Chapter 14
Chapter
Fourteen
MALLORY
The next morning, Flint replaced the murder board in his apartment with a building.
Metaphorically.
The glass whiteboard that had held victim names, timelines, and questions now displayed floor plans, property records, exterior photographs, utility maps, fire exits, and a satellite image of the address printed on the Auditor’s invitation.
Red marker circled three entrances.
Blue marked security cameras.
Black Xs identified doors Flint apparently considered unusable.
A photograph of the rear loading dock had been enlarged and taped to the lower corner. Another showed the parking garage entrance. A third had been taken from across the river with enough zoom to capture several dark windows on the upper floors.
I stood in the living room dressed in his old Carter News T-shirt again, coffee forgotten halfway to my mouth.
“You went there.”
Flint didn’t look up from the laptop balanced on one knee. He sat at the far end of the sofa, freshly showered, dressed in jeans and a dark long-sleeved shirt. His hair was still damp around the temples.
“I went near there.”
I didn’t quite snort, but said, “That picture was taken from the loading dock.”
“Okay, so near is a flexible term.”
“And that one?” I pointed toward the photograph from across the river.
“Public property.” So dismissive.
“The garage?” I couldn’t decide if I was angry, worried, or impressed.
“Also publicly accessible.” He still hadn’t looked up.
“You went inside.”
That made him look at me. “No.” Far roo quick to be evasive.
Flint lied rarely and badly. Not because he lacked the skill. Because he usually preferred obstruction to dishonesty.
I crossed to the board.
The address belonged to a nineteen-story office building near the river, built during the end of a commercial real-estate boom and abandoned during the legal bloodbath that followed.
Three floors remained leased. Another two were used for storage.
The rest existed in varying stages of renovation, neglect, and municipal dispute.
Someone had written the words ACTIVE UTILITIES: PARTIAL in the upper corner.
Flint’s handwriting.
I frowned. “You called the utility companies.”
“I called people who know people at the utility companies.” So casual. So relaxed.
I shot him a look. “That sounds suspiciously familiar.”
“What can I say?” He gave a careless shrug. “You’re a bad influence.”
I studied the images more closely.
The front entrance possessed a security desk, turnstiles, and three camera angles. The parking garage had two gates but only one appeared operational. The river side of the building had an elevated service entrance accessible from a narrow alley.
A map of the interior showed four elevator banks and two fire stairs.
“You got floor plans.” How long had I been asleep? Or had he just not slept?
“Public permit filings.”
Oh please. I didn’t snort, but I didn’t even try to hide my expression. “Those aren’t this detailed.”
“Not usually.”
I turned toward him. He returned his attention to the laptop.
There was a bruise beneath his right eye that had not been there the night before.
Small. Faint. Almost hidden beneath the shadow of poor sleep.
“What happened to your face?”
His hand rose reflexively, fingertips brushing the bruise. “Cabinet.”
“What cabinet?”
“One with poor depth perception.”
“You ran into a cabinet.” I didn’t even try to inject belief into that statement.
“Yes.”
“At the building?” I raised both eyebrows.
“No.” Too swift again.
I took a deep breath and released it before I asked, with as much of a smile as I could, “Before or after you went near it?”
His eyes narrowed.
Mine did too.
We had spent too many years interviewing reluctant sources for either of us to pretend this conversation was casual.
I set my coffee on the table. “How close did you get?”
“Close enough.”
“Meaning?”
“Meaning I looked at the exterior, watched traffic patterns, and spoke to a security guard at a garage across the street.”
“You interviewed a witness.”
“I asked questions.”
I rolled my eyes. “That is the definition of an interview.”
“Only when you do it.” He was practically daring me now.
I stared at the bruise. “Did someone hit you?”
“No.”
“Did someone try?”
“No.”
“Did you fall?”
He exhaled through his nose then gave an almost resigned sigh. “A gate arm came down faster than expected.”
I looked from his face to the photograph of the garage. “You went inside.”
“I went into the garage.”
“That is inside the building.”
“Technically, that’s underneath it.”
“Flint.”
“Mallory.”
The familiar echo should have amused me. It didn’t.
“You don’t get to disappear into an abandoned building after telling me I’m not allowed to go there.”
“Right here.” He made a sweeping gesture to himself. “I didn’t disappear.”
“You didn’t tell me.”
“You were asleep.” He was ready with that answer too fast, and he almost sounded smug.
If not for the smugness, I might have let him get away with it. Maybe. I looked at my watch. “For five hours.” It had been after midnight when we got back here. I’d all but fallen into the bed.
