Chapter 7
The good thing about being dead is that your family doesn’t recognize you.
Or at least, that’s what I tell myself.
Nonna looks surprisingly threatening for a lady in her eighties with rumpled hair and glasses askew on her nose. “How did you get in here?”
I stand there, frozen. Every unsaid word rises up my throat like floodwaters, and I fear I might drown.
The last time I saw Nonna, I had been barely fifteen. Baby-faced, with long brown hair, my body softer and voice lighter. Now, I’m stray-cat thin from constant travel and danger, scarred from the car crash, my voice roughened by intubation, and my hair burnt umber and pink.
Augusta Pine isn’t anything like the girl Nonna knew. But it still hurts when she doesn’t recognize me.
My fingers itch to tear off my visor, to try to fit myself into the smaller body that I had back then. I want to crawl into that life, to be her granddaughter again.
But I can’t.
The old lie comes easily to my lips. “My name is Augusta Pine. This is Eames Ahlberg and his sister, Piper. I’m sorry, but there’s an active shooter situation in the lobby. All the apartments are in lockdown mode, and I was trying to get out of mine. We came over the balcony.”
Nonna squints at me. “What do you mean, shooter?” she asks, lowering her rolling pin. “Is that what the alert was about?”
“I saw the security guard get shot,” says Piper, her voice shaking. “My brother and I were at the pool when—when it happened.”
“Matthew’s dead?” says Nonna sharply. A spasm of grief crosses her face.
I look from Piper to Nonna. “Who?”
“The security guard,” says Nonna. “Matthew.” She casts her gaze about, as if looking for something else to focus on. “I don’t know any of you. What apartments are you from?”
“Eleventh floor, ma’am,” says Eames. “We moved in with our Aunt Connie a few weeks ago.”
Perhaps it’s his politeness or the way Eames ducks his head to make himself smaller, but Nonna visibly relaxes. She’s always had a soft spot for strays.
“I don’t live here,” I say. “I’m just renting the apartment next door for the weekend.” I keep my tone calm and level. “We need to call the authorities. Do you have a landline?” I know she does, but I have to ask.
“Yes,” says Nonna. She walks to the cordless phone and hands it to me. Even the phone is familiar—the worn buttons and yellowed ivory. It’s got to be thirty years old.
I press the CALL button.
The sound of a dial tone floods my right ear and I exhale in relief. Finally, a bit of good luck. A landline won’t be connected to the building mainframe, so anything I say will be private.
I have Prefect’s number memorized. I wait, phone pressed to my ear and heartbeat unsteady. Pick up, I urge him silently. Pick up, pick up—
Prefect picks up on the second ring. “Hello?”
“It’s me,” I say.
“Why are you calling on a weekend?” he asks. “If you’ve attacked another billionaire, I’m not helping you.”
I let out a shaky laugh. “I’ve got good news and bad news.
The good news is, I haven’t reprogrammed another dog.
The bad news is that a group of criminals invaded the apartment building I’m staying in.
The ringleader killed the security guard and I’m pretty sure her crew just hacked the building. We’re under lockdown.”
There is a long pause, broken only by the sound of my breathing. I wait for his reply.
And wait.
“Prefect?” I say.
“… I left you alone for twenty-four hours,” he finally says. “Twenty-four hours, Augusta.”
“Don’t you think I know that?” I say, exasperated.
I can hear distant click-clacks of a mechanical keyboard. “Oh, Augusta. Only you. I’m alerting our Portland office. Where are you?”
“I’m in one of the apartments of the Waterfront Jewel.”
I can almost hear Prefect’s frown. “Are you safe?”
“For now.”
“Is this line secure?”
“I think so. It’s a landline. All cell signals are being blocked.” There is a muffled whisper of noise, as if Prefect is moving around.
“All right,” he says. “I’ll call you back on this number. Stay where you are. Don’t make any impulsive mistakes, Augusta. That’s an order.”
“Got it,” I say. “My mistakes will be well thought out.”
He sighs and then the line disconnects.
“Listen,” I say, looking to Nonna. “Does your apartment have a virtual assistant? Is it hooked up to the building’s mainframe?”
Nonna’s mouth purses in disapproval. “They tried to make me upgrade a few years ago, but I turned them down.”
“Good,” I say fervently. “Can I try your front door?”
Nonna walks me through her living room and down a short hallway to her front door. There’s an old-fashioned chain latch, a dead bolt, and a doorknob. It’s perfect. The mainframe can’t touch it.
I glance at Nonna for permission before I reach out and unlock the chain, then the dead bolt, and, finally, the knob itself.
The door opens with a slight squeak.
I have a way out.
I hastily shut and relock it. “They’re still out there,” I say.
I take a breath, because Nonna taught me manners. Or, at least she tried. “I’m sorry for your loss. Your friend, I mean.”
Nonna looks away, her jaw clenching. I recognize that look.
I was five when my grandpa died. While I remember the tears of my other relatives, Nonna’s face was etched in granite—cold and distant.
It was only later that I found her in the kitchen, sitting at the table with a handkerchief between her fingers.
It had been Grandpa’s. Always tucked into his front pocket.
Her grief has always been private.
I wonder if that’s how she grieved for me.
“Matthew was a nice man,” Nonna says now. “He held a monthly poker night down in the lobby, told anyone they were welcome. He has grandkids.” She seems to draw herself together. “Will the person you called be able to help?”
