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You knew you were in deep when someone who could teleport needed an escape plan.
“Uh-oh.”
Danny raised his eyebrows.
“My … my date cancelled.” I fought to keep my voice from shaking.
I flipped through my mental catalog, and recalled the details of the building schematic I’d stolen, trying to think of all the places Poe could be.
Danny took the ring out of my hand. “You were meeting your date at a pawnshop?”
“I have a busy schedule.”
I watched a red light flash in the reflection from Danny’s glasses. I knew it was from a surveillance camera that hung suspended from the ceiling, observing the happenings in the front of the shop. The blinking light was a sign that there was trouble in the back. What had Poe gotten himself into?
“I need to close up. Now.”
“But the ring.” I gestured toward it when he began to put it back in the case. “Your sign says, ‘Open twenty-four hours,’ and the ring—”
“We’ll be open again at ten A.M.” His voice was firm. “Come back then.”
I huffed. “Your customer service is terrible.”
“Complain to the management. There’s a suggestion box. Outside.”
My cell screen lit up the inside of my purse:
911 GET ME OUT 911
Poe was not an all-caps kind of guy.
Desperate now, I held up one finger and tossed my blue hair over my shoulders. “Does the NOLA PD know what you keep behind that big door?”
Danny looked at the flashing light on the camera once more before he shoved the ring back into the case. “You don’t need to worry about what’s behind that door. You just need to leave. Now.” He came out from behind the counter and cupped my elbow in his hand, trying to steer me out of the store.
Nothing pissed me off more than being manhandled. Unless I’d asked to be.
“Let go of me.” I jerked away and clutched my arm. “That hurt.”
“Does a hundred-dollar ring really mean so much that you can’t come back to get it tomorrow?”
“You said two hundred!”
“You’re familiar, somehow. You haven’t been in here before, have you?” He squinted and lifted up his glasses like an old man. “I know your voice.… ”
The one thing I hadn’t figured out how to do was manipulate my vocal cords.
Shock and surprise broke through my concentration, and I could feel my disguise slip a little. Danny blinked in recognition. “Wait a second. You sold me the ring! What the hell is going on?”
A cell phone on the counter began to vibrate, and the accompanying ringtone was a repeating air horn. Danny turned around, and I did the only logical thing I could. I picked up the stool from behind the register and hit him over the head with it.
I didn’t put all my strength into the move, because unlike my father, I didn’t make murder a hobby. Danny still went down hard. Once I knew he was out, I took his key ring off his belt. I navigated my fingers through his hair to get to his skull. Big knot, no blood, nothing concave.
He was probably fine.
I took the ring from the case, left a hundred-dollar bill in its place, and then dropped it into my bag. Once I found the right key, I opened the vault door and pulled it closed behind me. A corridor stretched thirty feet before taking a sharp right turn. Strobe lights near the ceiling signaled a silent alarm.
If any cameras existed, they were well hidden. I let my face and body go back to their natural state. When I reached the turn, I took a quick listen before peeking around the corner. I’d expected some sort of chaos, or at least a guard. All I saw was more tunnel.
