cold air of the hoistway chilling me.
“Just remember, Agent Kane. You only have two bullets.” I paused, looking up at him as he started his own descent. “Try anything stupid, and I promise you’ll need more than that.”
The shaft swallowed us into its depths, our rappel lines humming against the metal anchors. He kept pace above me, his movements controlled and precise. No wasted energy. Definitely military—probably Special Forces, based on how he handled himself. I’d have to watch him even more carefully than I’d planned.
My headlamp carved a narrow beam through the darkness, illuminating decades of dust and abandoned infrastructure. Pneumatic tubes, their age evident in the dulled patina surfaces, ran parallel to our position.
I’d spent months mapping every possible escape route I could come up with, both from my apartment and the building, and hours studying the building’s original blueprints, tracing the forgotten pathways that had once carried mail between floors. Now, they’d bring us to freedom—assuming the thugs Castellano sent hadn’t figured out where we’d gone.
“How much farther?” Kane’s voice echoed in the confined space.
I checked the markings I’d painted on the wall during my practice runs. “Another couple hundred feet to the junction point. Then we go horizontal.” A distant crash reverberated through the shaft, followed by voices. They were sweeping floor by floor, methodically working their way up. We had maybe ten minutes before they found the maintenance panel.
My boots touched down on a narrow service platform. The metal grating creaked under my weight. Agent Kane landed beside me, his breathing steady despite the descent. I unclipped from the line and pulled out my tablet, checking the building’s security feeds. They’d disabled most of the cameras on the upper floors, but the basement levels were still active. Clear, for now.
“We need to move faster,” he said, his hand straying to his weapon. “They’re thorough. They won’t stop until?—”
“Until what?” I interrupted, turning to face him. “They kill me too?”
“Not just you.” The red emergency lights caught the tension in his jaw.
“I’m trusting you, G-man. Am I making a mistake?”
He met my gaze but didn’t speak.
“I could end you now, and they’d never find your body,” I said, mustering far more bravado than I felt.
He took a step, coming close enough to me that, when we both flipped up the NVGs, I could feel the warmth of his breath. “You can trust me, Alice. You know you can, or we would never have come this far.”
The platform shuddered as heavy footfalls from above us caused dust and debris to rain down the shaft, coating us in a fine layer of gray.
“This way,” I said, pulling a small canister from my pack. The thermite charge would seal the opening behind us, buying precious minutes. “The next part’s going to be cramped. Hope you’re not claustrophobic, G-man.”
He watched me set the charge, something unreadable flickering across his features. The close quarters made it impossible to ignore his presence, and the weight of his earlier words hung between us. He’d hit the mark when he said Sarah had been dead a week and I hadn’t opened the envelope she left for me. Admitting I wasn’t brave enough to face the pain of losing my sole remaining relative, even to find out what she was involved in, wasn’t something I could do. Especially not now or to him.
“Ready?” I asked, checking the timer on the thermite. Three minutes. More than enough time to get clear.
Agent Kane nodded, ducking into the maintenance tunnel in front of me. Smart man—keeping me where he could see me. I followed, the confined space pressing in from all sides. The tunnel had been designed for access to the pneumatic system’s machinery, not for comfort. My shoulders brushed both walls as we crawled forward. He was so much bigger than me. I wondered how he was keeping from getting stuck.
A deep rumble shook the tunnel, which meant the thermite had done its job. The shaft would be sealed now, buying us precious time. But the vibrations had loosened something above us. A section of ceiling groaned.
“Go!” I shouted. Agent Kane grabbed my hand as we scrambled forward, lowering our heads when chunks of concrete and metal rained down behind us. It wasn’t just the dust filling my lungs that made it hard to breathe. The fear that I’d gone too far, fucking with something like thermite when I had no practical experience with the shit, had me close to panicking.
“Keep moving,” he said, holding my hand tighter and pulling me with him until we finally burst into the junction point, both of us coughing and covered in grime. It was a larger space, maybe six feet square, where several maintenance tunnels intersected. Old electrical panels, their gauges dark with age, lined one wall.
“Are you okay?” Kane asked, scanning me with his eyes for injuries while running his hands down my arms.
I nodded, unable to speak through the dust. I shook as I pulled out my water bottle, taking a careful sip before offering it to him. When he accepted, our fingers brushed in the exchange. The touch sent an unwelcome jolt through my system—a reminder that I couldn’t afford to let my guard down.
“What are you doing?” I asked, watching him enter something into his phone.
“How close is the way out?” he asked.
“Through that door,” I responded, pointing.
“Where does it lead?”
“Another alleyway.”
He typed more on his screen, then grabbed my hand again, pulling me behind him.
I tried to wriggle from his grasp, but he held tight. “Tell me where we’re going,” I demanded.
“Somewhere you’ll be safe.”
