Page 87 of Till Death Do Us Part

“This is it?” I said, a strange feeling pulling in my chest. This was my property. This was what had gotten me into all of this. And it was empty concrete.

“It’s quiet,” Vera said.

“Weren’t they supposed to be building something here?” Petra said.

“Look at the chain on the gate.” Vera nodded out the window as we parked next to it. “The rust pattern doesn’t match the way it’s sitting.”

“It was moved recently,” I said.

“And then locked back up. I would have expected they’d bring angle grinders and just cut it off, but they clearly wanted it to look undisturbed. Only city officials would have the key.”

“Inside job with the city,” Petra scoffed. “Tacky. Wonder what Glenn’s paying ‘em. Or what they’re paying Glenn.”

“Corruption in Merona runs all the way up to the governor’s mansion,” Vera said. “Could be anyone who’s signed off on this. Come on. If we waste too much time chatting, they’ll catch onto us. We’ll survey the area for signs of activity we can bring forward.”

“How is this one yard even so important?” I said, climbing out of the car with them.

“It’s not. It’s the location,” Vera said. “Legally, you’d have a claim against the entire Horizon project, since it would impede all potential operations from this property. It doesn’t need to be big. Just need to be in the right place.”

Petra muttered as she shut the car door. “That’s what she said.”

“It is what she said,” Vera deadpanned. “I just said it.”

I cleared my throat. “How are we going to get in? I don’t have a key or anything…”

Petra pointed back at her car. “I’ve got a high-tech gadget that’ll help us get in.”

I expected something like Vera’s lockbreaker device she’d used to steal cars. Instead, Petra opened the trunk, rummaged around inside, and pulled out a folding ladder.

Well, it did the job. She set it up over the fence, and Petra jumped up on top and down on the other side, while Vera climbed to the top and helped me up after her, catching me halfway down the ladder on the inside and setting me on solid ground.

It was small and grungy inside, with the smell of burned diesel clogging up my nose. Vera and Petra swept the area, scanning carefully, before Vera signaled us over to one spot.

“Hold on. There’s something here.”

My heart was pounding for reasons I couldn’t explain as she hoisted the top off a heavy crate, brushing some kind of device over it that beeped quietly. The whole world seemed to hold its breath before suddenly, Vera jumped back, her arm out in front of us, and she moved to shield me as a burst rang out from the spot, a blinding flash and a deafening sound that left me dizzy and disoriented.

When I came back to my awareness, my head spinning and seeing double, I found myself sandwiched in between Petra and Vera, both of them with guns out, pointed towards the floor.

“What’s going on?” I gasped, but Vera shushed me. Something moved, and she raised her gun, tracking it before it vanished.

Her eyes narrowed.

“So,” she said. “This is how we’re playing it, huh?”

A single sound rang out—a clap, and then another, and another. A slow clap from above us. Petra whirled with her gun up, but Vera didn’t seem surprised, just turned with a sharp glare up at where the whirr of machinery sounded, and a crane head swung in over the fence, carrying a platform with two men on it, one of them with a fitted black coat and a glass eye, the one clapping. He smirked at us, and the other one, with dark, slick hair and a loose brown coat, just watched like he wasn’t quite human.

“Well, well, well,” said the one in black as the crane stopped, suspending him on a stage above us. “I should have known the explosives wouldn’t take out Vera Farkas herself.”

Petra gritted her teeth. “The hell are you doing here, Glenn?”

“Glenn?” I gasped, my stomach dropping.

“So, Elaine Whitner,” Glenn said, his voice echoing through the lot. “Back from the dead, I see. A miracle.”

“Been waiting to spring this on us, huh?” Vera’s voice was taut as piano wire.

“I’m afraid… there are consequences for insubordination. I will give you the choice,” he said. “Give Elaine Whitner to me, and you all walk out of here alive. Or… get put down like the rabid dog you are. Tick tock, Vera Farkas. Make your choice.”