Page 66 of Undertow

Gabe’s chest tightened. He and Wade had no badges, no warrant, no jurisdiction, and no backup.

“How do you wanna approach this?” Wade asked.

“Back door, if there is one. You take the pry bar. I’ll take point.”

Wade didn’t argue. They’d both done this before.

They circled wide, keeping the dumpster between them and the unit. Gravel crunched under their shoes. Gabe could hear traffic on the freeway a quarter mile east. Normal people going normal places.

There was a back door. Metal. No lock on the outside—a fire exit, push-bar only. Wade wedged the pry bar into the gap and leaned. The frame gave with a sound like a bone cracking.

Gabe went in firs, low and fast. It took a second for his eyes to adjust to the dark. But no amount of blinking could hide the truth. The place was empty.

The word registered before the details did. Eight hundred square feet of poured concrete and bare walls. No equipment. No shelving. No people.

Wade flicked on the lights and came in behind him.

“Well.”

“No kidding.”

The space had been scrubbed. Not cleaned. Erased. The walls showed shadow marks where shelving had been mounted. The electrical outlets still had the faint outlines of heavy equipment plugs. A ventilation hood had been dismantled above what must have been the primary workstation—the ceiling showed the bolt holes and a rectangle of slightly less discolored drywall. Two industrial sinks remained, bolted to the wall, too heavy to take. They’d been bleached so thoroughly the stainless steel had a faintly blue tint.

Wade crouched by the nearest drain. Sniffed. “Solvent’s fresh. I’m thinking twenty-four hours. Maybe forty-eight.”

Yesterday, Cara had been photographing contracts at the Foundation—contracts that included the shipping address for this very unit.

Gabe photographed every wall. Just in case there was some tiny clue he and Wade missed.

They were searching the floor drain by the second sink when they heard the truck.

Gabe’s hand went to his hip, a useless instinct, given that he wasn’t carrying. Wade flew to his feet, pry bar low at his side. Both of them pressed against the wall by the back door. Gabe heard an engine idling outside, then a door slamming, and footsteps—one person, walking casually, no urgency—approaching the back door of the unit.

A knock.“Yo! Golden Dragon!”

Gabe and Wade looked at each other.

Another knock. Louder. “Saturday order! Kung pao chicken, two orange beef, three fried rice, egg rolls—come on, man! I got six more deliveries.”

Gabe held up a hand to Wade—stay—and walked to the front. He unlatched the roll-up door from the inside and shoved it up three feet. A kid in his twenties stood on the gravel holding two large paper bags and looking confused.

“You’re not Danny,” the kid said.

“Danny’s out,” Gabe said. “I’m covering.”

The kid peered past him into the empty unit. The confusion deepened. “What happened to all the⁠—”

“Renovations.” Gabe reached for the bags. “What do I owe you?”

The kid pulled a receipt from the top bag. “It’s already been charged to the account. Same as always.”

On the account.

Gabe took the bags with one hand and the receipt with the other. Glanced at it. A standing Saturday order billed to a business account—Golden Dragon Chinese, East 14th Street, with a phone number and what looked like a corporate card on file. The name on the account was an abbreviation he didn’t recognize. Could be one of the shells. Could be nothing.

“Sign here?” The kid held out a phone.

Gabe signed with his finger. The kid headed back to his truck. Delivery complete. Just another Saturday.