Page 22 of Hellbent

The question of inspiration was even thornier.

He remembered Jack’s message scrawled on the foggy window. He wondered what the hell the package was and why Jack had hidden it all the way across the continent. Something essential. A long-buried secret from Jack’s past that would lead to Van Sciver? Maybe even a torpedo that would sink him.

Evan checked his gun. Along with the skinny 1911, he’d smuggled one extra go-to-war magazine in the laptop. He’d validated the mag at a range, making sure it dropped clear. That gave him seventeen rounds, which was less than he was comfortable with. Then again, he could do a goodly amount of damage with seventeen rounds.

He heard an echo of Jack’s voice: Just don’t put all the holes in the same place.

He got out of the car. Scanning the traffic, he walked around the east wing of the building, tucking quickly into the horseshoe. At the edge of the parking lot, the callbox sprouted from the metal mesh of the security gate. It was a serious gate with a serious double-keyed lock. Another metal gate guarded the stairwell, which was itself caged.

Fire hazards to be sure, but this was a bad section of Hillsboro—whatever that meant—and the folks who lived here cared more about day-to-day safety than about the sliver percentage of a fire-induced stampede.

Jack had chosen a good place to hide the package.

On the directory, number 202 was blank. Evan scanned the other names. Given the security concerns of the residents, a button-pushing deliveryman ruse wouldn’t likely get him far.

He’d bought a rake pick and a tension wrench at a hardware store and was about to get busy when a guy yammering into a Bluetooth headset clanged out of the stairwell gate. As the man strode up the corridor toward the front, Evan pretended to punch a code into the callbox’s keypad.

“I heard this new ramen place is sick,” the guy told his interlocutor and anyone else in the vicinity who might have been interested. “They have, like, a hundred flavors of shōchū.”

He shoved his way out the front gate, ignoring Evan and the rest of the world, and Evan slipped through. In case he had to beat a hasty retreat, he wedged a quarter between the latch and the frame so the gate wouldn’t autolock.

At the stairwell he finally got to use his pick set. He engaged a second quarter to keep that gate from locking also.

A fine fifty-cent investment.

He crept up to the second floor and down the corridor. Apartment 202 had a peephole. He ducked beneath it, put his ear to the door. Heard nothing inside.

Though the building was late-afternoon quiet, he couldn’t risk creeping around the corridor for long.

The apartment lock was also double-keyed. With the rake and wrench, he jogged the pins into proper alignment and eased the door silently open.

The place was dimly lit and smelled of carpet dust and greasy food. A brief foyer led to a single big studio room. No furniture.

He made out a faint scraping sound.

Pistol drawn, Evan eased through the foyer, heel to toe, minding the floorboards. More of the studio came into view. A bare mattress. A mound of fast-food wrappers. A geometric screen saver casting a striated glow from an open laptop. Then an overstuffed rucksack.

The scraping grew louder.

He eased out a breath, peered around the corner.

A girl crouched, facing away, her forehead nearly touching the far wall. She had a mane of dark wavy hair, torn jeans, a form-fitting tank top. It was hard to gauge from behind, but he guessed she was a teenager. She was bent over something, and her shoulders shook slightly. Crying?

The closet and bathroom doors were laid open, and there was no furniture for anyone to hide behind. Just her.

He thought about the double-keyed locks and wondered—was she being held captive?

He aimed the ARES at the floor but didn’t holster it. Stepping clear of the foyer, he lowered his voice so as not to startle her. “Are you okay?”

She jumped at the sound, then glanced tentatively over her shoulder. Her back curled with fear, her expression vulnerable. She looked Hispanic, but he couldn’t be sure in the dim light.

“Who are you?” she said.

“I’m not gonna hurt you.”

“Why are you here?”

He drew closer slowly, not wanting to scare her. “It’s a long story.”