A Friend in the Glass (An Auden & O’Callaghan Mystery #3)

Chapter Twenty-Five

When Rufus hit Sam’s legs, Sam was still in the process of turning toward the voice that had caught them by surprise. The result was that the impact, even though it was minor, put Sam off balance, and he stumbled.

At the same time, Kenneth Nasta shouted, “Security!”

Rufus scrambled clear of Sam’s legs, and Sam caught himself on the wall.

That was when the door to Chad’s office flew open. Jarhead moved faster than Sam expected—he already had a gun in his hand, and his quick glance seemed to take in the situation in a heartbeat. Then, while Sam was still steadying himself and Rufus was trying to get free, Jarhead bent, grabbed Rufus’s coat, and hauled the redhead toward him.

Sam took a step, hand dropping toward his own gun.

Rufus squirmed.

Jarhead brought the muzzle of the gun to Rufus’s temple.

Sam stopped.

Rufus stopped.

Chad appeared behind Jarhead a moment later. He looked like shit; even under the bandage, his broken nose looked so swollen that Sam doubted he could breathe through it, and he had two black eyes that were going to look twice as bad tomorrow. He had a gun in his hand too, but he looked like a kid brother, the way he peered over Jarhead’s shoulder.

“Ok,” Sam said. “Nobody needs to get hurt.”

“What the fuck?” Jarhead said gleefully.

“Mr. Nasta,” Chad said. “Mr. Nasta! We caught them!”

“You didn’t catch them, you idiot,” Mr. Nasta said. “We practically stepped on them. What the hell kind of security are you? Jesus, this is a cluster.”

Jen Nasta hadn’t said anything since her question, and she was still looking at them like she expected an answer.

“Tell him to point that gun somewhere else,” Sam said. “We can sit down and talk about this.”

“These are the ones?” Jen asked, but the question seemed to be for her husband.

He nodded.

“What in the hell are they doing here?”

Mr. Nasta shrugged. Sam didn’t peg him for the brains of the operation.

“Tell him to—” Sam began again.

“I heard you,” Jen said. “Who are you?”

“Sam Auden.”

“Yes, and who are you, Mr. Auden?”

The question had the shape of a trap.

“Are you a journalist?” Jen asked.

“What?”

“Because let me tell you, you’re finished. Your editor or your publisher or whoever I’m going to sue after this debacle, they’re not going to be happy with you. This is private property. You’re breaking and entering. Not to mention being very, very stupid.”

Sam tried to come up with something, but nothing came. Adrenaline buzzed through him, making his hands tremble, and any kind of thought seemed a long way off.

“Who,” Jen asked slowly, “are you?”

He said the first thing that came to mind: “We know about Stonefish.”

Fear made her expression contract. Only for a moment. And only once. She was good, Sam thought, at putting it away. Good at hiding it. But it had been there. And he’d seen it.

“What does it matter?” her husband said. “Who cares who they are? You heard him—they know about Stonefish!”

This time, it wasn’t fear. It was closer to rage. And this time, Jen Nasta didn’t try to hide it. She turned on her husband, and when he saw her face, he shrank into his shitty little blazer so fast that the brass buttons quivered. She held him in her gaze for another heartbeat. And then she said to Chad, “Handle this.”

Chad nodded.

As Jen Nasta and her husband moved off down the hallway, Sam tried to think of something to say.

“We have the emails,” he called. “If anything happens to us, people are going to know.”

The low light rendered her more as a shape than anything else, all the fine details eroded away, but she stopped and glanced back. And then she said, “Find out if that’s true.”

They turned a corner, and their footsteps died into silence.

“Here’s what’s going to happen,” Chad said, still playing little brother behind Jarhead. “You’re going to be real smart so nothing happens to your butt buddy here. Right?”

Sam nodded.

“Take a few steps back. Then I want you to turn around and put your hands behind your head.”

Sam cut his eyes to Rufus.

Rufus’s face was the color of dirty dishwater, his eyes wide with fear and wet with unshed tears, but he nodded at Sam.

Sam moved back, turned, and laced his fingers behind his head.

Shuffling sounds came, and then footsteps on carpet.

“Now this next part, don’t get any ideas,” Chad said. He was right behind Sam now. “I’m going to take this.” Chad shoved Sam’s coat out of the way and removed Sam’s pistol from its holster. He beat a quick retreat, and from the office he’d just left came the sound of a desk drawer rattling open and then closed again. As Chad came back to the hallway, he said, “If you turn around, I’m going to shoot you. Then Shane’s going to shoot the dyke.”

“I’m not—” Rufus bit back any further offense.

“Clear?”

Sam nodded. Or he thought he did. His voice cracked when he made himself say, “Clear.”

“Ok. Here we go. Straight out the door to the elevator.”

Sam started toward the front of the office. He could hear Chad a few steps behind, and then the slightly uneven steps of Shane forcing Rufus along. As Sam walked, he looked for something, anything. But it was a hallway of closed doors, and there was nothing.

When they emerged into the small lobby at the front of the suite, the soft trickle of a desktop water feature sounded impossibly loud; Sam couldn’t believe he hadn’t heard it—hadn’t paid attention to it—when they’d come this way before. He looked at the desk. There would be scissors, maybe even a letter opener. Hell, in a pinch, he could club this son of a bitch with a tape dispenser. But it was at least ten feet from the hallway to the desk, and before he had time to rummage through the drawers, Chad would shoot him in the back.

