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I’ve been in this neighborhood a couple times, in the early days after high school. Sometimes, a crew leader wouldn’t look too hard at your experience if you were willing to show up more than once, and plenty of guys wouldn’t even bother to show up once they got the address out here. It’s a rough neighborhood, even by construction work standards, and God knows the cops are thin enough on the ground already.
It was Nic’s private investigator buddy who tipped us off that Barry had been seen coming and going over here.
“Should have waited for the cops.”
“They’re on the way,” says Nic. He called them as we left downtown. “We were closer.”
“What’s your plan?”
“Find the SUV. Find Natalie. Shoot my brother.”
“You don’t have a gun.”
“You do.”
He ignores the look I give him.
I’m reasonably certain Nic wouldn’t actually shoot his own brother, but that little bit of uncertainty is… unsettling. Violence isn’t supposed to be sexy. Filing that away to think about later, I keep scanning parking lots as he drives us slowly down the road. Nothing but warehouses, rusted-out fuel tanks, and busted fencing. Trash. Next to no traffic, save for the occasional eighteen-wheeler. Every second or third gate we pass is chained and locked, with weathered For Sale signs held up by buckets of cement.
No gray SUVs.
“Take the road first, see if we can find it from here,” I tell Nic. He drives slowly as he checks the other side of the road. “If we don’t see it on the first pass, we’ll take it lot by lot.”
The parkway stretches for a couple of miles. Round-trip, this is going to take forever.
“We should wait for the cops.”
Nic glares at me.
“It has to be said.”
“I’m not waiting.”
“I’m not stopping you. I just want it on record that I was the responsible one in the car today.”
His lips twitch, as good as a laugh under the circumstances, and exactly the reaction I was hoping for. I lay a hand on his leg, squeezing lightly.
“We’ll get her back.”
He nods, eyes back on the road.
“Is that—” I point left. “Turn there. Turn now!”
The gate is mostly closed but not chained or locked up like the others we’ve passed so far.
The parking lot is deserted, but a rear bumper and a red tail light are just barely visible around the corner.
Gray SUV.
Nic tears through the lot. Gravel goes flying everywhere.
“So we’re not sneaking up on them, I take it.”
“Fuck off, Finn.”
Now is maybe not the time to be cracking on him, but it’s a helluva tension reliever, and it keeps my mind off the terrified look on Natalie’s face as she climbed into the back of that SUV. If I could manage not to puke in Nic’s car so far, he could suffer through some jokes.
He throws the car in park. Not bothering to cut the engine off, Nic opens his door and starts shouting.