“Four and a half.” The correction seemed automatic on his part. But then, we both did that, didn’t we?
“That doesn’t make—“ I shifted to wave at the board. “—this better.”
“I wasn’t trying to make it better.”
His calm made me want to shake him. Or kiss him. The fact both reactions arrived at once did nothing for my mood.
Reclaiming my coffee, I took one deep breath, then another. Calmer, I gestured toward the board. “What is all this?”
“A plan.” Nice and vague, though I could guess.
“For?” Specifics would be nice. Though I didn’t say that part.
“For when you go.”
I stopped. Not if. When.
Flint closed the laptop and placed it beside him. “I know you’re going.”
I eyed him. Who was he and what had he done with Flint? “Weren’t you the one that spent most of last evening arguing against this and telling me not to?”
“I was hoping you’d develop survival instincts while I slept.”
“Did you even sleep?”
“No, but apparently you weren’t developing the survival instincts either.”
I folded my arms.
He rose.
The movement brought him level with me, then above. Flint never used his size deliberately, at least not with me, but the room became smaller whenever he straightened to his full height.
“I’m still not agreeing with this,” he said, being utterly serious now. “I’m merely acknowledging the reality that you will do whatever you think is best and to hell with the rest of us.”
That was harsh. “You think I’m incapable of changing my mind?”
He gave me the smallest smile before he picked up his own coffee cup and headed for the kitchen. “I think you made up your mind before you even got the note.”
The accuracy irritated me and since he was walking away, I gave into temptation and stuck my tongue out at him while he couldn’t see me.
Not satisfied with only that for a response, I took a sip of my coffee before I asked “Then why argue?”
He pulled milk out of the fridge and started it steaming before he answered. “Because every now and then I indulge the fantasy that you might listen for once.”
“I listen.” Not all of my outrage was performative. Some, yes, but not all.
The bland look he shot me told me he was hardly fooled. “You wait for pauses then try to deflect and derail back to where you want to go.”
“That’s not—totally wrong.”
“Generous.” The sarcasm draped heavily over the word.
I almost smiled, but hid the reaction by taking a long swallow of the coffee. When he started grinding more coffee, I studied the board. It didn’t take him long to return with a fresh coffee for him and a second one for me.
Blinking, almost blearily, I stared at the new cup then drained what was left in the one I had. I practically hugged the new cup as he set my empty one aside on the table.
Smiling faintly, Flint crossed to the board and tapped the exterior photograph.
“The building has two active tenants. A law office on the fourth floor and a logistics company on seven. Both have Saturday hours intermittently but they are closed by six if they come in at all.”
“The meeting is at midnight.”
“I’m aware.” The crispness in his voice didn’t betray irritation so I just went with it.
“The front desk?”
“Staffed until ten. After that, remote monitoring until Monday morning.”
“Company?”
“Contractor called Protek Urban Security.” He tapped a small decal he’d photographed before sipping his coffee.
I reached for a marker and wrote the name on the edge of the board.
“Employees?”
“Still working on it.”
“Any ties to Meridian Media Group?”
“None I found.”
“The FBI?”
“Nothing obvious.”
“The property owner?”
“Shell company.”
I grunted. Because, of course it was.
“Delaware registration. Managed through a commercial agent in Nevada. Taxes paid by a holding company registered in Wyoming.”
I blinked at him.
He shrugged. “You’re not the only one who knows how to follow paperwork.”
“I’ve never said you weren’t good.”
“I’m fairly certain you implied something along the lines of—I lost my mojo when I took a desk job for the suits.”
“That’s different.” I kept my voice prim.
A flicker of warmth crossed his expression and vanished. The careful distance between us remained. Less jagged but still there.
We stood side by side before the board, close enough that the sleeve of my shirt brushed his arm when I lifted the marker.
Neither of us moved away.
I pointed toward the access routes. “What do we think the card opens?”
“Could be anything. Elevator. Exterior door. Suite. It might not work until the appointment time. I didn’t go all the way in and you have the card still.”
Yes, I did. I’d slept with it. “Think we can clone it?”
“Maybe.”
“That’s what we should do first.”
“That would require taking it from your pocket.”
I instinctively touched the place where the card rested against my hip in my sleep shorts.
“You slept with it?” he asked. “Didn’t you?”
“It seemed safer than leaving it on a table.” I kept my gaze on the board.
“Uh huh.”
“Don’t start.”
“I haven’t stopped.” The tension returned with startling efficiency.