Page 6 of The Triangle

“Fokken say that again.” I realize that my voice may be too quiet for Lars to hear over the noise in the warehouse, but I can’t seem to make my vocal cords vibrate above a whisper.

“Reggie and Lex was out front of this other building, keeping watch while she was handling whatever she was handling, and they heard something up above, like a gun going off—”

“Her?”

“Not her. Someone else. Like from a pistol, they said. And they looked up and saw what they say looked like a struggle. Reggie says he was about to run up and see what the fok, but then suddenly a body came spilling over the side.”

This is where my feet would be swelling and smashing through my shoes, and my pants splitting down the sides. It feels like that’s what’s happening anyway.

Lars goes on, “Lex says he could tell it was Christine right away, so he stepped to try to catch her. Figured she was only four stories up, maybe he could break her fall.”

“And?” I shout with what I hope sounds like impatience rather than fear. Which is actually what it is.

“He mostly did. Broke his arm in the process.”

“No offense to Lex, but I don’t give a fok. What happened to Christine?”

“She hit her head. Hard.”

I close my eyes and take two breaths. Suddenly what I’m going to have to do in a matter of moments is becoming very clear. And I need to focus.

“Is she alive?” I ask.

“She is,” he says.

Thank Christ.

“Where is she now?”

“Reggie and Lex took her to doctor.”

“One of ours?”

“Of course.”

I breathe in again through my nose and say, “Aces.”

“And I have her in apartment thirty-six.”

“What? Why?”

“Because she’ll be safe there.”

“Fok, man! I can think of twenty places she’d be safer and I’m not in a position to be problem-solving right now!” A bullet wings past. “Are you with her?” I ask.

“Not at the moment.”

“Fokken hell, Lars!”

“I can go back.”

“No! No! God damn it, no.”

“Well then, who do you want me to have stay with her?”

“No one.”

“No one? What—”