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The guard pulled out flexi-cuffs from his back pocket.
“Use the bracelets on her,” Luther said.
The guard switched to metal handcuffs.
Crap. I held my arms out and he clapped the cuffs on me. Score one for Plum. At least I had my hands in front of me.
We all marched into the service elevator and got out at the fifth floor. No one said anything. The women were ushered into one of the larger dorm rooms and the door was closed and locked. The guard motioned for me to walk to the end of the hall. He opened the door to the last room and told me to go in.
“What about the cuffs?” I asked. “Can they come off?”
“No,” he said. “The cuffs stay on until Luther wants them off.”
“What if I have to go to the bathroom?”
“This room doesn’t come with bathroom privileges,” he said, smiling, looking like this was an enjoyable part of his job.
He closed and locked the door, and I was alone. The room was like the room Vinnie had been in but without the toilet. My first thought was about Lula. Worst-case scenario was too horrible to consider. Best-case scenario was that she’d managed to escape. I looked up. There was a vent in the ceiling, but I had no way to get to it. I had keys in my pocket, but the doors had blind locks. They only locked and unlocked from the outside.
I paced for a while. Occasionally listening at the door. I was wearing Ranger’s necklace so I knew he could find me. The tricky part was getting him to start looking. The men sitting in the SUV outside Benji Land had to first realize I was missing. No telling when that would happen.
A half hour went by, and I heard noise outside the door. Someone shouting. The door was wrenched open, and Luther stood in the doorway. His face was red and blotchy, and he was sweating. “Get out,” he said, pointing a gun at me. “Move!”
“What’s going on?”
“We’re leaving. You can cooperate and live or you can die. The only thing keeping you alive right now is our lost eleven million. Marcus and I sold our souls and worked our asses off for that money. It’s our retirement ticket. You’re either going to give it up or you’re going to die. And it’s not going to be a nice death.”
“What about this building and the workers? Are you just going to walk away from this?”
“Marcus and I transport. We’ve got two trucks. That’s it. This hellhole is someone else’s problem.” He shoved me in front of him. “Run,” he said. “We’re taking the back stairs.”
I ran down the hall and entered the back stairwell.Bang. Bang.It sounded like a couple of small explosions. I started to go down, and Luther grabbed me by my ponytail and yanked me back. “We’re going up,” he said. “The stairs aren’t safe.”
“There aren’t any stairs going up.”
“There’s a ladder. Go up the ladder. We’re going to the roof.”
I climbed up the ladder and shoved the hatch open. Not the easiest thing to do wearing handcuffs. The sun was glaring bright after the darkness of the building. There was a slight breeze. I looked around and recognized some landmarks. I was in the industrial area by the button factory.
I couldn’t see the street in front of the building, but I could hear activity there. We were at the back of the building. There was a small patch of dirt and gravel and then there was the back of another building. Lots of windows in the other building. Half of them broken. Three stories high. There was a narrow walkway and another building.
“We’re going to the street,” Luther said. “Marcus will be waiting with a car.”
I crept closer to the edge, looked down at the ground, and felt some vertigo. The way to get to the ground was by a fire escape ladder attached to the building.
“I can’t do this,” I said. “I’m not good with heights, and I can’t go hand over hand wearing handcuffs.”
“There’s enough slack between the bracelets for you to manage. Get over the edge.”
I was debating whether it would be better to get shot and take my chances at dying on the roof or choose falling to my death from the fifth-floor ladder.
“If you don’t go now, I’ll shoot you. I swear to God,” Luther said. “I’m running out of time and patience.”
I sucked in some air and grabbed hold of the handrails as best I could. I swung a leg over, made sure I had good footing, and I swung the other leg over.
“I’m coming down right on top of you,” Luther said. “I’m going to be watching you, so don’t try anything stupid.”
I thought attempting to go down the ladder was at the top of the stupid list, but I was doing it anyway because I believed him when he said he would shoot me. Halfway down I was sweating from the exertion of hanging on to the ladder. I reached the second floor, and my legs were shaking. I looked up at Luther. He didn’t seem to be having any problems. It was obviously a lot easier when you weren’t wearing handcuffs.
