AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Cassie nodded, flipping through the papers one at a time. “This address and phone number is listed on almost all the transactions.”
“Let me see.” Harris pulled out her phone and dialed the number. After a second, she put it on speaker.
“…trying to dial is temporarily unavailable. Please try again later.”
“Wonder why,” Cassie asked.
Harris shrugged. “Numbers like this get shut down all the time. Or changed. They gotta stay one step ahead of the cops.”
“What about the address?” Cassie asked. “Wanna try that one?”
Harris grinned. “Thought you’d never ask.”
Cassie navigated on her phone’s GPS while Harris drove. They headed south, past the National Museum of Mexican Art and a few parks that would’ve made for a nice summer getaway. Cassie forgot the streets as soon as she read them out loud to Harris, but she did make a mental list of whi
ch monuments she’d love to revisit if they had time.
With lunchtime traffic, it took a half hour to get to where they needed to go. Harris pulled over about a block from the address. At that point, it would take less time to walk the rest of the way than continue to waste away in traffic. Despite the constant chill, Cassie found she was getting used to Chicago weather. But she still missed home.
“There’s something about Reed that doesn’t sit right with me,” Cassie said.
Harris snorted. “Just one thing?”
“Well, no. A lot of things.”
“How he could even find anything in that office is beyond me.”
“Controlled chaos, I guess.”
“There was nothing controlled about it.”
“It was kind of warm in there,” Cassie said, after a moment of silence.
“I didn’t notice.” Harris shrugged, but then cast a glance at Cassie. “You mean supernaturally warm?”
“I think so. It was hard to tell.”
“Did you smell smoke?”
“I couldn’t smell anything past that janitor’s mop water.” The pair of them turned the corner onto the next block. Cassie looked down at her phone, then pointed dead ahead. “It’s halfway down this street.”
“That janitor, too.” Harris gave Cassie a nod of acknowledgment. “He was intense.”
“I thought it was just me.”
“Definitely not.” A garbage truck pulled up to the side of the street, and a man jumped out. Harris paused until they were out of earshot. “It doesn’t take a genius detective or a psychic consultant to see there’s something shady going on.”
“We’re not going to get any information from either of them, though.” Cassie looked back down at her phone and came to a halt. “Wait a second, we passed it.”
Cassie turned back around, and Harris followed. This time, Cassie paid closer attention to the numbers on the office buildings. She only stopped when she stood in front of a brand-new building. She looked over at Harris. “I think this is it.”
“Or it was, anyway.”
The building was nothing but framework and caution tape. Why they were trying to build it in the middle of winter was anyone’s guess. Regardless, Cassie couldn’t get a read off it. Most of the buildings around Chicago were older and had stories to tell. Even if those stories were nothing more than whispers, she could feel them around her. This one, however, was dead silent.
Harris looked around and spotted the garbage man. She gave him a friendly wave as she approached him, Cassie in tow. “Sorry to bother you.” She flashed a smile and pointed to the building behind them. “But I was wondering if you know what happened to this building?”
The garbage man assessed the two of them before answering. He was a large man with tan skin and a scraggly beard. He seemed nice enough, though Cassie was pretty sure he could lift her up with one hand and toss her clear across the street. “It was condemned last year.”
