Page 40 of Rogue’s Mark

I also think back to what it was like to grow up in a place where something was always being fixed. Where broken things got better.

That’s not the Rothwell of today.

We turn onto Calloway Street, which has held together better than many of the blocks around it. It has a couple functioning businesses where the windows are intact rather than boarded up with plywood. In any other city, this street would appear to be down on its luck. But here, it’s actually a step up.

Not hard to shine when the bar is that low.

We find the law firm’s address, an old, stone building, which was probably once pretty impressive. The lobby directory is by the door, with fancy brass letters on black felt. Half the names are missing, and the ones that aren’t are missing random letters. Someone has written NO MAIL in marker across the bottom.

I run my finger down the directory, hoping that the law firm is still listed.

Suite 412.

Yes. The address in the papers.

We take the stairs because there’s no way the elevator’s working, not that I’d take it anyway, and when we get to the fourth floor, it’s clear nobody has been here in a long time. The carpet is worn and smelly, and it’s dark save for the light coming through an open door to an office with a large bay of windows. Before we move any farther, I pull out my flashlight and we move along, following the suite numbers: 401, 403, 405.

We turn our attention to the other side of the hallway for the even numbers: 408. 410. Then 414.

What?

Vi stops beside me. "Where's 412?"

I look at the wall between 410 and 414. Solid. No door, no frame, no sign of where it might have been. Just wall.

What the hell? We look up and down the corridor in disbelief, like we either overlooked the suite number or like it might magically appear.

"Where is it?” I ask.

Vi stares at the wall. "Maybe it was never real?”

"Holy shit. I think you’re right. 412 was just a number on a document. Just enough to make the paperwork look legit. Fuckers used a fake address."

Vi slumps against the wall behind her, right where suite 412 should have been.

"My father probably found this too," she says. "He came here, stood in this corridor, and figured out this same exact thing.”

I can’t see her all that well in the glow of my flashlight, but I can picture the expression she’s wearing anyway. It kind of kills me. I hate to see her like this.

She sighs. "Whoever he was chasing found out he was getting close."

For a second, she runs her hand flat on the wall between suites 410 and 414. Her father probably stood right here in this spot. Followed the same thread to the same dead end.

"Rogue,” she says.

"Yeah?"

"He was here.” Her voice is steady. "I can feel it."

We stand in there for a moment longer, then Vi takes her hand off the wall and pulls her shoulders back.

"Okay," she says. "Whoever is at the head of all this, the ‘ceiling’ as Alice calls it, was careful enough to register a suite that doesn't exist.”

"Don’t forget arrogant. They never thought anyone would come looking."

"They were wrong."

“Let’s go,” I say.