Last Violent Call (Secret Shanghai, #3.5)(16)

“Do you?”

“Absolutely.” Entirely straight-faced, she added, “It gets me all hot and bothered.”

Roma cleared his throat, trying very hard to look unamused by her teasing. No matter how inscrutable he kept his expression, Juliette always knew exactly when he was flustered, because he would clear his throat on a lower pitch, as if there were an itch at the base of his tongue.

“I saw a window that already looked broken.” Juliette hurried out from behind the tree, circling around the fence and immediately pressing close to the building. Their surroundings were vacant enough that it was unlikely anyone would spot them, but there was no harm in being cautious. “We can break off the panel and climb through.”

Roma was quick to follow in her footsteps. They found the broken window. “That may leave glass shards.”

“Not to fret.” Juliette reached forward to prod at the pane, trying to find the broken lines upon the glass. This had only caught her attention because someone had attempted to tape over the damage, making a large X with white paper tape that she easily peeled away. “It looks like a storage room inside. I will push the lower pane in. We can climb through easily. Then you can pin me down and—”

“Juliette,” Roma interrupted, scandalized.

“—I can check whether there is light under the door,” Juliette finished. She paused for effect. “What did you think I was going to say?”

“You—” Roma spluttered. “One does not need to be pinned down to check for light.”

“I disagree. It helps my focus when there’s physical pressure upon me. Don’t you want to ensure that the rest of the building is empty?”

Roma threw his arms up into the air. Arguing with Juliette when she was already being facetious was a lost cause.

“Get working on the window. You are going to be the death of me.”

Juliette grinned, taking out her switchblade. “I hope not. Benedikt will yell at me again. Cover your eyes.”

She turned the weapon around and thwacked the blunt end onto the corner of the glass. Half the pane popped loose at once, falling into the room. Carefully, she wrapped her bare fingers around the rest, pulling hard until there was a perfect rectangle hollowed out from the window.

“Give me a hand, my love.”

Roma was already taking his jacket off, laying it on the ledge to protect against the sharp bits and pieces that remained. Quick as she could, Juliette propped her knee onto the ledge and used his helpful push on her hips to climb through the window, landing in the storage room with a solid “oof!”

“Everything okay?” he asked.

“I’m getting too old for this. I think my knees creaked.”

Roma climbed through too, then plucked his jacket off the ledge. He strode toward the door, carefully opening it into the dark hallway and peering out. “My knees have been creaking since I was fifteen.”

“It’s all that lying you did. Aged you prematurely.”

“All right, Saint Juliette. Enough about my past crimes before I start airing yours, too.”

Juliette stifled a laugh. They aired each other’s past crimes like it was the weekly radio programming. There was something freeing about finding humor in the matter, as if it proved that they had truly escaped what once held them captive from each other.

She grabbed Roma’s arm to peer through the door as well. The hallway looked empty.

“To the left.”

They slinked through the building, ears perked for movement. As expected, it was entirely empty, the clock on the wall moving its longer hand with a drowsy slowness. The main area of the operating center unfolded under the stream of moonlight, illuminating five rows of desks and headsets slung over the communication machines. Each machine had myriad wires extending from its plugs, some dangling loose and others installed tightly.

“Does no one make phone calls past midnight?” Roma wondered.

“It gets rerouted to a larger center,” Juliette answered, heading for the shelf she had spotted in the corner. “Remember how early the one in Shanghai’s Chinese jurisdiction would close?”

Roma looked confused, which meant he did not remember. “I think that was on your territory.”

“You didn’t watch what was going on in enemy territory?” She dropped to a crouch, scanning the thick logbooks stacked up on the shelf. “I watched yours.”

“I watched you. I didn’t care about what nonsense your territory was getting up to.”

Roma dropped down next to her, pulling out the nearest stack. Before Juliette could ask what their game plan was going to be, he simply set the stack on her lap, then pulled another onto his.

“This could take forever,” Juliette said, craning her head to take in the whole shelf.

“Wouldn’t they only keep a month’s worth of logs out here, given that the previous months have already been invoiced?” He flicked her shoulder. “Start scanning. It’s only September.”

Juliette took a deep, dramatic breath and flipped open the first logbook. As she moved up and down the columns by moonlight, there came a point when she was scarcely reading anymore; she was looking in the plainest sense. Most locations in China were going to be a few characters—two or three, maybe four at most. “Fuzhou,” “Shanghai,” “Tianjin.” On the other hand, “Vladivostok” was a whopping seven characters, so she would pause at any column entry that was overly cramped.