Everything in me screamed I could trust him, but what if I was wrong? As wrong about him as I’d been about my sister? But what choice did I have? If I stayed in the building, Castellano’s thugs would eventually find me. I had no doubt that, when they did, they’d kill me. If Agent Kane was working with them, I was dead either way.
“What’s your ETA?” I heard him ask as he shoved the door open. Seconds later, an SUV stopped directly in front of us. If I’d taken as much as a step forward, it would’ve hit me.
“Get in,” he said after pulling the rear passenger door open. When I did, he climbed in behind me.
“Where to, boss?” asked the driver, a man I recognized from the security footage I’d poured over.
“Out of the city.”
“No!” I cried, grabbing his arm hard enough that my fingernails dug into his flesh.
He covered my hand with his. “You know you aren’t safe here.”
“I can’t leave until I go to Sarah’s apartment.”
He studied me as though he was trying to read my mind. “What for?” he asked in a voice barely above a whisper.
“Things…My parents…” I choked on my words, hating that I couldn’t contain my emotions. All I knew was I had to get as much as I could before Castellano’s men did. “Please,” I said, my eyes boring into his.
“Go,” was the only word he uttered.
“Roger that,” the driver responded, then said more I couldn’t hear into a headset.
Agent Kane pulled something out of his pocket and held it out to me.
“What is that?” I asked.
“A handkerchief. For your face.”
I stared at it when he handed it to me. “I’ll ruin it.”
He shook his head, and I returned it to him. I expected him to wipe the dust and debris from his own face, but he didn’t. Instead, he turned to me and raised the cloth.
“Close your eyes.”
When I did, he gently brushed away what he could. I willed threatening tears to stay at bay, knowing cleaning away the dirt would be that much harder if I cried. I couldn’t stop them, though, remembering how desperately I needed to feel the touch of another person. When a sob stuck in my throat, Agent Kane pulled me into his arms.
“I’ve got you, Alice. You’re safe with me. I promise.”
God, how I wanted to believe him.
“The building is secure, boss,” said the driver. I raised my head and saw we’d arrived at the front door of the place where I’d experienced more horror than I imagined possible. Every muscle in my body tensed.
“If you don’t want to go in, you don’t have to,” he said, stroking my cheek with his fingers.
“I must,” were the only words I could eke out.
When he opened the vehicle’s door, I saw several other men standing in close proximity. He gave me his hand to help me out, and we walked en masse into the building, then directly to the elevator that another man held open.
“Thanks,” Kane said when the three of us got inside. I shuddered when he pressed the button for the eleventh floor without asking.
The lift’s familiar hum did nothing to calm my nerves. My hands were shaking so badly I had to clench them into fists, my nails digging into my palms. The pain helped ground me and kept me from completely losing it. Agent Kane must have noticed, because he shifted closer so his shoulder brushed against mine.
The other man with us kept his eyes fixed on the doors, his posture rigid. I couldn’t help but notice how his hand never strayed far from his weapon. Hadn’t the driver said the building was secure? Were they really expecting trouble? Or was it just ingrained training?
“There are pictures,” I said suddenly, breaking the tense silence. “On her desk. Of our parents.” My voice cracked on the last word. “Before the accident.”
Agent Kane’s expression softened almost imperceptibly. “We’ll get them.”
“And her laptop. She always—” I stopped, swallowing hard against the lump in my throat. “She kept it in the bottom drawer of her filing cabinet.”
The numbers on the display ticked upward with agonizing slowness. Eight. Nine. Ten. With each floor, memories of Sarah threatened to overwhelm me. Her laugh echoing down the hallway when I’d visit. The way she’d always have tea waiting, even though she preferred coffee. The dozens of little ways she’d tried to take care of me after our parents died, despite my attempts to push her away.
The elevator dinged, and the doors slid open, revealing the hallway I’d walked countless times before. But now, it felt wrong—hostile and foreign. Like the building itself knew Sarah was gone and was rejecting my presence. Agent Kane’s hand found the small of my back, steadying me as we stepped out.
“Which way?” he asked, though I suspected he already knew the answer.
“End of the hall. 1147.” My feet felt like lead as we approached her door. I could see the sticky residue in the shape of an X left by the yellow crime-scene tape that had been pulled away. Standing here now, only a few steps away from where I’d found her, all I could think about was Sarah’s body being carried out on a stretcher, covered in a sheet.
The memory hit me so hard that I stumbled. Agent Kane’s arm shot out to steady me. The other man had already moved ahead, checking angles and sight lines with practiced efficiency. I watched as he tested the door handle, noting the almost imperceptible nod in our direction.
“Ready?” Kane asked softly.
No. I wasn’t ready. I’d never be ready to walk back into the place where I last saw my sister. But I nodded anyway.
The lock clicked, and Sarah’s door swung open.