Her fancy private school puts serious limitations on how far the cops can encroach on the property, though.
The school has its own security, of course. Lots of cameras, alarms, and locks. There’s exactly one entrance, and it involves two doors and a watchful woman in an office who decides whether you get buzzed in.
It would’ve been easy enough to grab her using the crew, but I needed to do it myself. She’s mine.
I watched the place for a long time until I found the weak link in the security—the custodian taking out trash after lunch. He’s alone, vulnerable. Easy prey for somebody who might want to tie him up and take his keys and uniform.
I blended in easily enough with a beige janitor’s uniform and a cartful of supplies, pushing slowly through the sea of plaid skirts and starched, button-down shirts. A few of the girls straightened up and touched their hair when they saw my face, their cheeks turning flushed, their bodies alive with hormones I could smell from where I stood.
I kept my head down. Not interested. Never been interested in anyone beyond my crew.
Until Brooke.
I’ve had her schedule and the school layout for some time now, courtesy of Knox’s hacking skills; I knew she was in social studies fifth hour. Room 501. I headed down the corridor with my cart and slipped into the supply closet, the next door down. I texted her from a burner phone, perfectly untraceable.
I knew the cops would be pulling records on everything incoming, but it takes a while to run numbers, separate the horny teenage boys from the dangerous predators.
At first I wasn’t sure if she was going to bite. All I heard was the teacher, droning on. Finally her sweet voice rang out, asking to go to the bathroom.
A male voice. “Take the hall pass.” Harried. Distracted.
I cracked the closet door, listening to her squeaky patent leather shoes broadcast her slow and uncertain progress down the hall. Quick as a flash, I reached out and clapped a hand over her mouth, capturing her sound of surprise in my palm. Looked into her frightened eyes for just a second before dragging her inside.
And now I have her. “Quiet.”
Her breath feels warm against my hand. She nods. Reluctantly I pull away, knowing she won’t scream.
“How did you get in here?” she asks.
“Walked in the door,” I tell her, because no one fucking knows what to look for. I can only imagine what ridiculous description they have circulating. Violent criminal. A maniac. Deranged. No one expects a man with a regular haircut and a polite fucking smile.
“They’re looking for you,” she says, almost breathless with it. “They’ve been following me. Watching from the house next door. You have to be careful.”
So concerned and worried. I almost want to laugh, considering how bad I’ll have to scare her before the day is done. “I’m careful.”
There’s something hanging from her hand. I take it from her, this laminated piece of plastic with a piece of string tied to the end. St. Mary’s Hall Pass, it says. So official-looking. So goddamn adorable. Jesus.
“What’s social studies?” I ask her.
She looks bewildered in the dim light from a single bulb. “What?”
“Social studies. What’s it for? I know about math. Reading.” None of us had a regular education, and definitely not any high school. I don’t remember much beyond adding numbers and writing letters. Grayson went on to get his GED. Knox is a fucking genius, knows more than they could teach in school. Nate graduated from college and now he’s a bona fide vet. All my guys have made themselves smarter, but not me. I’ve just made myself harder.
“Oh,” she says, like it’s a normal question. Like it’s a normal thing not to understand how school works. “It’s about society. A little bit of history, a little bit of geography. But also government.”
That all sounds useless to me, but I guess that’s because I’m not smart like her. I squeeze the little zip pouch around her shoulder, feeling the contents. “Where’s your phone? It’s not in here.”
She shakes her head. “I left it there. I didn’t want them to find you.”
Protecting a guy like me. I suppose she’ll regret it soon enough.
“Let’s get out of here,” I say, tossing the fancy little hall pass into the trash bin.
She’s quiet most of the way over, aside from updating me on her conversations with the detective. Does she know she’s in trouble? Sometimes people act calm and try to have normal conversations when they know they’re in trouble. I pretend to be interested. Like that’s my main concern in all this and not the fact that she knows the identity of Keeper.
And that I have to get it out of her.
I think she senses something off with me. We’re in tune with each other in a way I never have been with my brothers. In tune in a way I can’t think about too hard.
She stiffens as the modern apartment buildings and boutique shops give way to trashed apartment complexes and payday loan places, and finally the vacant lots and boarded-up buildings deep in South Franklin City.
“Where are we going?” she asks, eyes wide.
“Home.”
“Wow. You take Gedney Drive,” she marvels.
I suppress a smile. She thinks I’m using the notorious Gedney Drive to cross the city, to get to the other side, something her kind would never do, even though it’s the shortest route to the lake suburbs.
Her lips part as I take a turn around the hulking behemoth that is the Bradford, as I pass its windows, long since covered over with graffiti-sprayed boards.
“Where are we…” The question dies on her lips as I nose the car through the slit in the chain-link fence, as the yawning gap appears in front of us.
I flip on the headlights and navigate down into the basement garage.
“What is this place?”
“Never seen a garage before?” I get this twinge of guilt, giving her a surly answer.
But I need to stay remote. I need it for me. And she needs to understand that things are different now. Serious.
“I never saw a place like this. I mean, down here…I never imagined…” She can’t understand how there could be such expensive rides down below an abandoned hotel—way nicer than even what her daddy can afford. “Are these…”
“Stolen?” I pull in next to Calder’s vintage Mustang, supplying the word she’s too polite to voice. Knox isn’t the only one with nice-ass cars. “Nah. They’re bought. Cash. Don’t let anybody tell you crime doesn’t pay, little bird.”
I let her open her own door and get out on her own, but I stay nice and near in case she tries to run. Not that she’d have anywhere to go.
“Come on.” I lead her past the row of vehicles and into the stairwell. Up we go. I feel her behind me as I hit the code on the door up top, resisting the urge to take her hand, to touch her back, to let her know I give a shit.
I push into the ruined lobby. Leaves and rubble litter the broken tile floor. Sunlight streams through the shattered dome-shaped roof, once a grand atrium.
“This is where you live?” she asks, voice full of dread and wonder.
I find myself wishing I had something nicer to show her. But that’s not what this little jaunt is about. “You like it?” I ask. “I could give you the name of our designer if you want.”