Page 29 of To Catch a Sub

She stepped out of the cab, closing the door behind her. She was always going to have gotten out of that cab—Landon was, after all, her best protection from Damien—but this location was not inspiring, so her reservations were real.

Though they were in London, they were in an industrial area, and she was rather surprised there were any areas like this left in a city where real estate was at a premium. Directly in front of them was a tall fence made of corrugated metal, a rusty sign proclaiming it a scrap yard. She could just see the top of a building beyond the wall in the dusty gold light of later afternoon.

They were in the Haringey Warehouse District—she’d heard Landon say that to the driver at the airport. Since Landon hadn’t been talking to her, she’d read up on the area on her phone on the drive. Once an industrial center, the area was now known for communal-style living in converted warehouses, and fighting redevelopment. Residents were battling to keep the area from being gentrified into oblivion.

The area where they’d been dropped off looked like it was still fully industrial. There was one three-story older brick warehouse to her left, but its windows were all broken, and there was accumulated debris on the top step that made her think no one had opened that door in a long time. The other buildings she could see looked like they’d been retrofitted at some point, because while there were hints of old red-brick walls, there was plenty of concrete and metal too.

Landon hauled their bags onto the footpath. Colette followed him, turning to watch as the cab drove away.

“We’ll give it a minute,” he said.

“Before you have me shredded by a scrap metal shredder?” Colette rapped on the metal fence.

Landon looked over his shoulder, then back to her. “You have no idea what happens at a metal recycling facility, do you?”

“No.”

“Were you imagining…giant paper shredders, but for sheets of metal?”

“Wouldn’t that make it easier to deal with?” She cocked her head and blinked with exaggerated slowness.

He almost smiled. “No, it would make dangerous metal confetti.”

It felt good to tease and banter, but before she could continue the volley, Landon looked at his watch and nodded.

“Okay, let’s go.”

“Where are we going?”

“To the club.”

Maybe this was tradecraft, and now a different cab would pick them up and take them to the real location. Her hope for that faded when Landon started walking, rolling both their bags.

The scrap metal facility sat on the corner of the block, so they walked along its fence before turning the corner. The height of the fence had blocked the view, which was too bad, because if Colette had seen this street her mind wouldn’t have gone to crime documentaries and horror films.

The narrow road was lined with three- and four-story brick warehouses, that showed their age, but weren’t run down or derelict. It looked like an area where one would find metal-work artist studios, microbreweries or distilleries, and people gathering to plan a revolution.

A few of the warehouses stood alone, but most were like row houses and shared a wall with either of their neighbors. Tiny strips of dirt, most barely a meter wide, along the front of the buildings boasted black iron fenced with brick posts, as if sometime in the past there’d been hope of these being proper little gardens.

Half way down the short block, one warehouse stood out, like a cut and polished stone among a scattering of raw gems. It was three stories, with evenly-spaced, multi-pane windows. The upper cross piece of each window frame was white stone, while the lower frame was dark-gray brick. The stone steps up to the front door were clean and tidy, the brick aged and weathered, but not spotted with patches of black from soot or grime.

The door, set off to the right side rather than in the center, was surrounded by a casing made of the same white stone that topped each window. The peaked pediment had a ledge running along it, and that small lip of stone helped draw the eye away from, if not exactly hide, the security cameras mounted above the door.

“Why couldn’t we get dropped off here?” Colette asked as they, predictably, stopped in front of the nice warehouse.

“Best to be cautious.”

“But isn’t it…obvious?” she asked slowly.

The bottom floor was elevated above street level. Landon started up the stairs and Colette trailed after him. “Isn’t what obvious?”

She stuck her hands in her pockets, hiding her nervously clenched hands as she paused on the landing, looking back over her shoulder. “Pretend someone is following us.”

“According to you, someone is.”

“If the people looking for me managed to find our cab and learn where we were dropped off, it wouldn’t be hard for them to figure out this is where we are.” She pointed at the building. “It’s the only location that looks habitable.”

“Only because you didn’t go the other way.” He pointed back up the street the way they’d come. “If we’d turned right rather than left, we’d see three or four residential buildings, a hostel, and a few small houses that used to be for factory foremen.”