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Was that a relieved sound?
Or was it anxiety?
There definitely seemed to be more tension in her shoulders and jaw as she moved into her condo than there’d been in the car.
Interesting.
Even though, clearly, there was nothing and no one around.
I pushed the door closed, and slid the lock, before following her in, watching her walk through her kitchen, stopping to look out the floor-to-ceiling windows and the view of the beach below.
Then she was turning, walking past the curve in the wall.
Curious, I couldn’t help but follow her, even if she hadn’t exactly invited me to do so.
We walked past the primary bedroom, and inside I found a small bit of a mess that made me feel better about my own clothes that didn’t always make it right into the hamper after I shrugged them off.
Her bed, a king-sized one with a metal head and footboard, bought likely to accommodate her and her dogs sharing it, was unmade.
An outfit was on the floor next to the open closet that seemed to feature mostly simple clothes. Shorts, tees and tanks, some colder weather outfits.
No art on the walls but a TV across from the bed. Because she needed the noise to sleep. For the dogs, she claimed, but I wondered if maybe it also had something to do with her own anxieties, nightmares, the things that clearly weighed on her even if she didn’t want to talk about it.
There was a full bath between the bedrooms. A lot of marble, like the kitchen. An electric toothbrush sat on its charger on the counter. But no decor. Not even a bathmat outside of the shower.
The next room, though, was where things got interesting.
Because it was the only room that she’d clearly catered to her own tastes.
Unusual ones, sure, but hers.
The walls themselves were covered in some sort of sheet metal, and judging by the way the room felt smaller than it should, I imagined there were layers of soundproofing materials behind to muffle the noise from the various grinders and drills she had on the tables that lined the entire room. Below each metal-topped desk were shelves and drawers, half of them open, various tools and metal all but spilling out.
Down the center of the room was a long work desk, cluttered with various items.
Inside the door against the wall to the right was a closet. To the left were several TV monitors, each playing different feeds. Looking at them, I realized she didn’t just have the cameras outside her front door, but outside the front entrance, the alley, and one facing her car in its strange back lot that only she parked in.
Were the monitors for the police?
Or was she afraid of someone else?
“Everything alright?” I asked as she moved through the room, opening and closing drawers, going into the closet, and looking through there as well. “Is something missing?” I added when she seemed to get even more frantic.
“Yes,” she said, voice more raised than I’d heard it. “Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck.”
“What’s missing?”
“Oh, just everything I was working on,” she said, sounding a little choked.
“Was anything finished?” I asked.
“No.”
“Did you leave the plans around here?”
“No. I don’t use plans,” she told me. And that was kind of impressive, I won’t lie.
“Do you think anyone can take your weapons, and tell what you were trying to do with them?”
“I mean… not the average person, no. But if there was another designer… maybe?” she said, not sounding confident either way.
“Are there a lot of designers out there?”
To that, she let out a little snorting sound.
“I mean, yeah, there are a lot of people who think they are weapons designers. But they’re mostly doing very basic modifications. The kind of shit you could find plans for on the dark web.”
“That’s not what you’re doing, I assume?”
“No.”
“I wasn’t trying to insult you,” I assured her, noting the way her eyes went small at my question. “I don’t know shit about designing weapons. Never really even heard of it until my president mentioned you being missing.”
“I come up with my own ideas. And I alter or build from scratch. Sometimes, a client has an idea and asks if it is possible. If it is, I do it. So it’s not likely that someone could take a gun that is just fragmented parts that I’d created, and put it together as I planned to. Not impossible, but I only know of maybe two other designers who are capable. Only one even lives in the States. But he’s off the grid and wouldn’t be caught dead in California. Not his scene.”
“Okay,” I said, nodding. “So… can you rebuild what you’ve started here?” I asked. “Or is this the end to your open contracts?” Notably, ours. Which was not the news Slash and the Florida crew wanted to hear. But some shit was out of my control.
