The tenth-floor hallway resembled every other apartment she had ever been to, with numbered doors on both sides. Reese’s words echoed in her head—
“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.”
— and she pushed forward, the Glock gripped tightly in her hands. Putting down Dwight’s killer stayed with her for just a second before she was past it. She wished she could have said the ability to do that was new, that it made her uneasy, but it would have been a lie on both counts.
Beckard…
Dan’s men at the cabin…
None of this was new to her, and she’d honed her skills even further since those men. Even so, she couldn’t ignore the pounding in her chest, the tightness in her legs and arms and fingers as she moved ahead. Her eyes snapped from door to door, waiting, just waiting for someone to come out, for the first click to signal opposition.
The pain had lessened since the shooting began, more a direct result of the adrenaline coursing through her than anything else. Even the meds she’d downed before hitting the apartment hadn’t prevented the sensations of fire from engulfing her legs as they moved up the stairs. It had been all she could do not to scream out in pain with every step. The only thing that had kept her from acknowledging the misery was being squeezed in between Dwight and Reese, and refusing — simply refusing — to look weak in front of them. Reese had a hole in his side, and if he could grit it out, then dammit, so could she.
So she had moved on until the adrenaline kicked in when the shooting began. After that, she simply didn’t have time for the pain anymore. And it worked, too — until she stepped into the tenth-floor hallway and it suddenly returned, though not nearly with the same intensity as back in the stairwell.
She clenched her teeth and pushed through it, telling herself that Faith was somewhere in here and she had to find her, or find evidence of her existence, because if she didn’t do it, then no one else would. Not the cops, not the Feds, no one. It might not have been the absolute truth, but it was just enough motivation to keep her going.
Allie heard everything (footsteps in the rooms, frightened and confused whispers), saw everything (a section of the wallpaper peeling, a pen’s misplaced cap), even smelled the dirty carpet under her, and something that might have been perfume coming from the door she had just passed.
Then, out of nowhere, Reese’s voice was cutting through her sensory overload: “Remember, last door up the hallway to your left.”
Last door up the hallway to your left, she repeated to herself, and picked up her pace.
She was three doors down from her objective when the door clicked open and a woman stuck her head out and looked down the hallway—
Allie fired a shot over the woman’s head, splintering the doorframe behind her.
“Get on your knees now!” she shouted.
The woman, the caretaker that Reese had mentioned, hurried to obey, putting both arms over her head without having to be told, as if she had been in this situation many times before. She sneaked a look as Allie rushed to her, the Glock in her hands shifting from the woman’s overly made-up face to the room behind her, more parts of the living room coming into view as she got closer. The woman watched Allie the entire time. She might have been in her early forties, but the clown makeup made her look much older.
Allie finally reached the apartment and grabbed the older woman by her coiffed hair, jerking her back up to her feet. The woman let out a squeal but didn’t try to get away. Allie turned her around until they were facing the room, then clutched the back of the caretaker’s blouse and led her inside. The woman was a few inches shorter than her, despite wearing pumps, which allowed Allie to survey the room unobstructed.
Framed landscape oil paintings dotted the walls and the furniture looked new, including a coffee table with stacks of magazines that were just too perfectly staged to have ever been picked up. A hallway in the back led into the bedrooms, and there was a kitchen to her left.
“Alice,” Reese said from behind her.
She glanced back. He remained outside the door, the MP5K pointing back down the hallway. There were no other doors behind him, so he would have a perfect view of the floor all the way to the elevator and stairwell at the other end.
“Here,” he said, and reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out his cell phone and tossed it to her. “Faith’s photo,” he added, because apparently she had given him a blank look.
Right. Faith’s photo.
Allie pocketed the burner phone and turning back around, got a good grip on the caretaker’s hair and pulled her head — just her head — backward. The woman let out another pained squeal.
“How many men do you have in the building?” she asked the woman.
The woman said something in Spanish.
“She’s lying,” Reese said. “Bitch can speak English better than Dwight could.”
Allie tightened her hold on the older woman’s hair and jerked it back again until her neck was straining. “How many?”
“Six,” the woman said, this time in perfect English.
Six men. How many had they killed just getting up here? Reese had shot two on the way up. Dwight had killed another one when he sprayed the ninth floor stairwell door. Then there was the one who had shot Dwight, whom she shot in return.
“Two left,” Allie said, looking back at Reese.
He nodded. “They’re probably waiting for us downstairs. Go get what you need, but hurry.”
“The cops?”
“Eventually, but I’m more worried about reinforcements.”
She nodded and turned back to the caretaker. “Where is it?”
“Where is what?” the woman asked through clenched teeth. If she was scared even a little bit, Allie couldn’t read it in her voice.
“The records of all the girls here, that have been through here. Where are they?”
“I don’t know—”
Allie pressed the Glock into the back of the woman’s neck, and her body stiffened. “I’m going to ask you just one more time: Where are they?”
“In the last room,” the woman said.
“Go,” Allie said, and pushed the older woman into the bedroom hallway.
The caretaker stumbled, caught herself, and glanced back at Allie. “They’re going to kill you for this.”
Allie ignored her, said, “What’s your name?”
“Melinda.”
“Shut the fuck up and take me to the records, Melinda.”
The older woman grinned back at her, the sight almost comical with her smeared lipstick. “You’ll never make it out of this building alive.”
Allie pointed the gun in her face. “Then neither will you.”
The woman grunted, still showing none of the fear — or, at the very least, some doubt — that Allie was hoping to see.
What’s it going to take to scare this woman?
Melinda led her into a room at the back of the apartment — some kind of office with a large oak desk in the center.
“Stop,” Allie said when they were inside. She took out the phone, made sure Faith’s black and white photo was on the screen, and showed it to Melinda. “Do you recognize her?”
The other woman squinted at the photo. “Who is she?”
“Do you recognize her?”
“I don’t know. There are a lot of girls here. A lot of girls come and go. I can’t keep track of all of them. Anyway, they all look the same, especially the white girls.”