“Yes,” I say. “He’ll get the right people here. I’m not sure local cops are ready to handle that nasty-looking crew downstairs.”
Piper sucks in a breath. She has come into the hallway without my noticing. “There’s more? I only saw m—saw the one.” It sounds as though she was going to say “murderer” but choked on the word.
“There’s a few,” I hedge. I don’t want to scare the girl even more.
Nonna looks at me. “You said your name is Augusta, right?”
I lean against the wall. “Yeah. Never caught yours, though.”
“Irene,” she says. “You can call me Irene.”
That sounds wrong. But I can’t call her Nonna, no matter how much I’m thinking it.
We all have roles to play.
“Okay, Irene,” I say. “Here’s what we’re going to do—first, do you have anything to drink? I think the kid could use some water.”
Piper scowls. “I’m not a kid.”
The mundane request snaps Nonna into action.
“Of course.” She bustles in the direction of the kitchen.
I double-check the locks, then follow Piper into the living room.
Resting atop the steamer trunk is an empty mug and a book of crosswords.
Eames stands by the balcony door, his gaze hard on the outside world.
I sink to the floor. Somehow it doesn’t feel right taking up space on the furniture.
Nonna returns carrying three mason jars full of water. Ice clinks against the glass as she sets them on coasters. “Thanks,” I say. “My boss should call me back soon.”
“Is there anything we should do until then?” asks Nonna. She sits on the love seat, adjusting the cushions in an absentminded manner. “Go warn the neighbors?”
I shake my head. “For now, it’s safest to stay here.”
In the meantime, I can try to figure out escape routes.
“Do you have a fire ladder?” I ask.
Nonna shakes her head. “Our fire-suppression system is supposed to be the best. We were told we didn’t need them.”
I glance up at the ceiling. Two sprinklers are visible—and they look a little rusty. “I don’t think a couple of sprinklers are state of the art.”
“I have the sprinklers,” says Nonna. “Because I refused the upgrade. The landlord tried to get me to take it, but I was here before they bought the building and my old lease was grandfathered into the contract.”
“What does everyone else have?” I ask, picking up a mason jar.
“Some kind of fancy carbon dioxide thing,” says Piper, speaking up. “The apartments have sensors, so they know when someone’s in their apartment, and then once people evacuate, they release the gas into the room. No oxygen, no fire.”
We all look at her.
“She also reads technical manuals,” says Eames. “Little weirdo. Won’t read classics but give her an air-conditioner repair manual or a serial killer biography and she’s set.”
“I’m not weird,” says Piper indignantly. “You’re weird.” She sticks her tongue out at Eames, who grins back at her.
A horrible, horrible thought occurs to me. I drop my mason jar against the steamer trunk with a thud.
“What?” asks Eames.
I swallow. “Hypothetically, if someone were to hack the mainframe—which they have—they could turn off some safety features. Like the ones that prevent all the air being purged from a room with people in it. And a hacker could fool the computer into thinking there’s a fire.”
Eames draws in a sharp breath.
Every single person trapped in their apartment could be asphyxiated with a few taps of a keyboard.
Hundreds of people.
Dead in moments.
The landline rings before the panic can truly take root. Grateful for the distraction, I pick up the phone.
“Augusta,” says Prefect. “Good, you haven’t done anything stupid yet.”
“We’ve got a problem,” I say.
“I’m sure,” he replies, “but mine’s more important.”
“The criminals have control of a deadly fire-suppression system that could potentially kill everyone in the building,” I say flatly.
If he’s shocked, I don’t hear it in his voice. There isn’t even so much as a pause on his end.
“I just received a call,” Prefect says. “There is something on the premises. Government intelligence. I’ve been told it’s exceedingly valuable.”
I grimace. I can feel the others’ eyes on me, and I wish I could take this call into another room without making them suspicious. It’s difficult to convey the urgency of the situation while also maintaining my cover as some lowly intern.
“And you didn’t know this until now?” I ask. Another thought occurs to me. “Oh. That’s what these guys are after, aren’t they? You don’t hack an entire building during a blackout just to rob a few people. They’re after something big.” I shake my head. “Why was it brought here?”
“It probably wasn’t done through official channels,” says Prefect.
“You mean someone brought confidential files home from work,” I groan. “Probably to sell or leak. And these people decided to steal it all.”
“I don’t know,” says Prefect grimly. “But that’s a possibility.”
“Are we talking a computer?” I ask. “A flash drive? The blueprints for the next cryptocurrency? You’ve gotta give me a clue here.”
“They did not tell me anything. Apparently it is very classified.”
I wish we were on a video call so he could see me face-palm. “And you don’t have clearance?”
“No,” he says, “I do not.”
That isn’t good. Prefect only stops using contractions when he is really pissed.
“Can you tell me anything?” I say.
An exhalation. “I have been informed that I cannot let it fall into criminal hands. It’s worth more than my job and your status as a wraith.”
“And how are you going to stop them?” I say, an incredulous laugh on my lips. “Prefect, they have an apartment building with hundreds of people hostage. They killed a security guard. They’ve locked down the building. You’ve got no plan and no idea what they’re trying to steal.”
I realize the answer a heartbeat before he says it.
“I know,” says Prefect. “But I have you.”