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She followed Walter’s clomping feet. She made a point to memorize the twists and turns through the darkness, but she was losing the trail. If not for the sound of Walter before her, she might have gotten hopelessly lost.
They continued for roughly a half hour. She guessed they’d gone about a mile at this pace before she saw light flare in the tunnel ahead. Walter’s figure was briefly illuminated before he climbed up a ladder into the light.
Walking into the light was not ideal, but she needed to see what lay ahead. Kierse waited five full minutes and then eased forward, coming to the top of the ladder and finding herself at another subway tunnel. A light lit the trapdoor, but unless she was looking directly at it, it was essentially invisible. She recognized the wards etched into the opening. Which meant even if someone else found it, no one could get inside. Except her, of course.
And if she could learn to absorb the wards in time, Graves and Torra, too.
She hauled herself up through the door and trekked to the nearest subway platform. Luckily, no one was around when she towed herself up onto the southbound platform of 23rd Street station. Signs showed service to R and W trains. She racked her brain. 23rd and 5th Avenue. That was the Flatiron District. She’d come out right in front of the famous Flatiron Building.
Kierse pulled out her phone, and Graves answered on the first ring.
“Are you okay?”
“I found my exit,” she told him.
“You did?” he asked, surprise layered in his voice.
“I followed Walter through a secret tunnel out of the market. Do you have a way to track me so that we can get a route through the tunnel?”
He paused a moment. “Yes.”
“Do it. I’m going to backtrack to the market.”
“Done,” he said. “Be careful.”
“As always,” she joked. “I’m going to go back in the tunnels now.”
“Hey,” he said into the phone before she could step back off the platform.
“Yeah?”
“Good job.”
She grinned and then hung up.
Just that one little compliment made her giddy. She probably should have hated how she preened under his praise, but it was all the sweeter when she’d earned it.
Chapter Forty-Six
It took her forever to figure out how to backtrack through the tunnel. Now that she wasn’t following the sound of Walter’s stomping and scuffing feet, she made a few wrong turns but eventually made it. She wanted to check the residence but decided to leave it for tomorrow. They had three full days to figure out how to get around down here and how to break the wards to use it as the entrance and exit for the heist. It wasn’t enough time, but it would have to do.
Kierse returned to the original checkpoint and out the Times Square subway entrance.
As she hauled herself back up onto what she thought was an empty platform, a hand reached out and grasped her wrist, yanking her up. She snarled, reaching for her one of her pistols. She had it out and leveled at the man’s head before she recognized him.
She didn’t lower the gun.
“Lorcan,” she said.
“What a welcome,” he said with his same charming smile.
“Why are you following me?”
“I did say that we’d meet again.”
“Yes, but I didn’t think that you’d come to me.” It didn’t seem his style. Even if he’d said that he would the last time they met. The babka had felt like more of a warning than anything.
“I didn’t, either,” he admitted. “But . . . I feel compelled to you.”
She narrowed her eyes behind her gun. “Try again.”
“Can you please stop pointing that thing at me? I am here on good faith.”
“Like that time you tried to have me killed or the time you kidnapped me?”
“I did apologize for the first, and the kidnapping included dinner. That has to count for something?” His smile only widened.
“Does it?”
“I just want to talk. I promise,” he told her, stepping forward. He put his hand up and gingerly pushed the barrel of the gun down toward their feet. “Now, there, isn’t that better?”
“Not particularly.”
He laughed that real, easy laugh, like he didn’t have a care in the world. “Let’s go up top and walk.”
“It’s freezing outside.”
“I can give you my coat,” he offered with a quirked eyebrow.
“I’ll pass.”
“On the coat or the walk?”
“Yes,” she responded. “Stalking isn’t cute. It’s how people get killed.”
“Says the woman still holding the gun.”
She and Graves had already agreed that they could use Lorcan’s interest in her to their advantage. The same way that she had considered it for Nate. But when it had been with Nate, it had felt like planting a bomb in the monster’s path. Here, it felt like Graves was offering her a way to get information out of his enemy. And while she wanted to find out how much he knew about their mission, she honestly wanted him to stop stalking her more.
