The Long Way Down (Daniel Faust #1)(62)

I knew Tony, or at least I thought I did. He’d possessed just enough humanity to resist joining the others in their bloodthirsty fun, but not enough to walk away. He’d be feeling it now, in the aftermath of the kill. Feeling the weight. Where does an award-winning architect go to reflect and be alone after murdering his daughter? I wasn’t certain, but I had a pretty good hunch.

The skeleton of the Enclave stood at the far south end of Las Vegas Boulevard, a mammoth spire of girders and rebar surrounded by a chain link barricade. A cheerful painting plastered to the fence showed an artist’s rendition of the finished resort, standing proud under a blue sky as an eager father, his daughter riding on his shoulders, pointed the way to the front doors.

“A New Adventure. A New Las Vegas. The Enclave. Coming Soon.”

A construction gate hung open, an open padlock dangling lazily from a length of chain. Next to the foreman’s trailer, in a patch of asphalt littered with bundled rebar and pyramids of steel girders, a black Lexus sat empty. I parked behind it. I strode across the construction site, not bothering to mask my footsteps. I wanted Tony to know I was coming for him.

The open cage of a temporary elevator waited for me, lit by a dangling bulb. The cage whirred as it jerked to life at the press of a button, lurching upward, the ground falling away. Ten stories up, twenty, thirty, the traffic on the Strip just a smear of yellow light below. A gust of wind rattled the cage. Gears clanked in the dark.

The elevator ground to a halt on the thirty-sixth floor. End of the line.

Girders speared the open sky. A chill breeze ruffled my hair as I stepped onto bare concrete, the floor marked with splats of white spray-paint—arrows and lines in the secret language of engineers. Fresh barricades of drywall marked the odd room or hallway, but most of the floor was a blank slate waiting to be filled in. A scattering of tools lay out on gallon drums and makeshift sawhorse tables, waiting for tomorrow’s shift.

I found Tony at the tower’s edge, staring out over the Vegas night. He clutched a fat bottle in his hand, leaning with his other palm pressed against a standing girder.

“I knew you’d find me,” he said, not turning around.

I stood about five feet back, a ghost in the shadows. I didn’t say anything. I didn’t have the words.

“I must have showed up maybe three minutes after you called Jill’s folks,” he said. “They told me about the breakin. Then they said you’d asked about Amber, and I knew it was you. I just knew. You never would have made it in time, if that’s any consolation.”

I watched him. Motionless. Something ugly and black burned in the pit of my stomach, like a monster pacing in a thin-barred cage.

“If you’re looking for the soul-trap, you’re too late. Already gave it to Lauren.” He looked at the bottle in his hand, shook his head, and tossed back a swig. “She handed me this. Veuve Clicquot Yellow Label. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a good f*ckin’ champagne, thirty-five hundred a bottle, but…yeah, that’s our Lauren. It came wrapped with a little bow. Good dog. Here’s your bone.”

I found my voice.

“Why did you do it?”

He turned to face me. Tears glistened on his cheeks.

“The lockmaker,” he said, “was clever. You need five souls to open the Box. Five sacrifices. The trick is, they have to be someone you love. Someone you truly, genuinely love. We found a loophole, though. One person doesn’t have to take all that pain. We split it up between the four of us.”

He choked up for a second. I waited. Patient.

“Let me tell you a story about Lauren Carmichael,” he said. “Maybe twenty years ago, she starts hunting for the Box. She knew the cost. So what does she do? She goes out and starts dating. Finds the man of her dreams. Raises a happy, healthy son. Genuinely loved them. Devoted wife, loving mom. All the while, all those years, knowing that one day she’d butcher them both to get what she wants. That’s just the kind of person she is. How can you fight someone like that?”

I took a step toward him.

“Tell me why.”

Tony shook his head. “Do you believe that the end justifies the means?”

“Depends on the end.”

“Hypothetical question.” He sucked down another pull from the bottle. “A time traveler tells you that a random stranger is destined to start World War III. Boom, nukes drop, end of the human race. He puts a gun in your hand and says the only way to stop it is to shoot the poor bastard dead. What do you do?”

“You murdered your daughter,” I said, my voice flat. “Don’t waste my time with—”

He waved a hand, interrupting me. “Let’s expand it. Let’s say the only way to stop the bombs is to wipe out a classroom full of kindergartners. Thirty rosy-cheeked little cherubs against the survival of everyone on Earth. Do you do it? I mean, you’d be immoral not to do it, wouldn’t you?”

“Real life is never that simple.” I clenched my fists. “There’s always another way. Another choice. A better choice than some stupid, made-up ‘damned if you do, damned if you don’t’ mind game.”

“You think so?” Tony asked, waggling the champagne bottle. “See, you don’t get it. You don’t understand what’s happening here. The world’s dying, Faust. We’re killing each other, killing the planet, and it won’t stop until the human race wipes itself out or somebody makes it stop. That’s Lauren’s plan. We’re going to save humanity from itself. We’re going to make things right. See, we’re the good guys. You’re the bad guy.”