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“How many basement units are there?”
“Only one, I think. Who the fuck wants to live in a basement in this area?”
Theo glanced across the street. “Walk with me,” he said.
“This is as close as I get,” she said.
Theo took her by the hand. She resisted at first, then crossed the street with him. They stopped on the sidewalk and stood in the shade of a London plane tree so big that it might actually have been a survivor of the German bombings. A steep flight of concrete steps led from street level to the basement door.
“Would Judge be home on a Saturday morning?” asked Theo.
“I hope not,” said Gigi.
Theo went down the stairs, stopped outside the door, and knocked. Gigi waited on the sidewalk, tugging at her hair nervously. Theo knocked a second time, but there was no answer.
“Not home,” said Gigi. “What a shame. Let’s get out of here.”
Theo opened the letterbox outside the door. It was full. Based on the post dates, it appeared that no one had checked it for some time.
“When was the last time you were here?” asked Theo.
“A while.”
Theo knocked again, then waited and listened. This time, he heard something—a thump or a bump of some sort from somewhere inside the apartment. He knocked again, but the noise did not return. One distressing thought came to mind, and it was the reason he’d come. Judge had let Gigi go. Maybe another young runaway had not been so lucky.
“Gigi, do you still have your key?” Theo asked.
“What?”
“Yourkey. Do you still have it?”
“Yeah.”
“Give it to me!”
She dug it from her backpack and tossed it to him. Theo grabbed it in midair, turned the lock, and pushed open the door. A cat raced across Theo’s feet, as if running for its life. Maybe the cat had made the noise he’d heard. Maybe not. He took a step inside and called out.
“Is there anyone in here?”
No response.
“Gigi, wait right where you are,” he said, and then he entered with slow and cautious steps.
The basement apartment was one room with a kitchenette, plus a small bathroom. The lone window was essentially a slit of glass at street level, which had been made translucent with a streaky coat of white paint. Theo took a few more steps and stopped at the small dinette set. A couple of empty beer bottles were on the table. Baltika No. 7, Theo noted. A Russian brewery. Gigi had said nothing about Judge being Russian. In the far corner was a mattress resting directly on the floor, no bed frame. Beside the mattress was a coiled-up length of rope. It made Theo’s blood boil to think how Judge might have put it to use, but then he spotted something on a chair beside the mattress that changed his thinking entirely.
It was a black ski mask—like the one Amongus Sicario had worn for the extraction kidnapping.
Theo froze, and then his mind nearly overloaded with images of Amongus Sicario and the unfaithful Russian driver seated at the table, drinking Russian beers, debating what to do with their hostage, as Sergei Kava lay hogtied on the mattress.
And then he saw the dried brown bloodstain on the floor.
Theo raced out of the apartment and up the concrete stairs to where he’d left Gigi waiting on the sidewalk. She wasn’t there.
“Gigi!” he called out, but she didn’t answer.
He sprinted half a block to the intersection, but there was no sign of her. He ran across the street and called to her again.
“Gigi!”
