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“Even if she’s not in there, there might be information we can use to find her. Names, places, maybe money trails.”

“Great, paperwork,” Dwight said. “Just what I signed up for.”

“You signed up for adventure and a big payday. Guess what, partner? You’re about to get both.”

“Oh, gee, how did I end up so lucky?” Dwight said, and rolled his eyes.

Allie tuned them out and concentrated on the structure about fifty yards in front and across the street. The “house” was a brick-and-mortar apartment building, brown with time and the elements on the outside, and at least ten stories tall. The only way in, as far as she could see, was the front lobby.

They had entered the city of Summerville almost two hours ago, and on the way over here Allie couldn’t help but notice that the only time she saw police of any type was when they passed two uniformed deputies chatting in front of a food truck parked at a busy intersection about twenty minutes back. The buildings around them were tagged with gang signs and murals, including the apartment they were looking at. She couldn’t see a name, only fading white numbers over a gated front door that a Hispanic woman with a stroller was punching a code into before disappearing inside.

“This is it?” she asked.

“This is one of them,” Reese said. “This is where they bring the smaller deliveries — say, a lone girl snatched from a neighboring state. The last time we delivered here, we babysat a van. They take the semitrailers to bigger locations where there aren’t so many people around.”

“You’ve been inside?”

“All the way up to the tenth floor.”

“Five or so meatheads the last time we were here,” Dwight said. “That we could see, anyway.”

“Probably more than five,” Reese added.

“Will they recognize the two of you?” she asked.

“That’s what we’re hoping,” Reese said. “They won’t know what we’re doing back, and hopefully that’ll confuse them just long enough for us to make headway up to the tenth floor without incident.”

“You really believe that?” Dwight asked.

“I’m hoping.”

“Daydreaming’s more like it.”

“Either/or,” Reese said.

Dwight snorted but didn’t take his eyes away from the apartment tenement up the street.

“I saw a woman go inside with a stroller,” Allie said.

“They own the building and lease out the bottom seven floors,” Reese said. “The remaining top three are theirs. The super works for them, and he has a key that controls the elevator. One of the benefits of owning the place is the ability to lease to whoever they want. What did you notice while we were driving through this part of town?”

She didn’t have to think about it for very long. She remembered the flashes of storefront displays, the people on the sidewalks, the gang tags on the sides of buildings…

“They’re mostly Spanish speakers,” she said.

“First-generation South Americans,” Reese said. “Most of them are migrants who may or may not be here legally. That’s the kind of people that tend to avoid the police and keep their heads down. The rent is cheap and the organization doesn’t bother them. It all looks legitimate from the outside, because it is.”

“Well, mostly,” Dwight said.

“What about the girls?” Allie asked. “How does it work?”

“They’re just housed here. What’s that expression, ‘Don’t shit where you work?’ This is how they’ve stayed under the radar for so long. Of course, bribing the locals to look the other way probably helps, too.”

“So we can’t count on the cops?”

Dwight chuckled. “Not around here. At least, not until you’re long dead and screwed.”

“No, but that’s a good thing, because it means we have room to work.” Reese unzipped a pack he had sitting on the floor between his feet and handed her two spare magazines. “Just in case.”

She put them away while he fished a pill bottle out of his pocket and downed two more with a sip of water.

Dwight looked over at his partner. “Didn’t you just tell Alice in Wonderland to go easy with those?”

“I was shot, remember?” Reese said.

“Excuses, excuses. You gonna make it across the street?”

“I’ll be fine.”

“You don’t look fine.”

“Aw, I didn’t know you cared,” Reese said, grinning back at Dwight.

Dwight snorted. “Fuck off.”

If Allie didn’t know any better, she could almost believe that Dwight really was concerned about Reese. Maybe all that back-and-forth between them wasn’t just a joke after all; maybe they really did care about one another, as hard as that was for her to believe.

Bullshit. They’re bad guys. Killers. When you get the chance, take them both out.

“They’ll keep the girls on the top floor,” Reese said, looking back at her. “Along with the guys who run the place, so that’s where we need to be.”

“What about the eighth and ninth?” she asked.

“They should be empty.”

“Under construction,” Dwight said.

“It’s been ‘under construction’ since they moved in,” Reese said. “Their way of letting the residents know they shouldn’t wander past the seventh floor. We’ll have to take the stairs all the way up to the top.”

“What about the elevator?” Allie asked.

“They have cameras inside, and the bad guys can control them remotely.”

“What he means is, if they don’t like the way we look, they can stop us wherever they want and lock us in,” Dwight said. “It’s gotta be the stairs.”

Allie winced at the thought of having to take all ten floors’ worth of stairs in her current situation, but she didn’t let them know that. Reese was probably in even worse shape than her and if he wasn’t going to complain, she wasn’t going to, either.

“What’s our target once we’re inside?” she asked. “I mean, besides hitting the tenth floor. I assume searching every room for Faith, or evidence of Faith, would take too long.”

“Way too long,” Reese said. “Too many rooms, too many meatheads with guns to worry about. If Faith is there, or was there, the caretaker will have records of her. So our goal should be her office, located at the very end of the hallway.”

“It’s a woman?”

“Uh huh.”

“Is there a reason for that?”

“Probably the same reason we brought you along,” Reese said.

Allie nodded. “How are we getting inside? I’m assuming they’re not just going to open the door even if they do recognize you.”

“Nope. Not without a scheduled delivery.”

“So how, then?”

“I have a plan,” Reese said.

“Is it a good plan?” Dwight asked.

“Eh,” Reese shrugged.

Twenty

It took five minutes after Reese told Alice he had a plan before an elderly man wearing a flat cap exited the building, then walked down the street to a corner grocery store. Almost exactly eleven minutes later, the man reemerged on the sidewalk with a paper sack.

“Okay,” Reese said, and climbed out of the truck.

Alice and Dwight followed behind him as he walked across the street, glad he was in front of them so they couldn’t see the way he was grimacing with every step. Extra painkillers or not, moving was still going to be a pain in the ass for the next few days (weeks?). The old man was thirty yards ahead of them, but thank God he was moving at a much slower pace, which allowed Reese to catch up without having to exert himself too much.

“This is your plan?” Alice asked behind him.

“Low tech works best,” Reese said.