“I want to get a look inside, but I don’t want to be caught. This is a restricted construction zone. Sneaky, okay?”
“Okay.”
“You do as I say.”
“Yeah. Fine. Let’s go.”
Darcy radiated eagerness, and a momentary flash of worry eclipsed my excitement. This was a bad idea. Was I putting him in danger? He had run from Lukyan less than twenty-four hours ago. Literally jumped from a moving vehicle and broke his arm to get away from him. What if we were caught?
Diem would kill me.
Before I could change my mind or take action, the main door of the building opened again, and Lukyan appeared with three boys about Darcy’s age.
“Who are they?” Darcy asked, no longer racing to get out of the vehicle.
I didn’t answer, but he didn’t seem to expect one. We were a fair distance away, but Darcy drew his hood and sank lower in the seat, peering cautiously over the top of the dash. Maybe the kid had half a brain after all.
Lukyan guided the boys to his vehicle. He opened the trunk, and they each collected a few banker boxes from within, taking them back inside while Lukyan supervised. They returned a few minutes later and gathered more from the back seat of the Bentley.
Lukyan closed the car door and spoke to the boys for a few minutes before they vanished inside again. Lukyan unlocked the fence, got in his car, and left.
I watched him drive off but didn’t follow, my brain stirring over what I’d witnessed.
“He’s getting away.” Darcy emerged from the shell of his hoodie and peered after the retreating car.
I didn’t care. I had a strong suspicion the answers lay in those boxes. In the not-so-vacant building with people inside.
As I pondered, my phone rang. I checked the screen—Diem—and hesitated, debating if I should answer, knowing how he would feel about the slowly forming plan inside my head.
I let it go to voicemail.
It rang again.
Darcy glanced at the device. “Why aren’t you answering?”
“Because Diem won’t like what I’m planning to do, and if I don’t tell him, then he can’t tell me not to.” I unbuckled my seat belt. “Are you coming?”
“Fuck yeah.”
Darcy followed as I circled the property. He didn’t badger me with questions or race ahead, and it won him a few more points. At this rate, I might decide to like the kid.
I suspected there was more than one way inside the fence besides the one Lukyan had used, and I was right. Unfortunately, it too was chained shut. I rattled the gate and cursed as I examined the wired design of the surrounding fence. It wasn’t a typical chain link that could be scaled using the grid as footholds. These openings were much smaller, and I doubted I could squish the toe of my shoe in far enough to successfully climb it.
Darcy must have registered the problem and wandered the length of the fence, studying the way the temporary pieces connected. Twenty feet from the gate, he stopped and shouted. “Here.”
Each section was joined to the one beside it with thick wires looped around posts. The one he’d discovered had only been secured on the top and not the bottom. Either an oversight, or they had run out of material and figured it was good enough.
Darcy wrapped his fingers around the bottom holes and wrenched that section of fence so it pulled away from the other, creating a gap big enough to fit a medium-sized dog. I joined him, heaving the piece wider by a few inches—it was the best we were going to get. The fence was stiff and unyielding. When we let go, it shifted back into position, leaving only inches separating the two sections.
Darcy and I were close to the same size, but he was slightly shorter and scrawnier. I scanned for exterior cameras and found none. “I’ll go first. Hold it as wide as you can and don’t let go until I’m through.”
It took a song and dance to squeeze inside the opening and not get muddy or tear my clothes, but I managed unscathed. Despite wearingmyjacket, Darcy didn’t show the same concern and came out the other side covered in mud and with a tear in the sleeve.
“Dammit, kid. I liked that coat.”
“I have a fucking cast on. That wasn’t easy.”
He made a good case—still, I was pissed.
