Page 87 of Mr. Match

“Then he needs to see us all leave,” I say. “Give your clothes to some actor downstairs, West. They can leave with Nolan and Mac wearing your clothes, you stay behind. Just down the hall from here is a stairwell that leads to the basement. Stay there until we come get you.”

“I’ll send Cindy over later with food and stuff, OK?” Pax says.

“What are you gonna tell Victoria?” West asks.

“Don’t worry,” I say, feeling his apprehension. He was probably picturing her seeing him dead on the TV tonight. “We’ll take care of everything else. You just play dead and stay out of sight until we get a meeting with Liam. I’ll come back and walk you guys over in a couple hours.”

Pax and I leave, jogging down the same set of stairs I told West to use, but we exit on the ground floor. Sparrow was right. When we get outside there are hundreds of people lining up for the haunted house.

We push our way through and head across to the street to my building. The door is locked when we get there, so I disarm the security system and let us in, then arm it again. We go up to my office and then go through the SCIF room ritual. Once we’re safely inside and everything is locked up tight behind us, I turn the server and computer on.

“OK,” I say, cracking my knuckles. “One dark web reporter coming up.” I look over at Pax and we both wince.

We really have no clue if this will work.

One hour later we have an ad up in six marketplaces and three people have already replied.

“I bet they’re all liars,” Pax says, rubbing his face like he’s stressed.

“Well, we can’t know until we try, right?”

I look at my watch. “I bet they have the picture. I’m gonna go get them and I’ll be back in like fifteen minutes.”

I get up from my stool and Pax takes my place, grunting out his affirmative reply.

When I get to the basement, Nolan, West, and Mac are eating Big City Burritos. West has cleaned all the makeup off his face and the TV is on, tuned to a cable news channel.

“We might have some bites,” I say, entering so they can see me. “Did you get the picture?”

Mac gets up holding his phone out and pulls them up for me to see.

“Holy shit,” I say.

“It’s pretty convincing, huh?” West asks.

It is. It really is. His head looks like a hole has been blown through his brain. There’s even bits of fake skin and bone hanging over one eye and plastered on the wall behind him.

“OK,” I say, looking at West. “Just sit tight. Where did you guys get the food?”

“I went out,” Nolan says, his mouth full of burrito. “I got him water too.”

“OK, well, let’s go. I think this shit is gonna happen pretty quick. You got an actor to play West?”

“He’s upstairs. Some college kid playing usher tonight. We paid him two hundred bucks to change into West’s clothes and walk across the street with us.”

“OK, let’s go.”

We walk back up the stairs, find the actor near the vampire scene, and press two hundred dollars in his hand. “Just follow us,” I say. “When we get to my building across the street, you come in with us and then immediately go out the back and throw that shirt in the dumpster.”

“I’ve got my uniform shirt on underneath it,” the kid says, pulling up the t-shirt West was wearing earlier.

“Perfect,” I say. “Let’s go.”

All that goes off without a hitch and Mac, Nolan, and I end up in the SCIF room a few minutes later, where Pax is laughing up at the TV mounted on the wall as he types.

“What’s going on?” Mac asks.

“These assholes are so fucking greedy,” Pax says.