Chapter Forty-Seven
I’m in the minivan, checking in with Piper, who has learned of the wonder/horror that is the kid’s show Cocomelon. Assured the girls are happy and that Piper is (mostly) maintaining her sanity, I’m able to focus on the task at hand.
For the first time since Brian got his shiny BMW, I wish I’d followed suit and gotten something a little flashier, a little faster—but I have to make do with what I have, and so I speed down the freeway in my mom-mobile, nearing a hundred miles per hour and hoping for the best.
The industrial part of town is busy today, but I don’t wait in traffic; instead, I whip through alleyways, jerk the wheel to avoid hitting dumpsters, pretend that the suspension in my van can handle the bumps, and narrowly miss T-boning two other cars.
I squeak to a halt outside the white-and-orange storage facility. A U-Haul truck creeps by, and two women with a dolly cross from the back of their pickup into a side door. It’s the same building I need access to.
I hurry from the van and race across the black asphalt, risking my fingers to catch the door just before it slams shut.
Inside, it’s suddenly dark, cavernous, and the climate control chills the sweat clinging to my skin.
I take a breath and listen. Women’s voices, growing distant, the brrrring of the elevator, shuffling as they step inside.
Then I’m alone in the frigid emptiness. The hallway extends seemingly into the infinite, the overhead lights dim, turning on only when they catch movement below, leaving everything shrouded in darkness.
But I know what’s there—another dozen units, followed by a hallway that extends either way, then more storage, followed by another hall.
A third passageway encircles the outside, creating basically a small track.
Hell, I could run here when it’s too hot outside.
Each floor is a carbon copy of this one—except, perhaps, for Ian’s unit on the third floor.
I imagine no one else has a person behind their rolling door.
Nor the tools he stores there for when he’s in this part of the country or heading south to Mexico.
The first time I came here was after too many drinks and a successful job where Ian and I nearly got killed—but somehow made it out alive and not in the back of a cop car.
We were high on triumph, on life. He’d wanted to show off, and the space overflowed with weapons.
The sort that are definitely not legal but so utterly effective in our line of work.
The poison is what surprised me most—he’s more the chop their head off with a machete sort rather than the kind to poison their tea and smile pleasantly as they fall asleep and never wake up.
Or maybe it wasn’t that sort of poison he offhandedly mentioned—maybe it was the far worse kind, the variety that leaves you bleeding from your orifices.
I cringe at the thought. Hopefully, Brian’s still alive and I won’t find him on the floor of the storage unit having ingested something awful, his insides on the outside.
The other option is that Ian brought Brian here to torture him, though I’m not sure why he’d waste the time.
I shudder—from that thought, or maybe the cool air—and step forward.
Simultaneously, the light flickers on overhead, illuminating my exact location.
It’s unnerving.
I remember to silence my phones, then approach the elevator, almost expecting Ian to appear out of thin air. Like he knows I’m coming. Like this is a trap.
It hits me that it’s possible Victoria was actually waiting for me—that Ian went home exclusively to retrieve her, to have her point me in the wrong direction, or worse, point me toward an ambush. That maybe she’s working alongside Ian, and that he knew I wouldn’t really kill her.
Except he couldn’t have known that. Because if the situation were different, I would have, without a second thought.
A set of stairs sits to one side of the elevator, and I push through the door. It really wouldn’t make sense for Ian to set me up—I’m not his enemy. Or at least I wasn’t until today.
Up, up, up I climb, pausing at the top of the final staircase to catch my breath.
A narrow window gives me a view of the third floor.
It’s dark, like no one’s here, no one to activate the lights.
Or someone has cut the power. Perhaps they are in a unit, the door closed, not setting off the motion sensors.
I pull out my gun and ease open the door from the stairwell to the third floor.
Nothing.
No sound, no light, not a hint of movement. I start around the first corner, pausing every so often to listen.
The automatic overhead lights escort me. Beyond being bright, they make an electric whoosh every time a new set flicks on. There’s no way Ian won’t know I’m coming.
A long, dark corridor faces me as I turn what I think is the last corner. The hollow passageway echoes with my footsteps, and I slow, raising my gun, ready to pull the trigger and put a bullet through his chest.
At least that’s what I tell myself. That I’ll do it—I’ll shoot.
“Nadia.” A disembodied voice resonates through the hall.
My grip tightens on my gun, my stance lowers ever so slightly, ready to take a shot.
“You weren’t supposed to find me here.” He must have cameras set up, maybe a mic. He’s watching me.
“You weren’t supposed to tell me to kill your wife.”
Laughter—deep, reverberating. My head whips one way, then the other—where is he?
Except for the part where there aren’t any actual mirrors, it’s like I’m in a fun house—everything appears the same regardless of which direction I look, his voice sounding like it’s coming from everywhere and nowhere all at once.
He chuckles. “You weren’t going to kill her.”
“Are you so sure?”
“Well, did you?”
I take a tentative step down the passageway, eyes inspecting each orange door. Was it the fourth one down? The fifth? Or maybe we entered from the other side, and I’m at the wrong end of the hall altogether.
“You want to kill my husband. Why wouldn’t I kill your wife?”
“Because, unlike me, you have…morals.” He utters the last word like it’s disgusting. And maybe to Ian it is.
“I’ll tell you where she is as soon as I have Brian. Alive.”
“Mm, I don’t think so.” Silence for one, two, three seconds. And then, his tone going from playful to serious—“Nadia. I’m trying to help you. Let me make this easy.”
Annoyance builds up, flows over. “You’re not helping. I don’t need help. What I need is my husband.”
“So you can kill him? So you can collect the money?”
I growl at the thought, that he would think I’d track him down for that and that alone. After everything we’ve been through, he should know me better.
“He’s been lying to you, Nadia. Meanwhile, I have been nothing but honest. You’ve always known the real me.”
My mouth gapes open. What the fuck does this have to do with him being honest? Which—furthermore—he hasn’t been. Not to mention…
“I’ve been lying too,” I growl. “I’d say Brian and I need therapy, if anything.”
A harsh laugh. “Do you think he even loves you?”
The question steals some of my resolve. I’m not sure. But that’s the thing: I have to find out.
My gaze catches on one storage unit in particular. The one with no padlock.
“I don’t know,” I say to Ian’s voice. “But I plan to ask him.”
And with that, I squat down, grab the bottom of the rolling door, and yank it upward.