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Needless to say, Evelyn didn't join me on my aerial voyage. She stayed below, covering the guards and waiting for news from Jack.
I broke open the roof door, used the infrared to scan the area and then whispered, "I'm in," through my earpiece before making that a reality.
The roof door opened, not surprisingly, to a set of stairs. I headed down them. At the bottom, I scanned again and thought I picked up a faint blip to my right . . . and then nothing. I tried repositioning a few times, but the device brought back nothing. Felix had warned me not to rely on it. Jack wouldn't even use one--and hadn't been thrilled that Evelyn brought it. To him, any reliance on gadgets meant less reliance on your senses. I knew the device's limitations, though. In an old building like this, with thick walls and rats' nests of wiring, it was even less useful than usual. But it helped.
As I moved, I kept the device in one hand and my gun in the other. At each corner, I added the infrared to the usual list of checks before I stepped around it. That blip kept appearing and disappearing, and by time I reached the stairwell, I decided the device was too distracting. I pocketed it and settled for listening and looking.
I covered the fifth floor. It wasn't a large building. Empty, too. I saw signs of renovation that reminded me of our chalet at home--the piles of wood, boxes of nails. What was missing was the smell--no hint of sawdust from cut wood or drywall from putting up new walls or even dust from cutting through old ones. And the signs of renovation were oddly random. Tools in this room, wood in that one, nails in another . . .
I couldn't tell what was going on, and there was no time to stop and ponder. I kept moving, tucking those thoughts into the back of my mind as I continued down the stairwell. At the bottom, I whispered an "all clear, still searching" to Evelyn, who told me Jack had checked in ten minutes ago saying he was at his destination, nothing to report yet.
I was about to step from the stairwell when I decided to use Felix's device for a quick scan. Sure enough, it was giving me that blip, stronger now but still not holding steady. I put the device away and searched. Empty rooms here, too. One had a sawhorse. Another had a drop-sheet and a can of paint, but again, there was no smell of actual work. The paint can had been opened and, when curiosity compelled me to check, I pried off the lid to see it was half-empty, but there was no scent of paint fumes in the air nor anything actually newly painted nearby.
On the third floor, the blip came stronger. Someone was definitely here. I found more of those signs of renovation without any actual reno. Three levels of sporadic materials and tools.
I could ask Evelyn to help me puzzle it out, but she'd just snort and tell me to stick to the job. This was the job, though--the circumstances were too odd to be happenstance, so they meant something.
I looked at another drop-sheet and partial can of paint.
Any ideas, Jack?
I chuckled to myself. Hey,
it worked the last time. This time, he remained silent, even in my head. Silent because he would be puzzling it out. He'd take the time to consider the implications.
Okay, I'll do that, then.
Fake signs of renovation. Why?
In case someone came in and wondered why the building was empty?
Possible, but lots of buildings stood empty, either as investments or awaiting a purpose.
Because someone was visiting and they wanted it to look as if the building was being renovated?
Why? A scam? If so, they could at least slap some paint around, rip out a few floorboards. Why not bother with those basic extra steps?
I got nothing.
Untrue. I had questions, and those were almost as important as answers. Questions meant something was wrong here, and I needed to pay extra attention--
A floorboard creaked. I zipped behind the door. A moment later, a man walked by. Hispanic. Thirties. Big guy with a gun in his hand. A thug doing his rounds.
He continued past the room without slowing and went straight to the stairwell. Even after the door clicked shut, I waited for his footsteps on the stairs, to be absolutely sure it wasn't a fake out. Once his boots sounded, I slid out and silently jogged to the stairwell. It sounded as if he was heading up, but I wanted to be sure.
The door on the next level shut and his boot steps faded down the hall. I crept into the stairwell and went down to the second floor. I did a faster survey of that level. There were boxes on this one--cardboard and wood. Most were empty. A few were stuffed with random office items, like paper. And I do mean "stuffed," as if someone just dumped the supplies in, rather than actually bringing them packed for storage or use.
Nothing else on the second floor. The first level was the trickiest--I didn't need to check Felix's device to expect guards on that one. The stairs continued down another level, and I decided to just skip the first floor. At the bottom of the steps, I checked the device. Two blips together, flickering in and out, likely the guys on the first floor but I wasn't taking any chances. What interested me more was I was now picking up one steady sign of life. In the basement. Which was the best place for stashing a hostage.
The problem with the device is, of course, there's no way of seeing the actual layout of the building. So when I finally drew close to the blip, I found myself on the opposite side of a wall from it. I continued along that wall, looking for a door, but had to circle through a couple of rooms before I got reasonably close to the blip again. When I did, I found a crudely cut hole in the wall, almost like those used for passing food to prisoners in ancient dungeons. I bent to peer through it. Directly across from me, dim lighting reveals a tall guy with a light brown crew-cut sitting on the floor, his back against the wall, pretending to be asleep. I say "pretending" because short of a serious blow to the head, he wasn't going to nap while being held captive.
"Sleeping on the job?" I whispered through the opening.
Quinn's eyes snapped open.
"It's Dee," I said.
He pushed to his feet fast, something metal clattering to the floor. It looked like a spoon. Behind him, I could see signs where he'd been digging at the mortar in the brick wall.