Then they were leaving the Civic Catalyst offices, moving into the corridor that led to the elevator. Nothing here except polished wood and the yellow film of fluorescent light—even less, if possible, than the last hallway. Not even a closed door. The buzz of the ballast probably wouldn’t have bothered anyone else. Sam could feel it in his jaw.

In the polished metal of the elevator doors, his reflection was a greasy smear.

“Down,” Chad said.

Sam pressed the button, and a moment later, the doors opened with a soft ding.

“This is where things get tricky,” Chad said. “Nose in the corner. On your knees. Keep your hands where they are.”

So, Sam knelt in the corner of the elevator. The metallic odor of the chrome rail and whatever polish they used made his eyes water. He was sweating more now, his shirt wet under his arms, his sides slick with it. He could smell that too. The car shifted slightly when Chad came aboard. And then again when Shane moved Rufus inside. Sam thought that, if he closed his eyes, he would recognize Rufus’s breathing.

No one spoke, but the soft click of a button being depressed came through the silence. The car rocked slightly and then started down.

Think, Sam told himself.

They wouldn’t stop at ground level; they had a guy on his knees, they had another guy with a gun to his head. They were going to the parking garage. And if it were Sam making the call, he’d shoot them there. In the garage. It would be empty. It would be dark. It would hold the sound of the shots. And when it was over, Chad and Shane would load them into a car and get rid of their bodies.

If they were going to do something, it had to be soon. In the elevator would be ideal. The tight space would actually make it easier, in some ways—easier to grapple, easier to control the field, easier to neutralize the advantage of the guns.

Except that as soon as Sam made a move, he and Rufus would get bullets in the head.

He wished he could see Rufus’s face.

He wished he could say sorry. For getting him into this. For his—his mood, for lack of a better word, over the last few days. For all that shit about the city, for letting it fuck around inside the good thing they had. Sorry for answering Shareed’s phone call, for getting fixated on Lew, for insisting they keep going even when bodies kept dropping—it wasn’t rational. It was a memory, and his subconscious connecting dots.

“You’re making a big mistake,” Sam said.

Chad didn’t say anything.

A flicker of doubt. Maybe this wasn’t the cokehead amateur hour after all.

But Sam tried again anyway. “How much do you think she’d pay for those emails?”

Still nothing.

“You can have them if you let us go.” His lips were so dry he thought they were cracking. “If you kill us, though, you get jack shit.”

The elevator whined on its cable as it descended.

And then Sam heard it: the slight shift of weight. Eagerness and uncertainty and greed, all communicated through the tiniest movement of a body.

“She said to find out,” Shane muttered, like Sam and Rufus might not hear him.

Chad’s silence lasted longer.

But, it turned out, it was cokehead amateur hour.

“What emails?” he asked.

“Your boss rolled in the shit. And we’ve got the emails to prove it. We’re the only ones who know where they are, aren’t we, Rufus?”

“We—uh, yeah. We know where they are. Sucks for you guys, huh?” Rufus said, his voice mostly steady.

“Bullshit,” Chad said.

“It’s true,” Sam said. He wanted to close his eyes now. Wanted to know, somehow, if Rufus knew. If what he’d heard in his voice, that catch, was confusion or understanding. “You heard her when we were up there.”

“Dude,” Shane said in that weirdly delusional whisper. “She told us to find out!”

“How ’bout a show of good faith?” Rufus interjected. “I got one of them on me. But only the one. I’ll give it to you. It’s in my pocket.”

“Nice try—” Chad began. And then he barked, “No!”

The sound of movement. The crunch of bone hitting bone.

Sam launched himself to his feet. The only luck of the day was that Chad had turned to face Rufus and Shane. Shane had both hands pressed to his face. Blood bloomed between his fingers. Rufus staggered away from him. A mark on his forehead—red turning to white—suggested what had happened.

Then Chad started to bring his gun up.

Sam charged into him. He caught Chad’s arm in one hand. With the other, he gripped the man’s belt. Adrenaline made Sam’s vision contract. He was only distantly aware of Chad’s weight as he lifted the man off his feet, spun, and slammed him face first into the panel of the elevator car—he thought he heard Chad’s already broken nose crumple again.

Chad’s gun went off. The clap deafened Sam. Chad twisted, trying to get free. His head wobbled on his neck.

Sam slammed him against the panel again. Chad’s struggles grew more disoriented. Shifting his focus, Sam hammered Chad’s hand—the one holding the gun—against the chrome safety rail. On the third blow, he felt something break, and Chad’s hand opened. The gun made a muffled thud when it hit the floor.

Sam dropped Chad and scooped up the gun. The elevator was tiny, but it felt like an eternity before he found Rufus. He was rubbing his forehead, a gun in his hand, scowling down. Shane lay on the floor, one hand over his broken nose, the other cupping his ’nads, moaning.

The elevator slowed. Stopped. Settled.

The doors opened with a ding. On the other side, bare concrete met them, and the smell of oil, and lights spaced far apart. A long way off, Sam thought he could hear traffic.

He grabbed Rufus, and they ran.