Page 68 of The Guilty Trial

“Maybe he’s slipping.”

“We should be so lucky. If he was sloppy enough to leave the dust on her, he might have left more at the site,” he said, getting into the driver’s side.

“We can hope.” Allie continued staring at the dock. Forensics would arrive soon. Park would be photographed and documented, and the rope would be bagged and sent to a lab, and eventually a report would reduce all this to measurements and timestamps.

Lucas would ask where his mother was, and someone would have to answer him.

Allie got in the car.

A two-mile stretch of shuttered industrial buildings stood between them and whatever Arthur Pym had left behind.

“Let's go,” she said.

Chapter Thirty-Nine

Tacoma Brick Works

Tacoma, Washington

The old Tacoma Brick Works sprawled across ten acres in the industrial district, a maze of crumbling brick buildings and rusted equipment surrounded by the chain-link fencing Golder had mentioned. Allie spied some of the gaps as she stood at the perimeter and watched the SWAT teams move into position, their dark figures fanning out in practiced silence. The night air was cold and damp, and it carried the industrial bite of rust and standing water. Somewhere deeper inside the complex, something had been left to rot for a long time.

Jason popped the trunk of his car, and they began pulling out gear. Allie shrugged into her vest and cinched the sides, adjusting the fit, then checked her sidearm and holstered it. Jason followed suit, threading his arms through his vest straps. The preparation helped her focus on the task ahead, strangely masking the danger of the situation through the sheer rote of the actions.

Allie watched Marze as he stood at the command vehicle coordinating with the SWAT commander, a broad-shouldered man named Rourke. Marze had his arms crossed and was listening without nodding. Allie knew he was absorbing everything. When she first started with the Tacoma team, his stoicism had been a little off-putting, but she quickly grew to appreciate his efficiency.

Jason fell into step beside his partner as they moved toward the staging point. “He was here. I can feel it.”

“Yeah. Me too.” She checked her flashlight, a tactical Streamlight. It was heavy and solid in her palm.

When Rourke gave the signal, the breach team moved on the main entrance, a corrugated metal door that hadn't been secured in years. It swung inward without resistance. The SWAT operators went through first, weapon-mounted lights slicing the darkness ahead of them in tight, controlled beams that swept and paused and swept again.

Marze, Allie, and Jason followed the tactical units inside, hanging back as protocol required. She aimed her light low, tracking the uneven floor.

The air hit her immediately. It was dense, filled with the close smell of mold and decay and the mineral dampness of concrete that hadn't seen a dry season in a decade. In the shifting beams, the interior assembled itself in fragments: debris-covered floors, walls tagged with years of graffiti layered over older graffiti, ceiling sections that had given way and left jagged holes open to the cold. Broken glass caught the light and threw it back in scattered points. Coiled wire and rusted brackets emerged from the dark as she moved past them, then disappeared again behind her.

Moving through a large space lit only in moving fragments felt disorienting. Allie’s eyes couldn't settle, and the darkness pooled and thickened just beyond each beam's reach. She kept her light steady and her pace even as she focused on the operators in front of her.

The teams moved methodically through the facility, clearing rooms one by one. Most of the buildings were empty shells, ceilings partially collapsed, windows reduced to jagged frames, and walls eaten through in places by moisture and time. The radio traffic was constant, a steady stream of terse confirmations filling her earpiece.

East wing clear.

Loading bay clear.

Kiln room clear.

She tracked the reports without speaking, mentally mapping the cleared sections against the site plan Marze had provided. The complex was larger than it looked from the perimeter, branching into secondary structures connected by covered walkways and open yard space. Rourke's teams were thorough. She trusted the process, but she still hated waiting.

They moved through a section that had once been the main production floor. The kiln chambers ran along the far wall, their iron doors hanging open and each one large enough to stand in. Allie swept her beam inside the nearest one. Brick walls scorched black, a floor thick with ash and old debris. Empty. She moved to the next. Empty. The SWAT operator behind her was already at the one beyond that.

Thirty minutes in, a different voice came over the radio.

“Commander. We've got something in the back storage building.”

The SWAT team was already moving. Allie and Jason followed them across the yard, their boots finding uneven ground in the dark, threading between stacks of rusted equipment and collapsed wooden pallets. She kept her flashlight trained on the ground ahead of her and resisted the urge to hurry ahead. The back storage building was set apart from the main complex, a low single-story brick structure with a rusted metal door hanging open on one hinge. Two SWAT operators stood outside. Neither spoke as Marze approached.

Inside, the room was small, with a dirt floor and stone walls that had absorbed decades of cold. Four SWAT operators were positioned around the perimeter, their weapon lights still on, angled down toward the floor now that the space had been cleared.

Allie stopped just inside the doorway and let her own beam move across the room.