The Frame-Up (The Golden Arrow #1)(60)

I slide into my car and pray over the steering wheel, Please, oh please, oh please, start. The engine cranks on the first try, and I crow in triumph. Oh, how I’d give my left arm for light speed at this moment.

It’s only several moments more before I too am out on the main street on my way to the warehouse. In fact, it’s not too long at all before I can see the dark sedan ahead of me in traffic. Okay. I can do this. This is about stealth. I need to stay far enough back in traffic so he can’t see—

My phone rings.

I don’t need to look to know it’s Matteo, but I look just so I can see his name on my phone. “I don’t answer phone calls,” I announce to my passenger seat, where the phone flashes. I reach over and send it to voice mail.

Surely he can’t see me. There’s no way he can see me. I intentionally let a huge pickup truck cut me off.

My phone rings again, and again I send it to voice mail. “I don’t answer calls.”

Matteo didn’t say the words “You cannot show up at the crime scene” to me. He just said I wasn’t going with him. Big difference. He must have figured out my loophole.

My phone dings my text message tone. Smart man. But I’m smarter. I glance at the phone, where Matteo’s name is lit up on my display. There’s a one-word text underneath: No.

“Oh, I’m sorry, Matteo,” I say in my best stewardess voice, picking up the phone. “I don’t text and drive either.”

I click off the phone, toss it back on the passenger seat, and proceed in a blessedly quiet car toward the coast.

I decide I can’t quite shadow Matteo directly to the warehouse district. Traffic thins. I get off an exit early and weave my way through dark streets, picking up my phone again and using my GPS to guide me.

“Okay, no big deal. Remember? I’m Han Solo.” I throw the Millennium Turd into park and switch off my lights. Except now I remember that Han was supposedly frozen in carbonite for a year before his rescue, so maybe not the best battle cry.

I’m about a block east and a block north of the warehouse, and it’s dark. Like the inside of Dexter’s mind dark. Patches of low clouds block any moonlight, and surprise, surprise, the streetlights in this part of the city work only every so often. I reach over and grab my phone, wondering if I should predial 911. I mean, it’s not like there are just people lurking on every corner looking to grab the next person that walks by. I don’t want to be paranoid. But I also don’t want to be stupid. I already know there might be some legitimately bad people in this area getting ready to move hundreds of thousands of dollars’ worth of illicit substances.

I debate only a moment longer. Somewhere out here is a masked avenger. I’d bet my near-mint copy of The Black Canary number 1 on it. The heels of my shoes crunch as I step gingerly onto the gritty, cracked pavement, and I close my door as quietly as I can . . . which feels like the decibel level of approximately 6.7 air horns. I need desperately to get a new car. The Millennium Turd is just not a stealth vehicle. Speaking of, I’m not really dressed for stealth myself. The dark colors that happen to make up my outfit are sparkly as well. I’m about as well hidden as a disco ball at a flashlight festival.

I scoot across the street and into the deeper shadows afforded by the taller warehouse. Then I creep up the block. I jump out of my skin only once when something skitters away from me into a broken window, and once when a car door slams farther down the street. I see one other person hurrying in the opposite direction. I stay where I am, stock-still, until he passes. Not a few seconds later, a car engine roars to life, and headlights spill against the metal buildings.

After what seems like an eternity, I ease around the corner of the warehouse I’m looking for. A large semi idles in front of the huge bay doors, a shipping container strapped to the flatbed trailer. A crew of maybe eight men pack the container in an efficient manner, though I can’t identify the crates from this distance. I wish I owned binoculars. I’m hoping against hope that this is the White Rabbit’s crew. All of this will be over, and I can move on with my life, and my best friend and I won’t have to be the number-one suspects in a crime Lawrence knows nothing about.

I peek around the corner again. This time I catch sight of a group of men moving toward the end of the building where I’m halfway hidden. One tall and slender, the other two built like refrigerator boxes with legs. Comic book criminals if I’ve ever seen any. I chance one more glance to confirm. They are most definitely headed in my direction. Well, bantha fodder. What am I going to do now?

Scanning the wall isn’t much help. It’s a metal building with windows higher up. But it’s dark. Maybe I can just suck in my tummy and stand in the shadows and hope they don’t turn the corner? I channel “Grecian Urn” with all my might, as if every warehouse has a sparkle-clad statuary that I’m blending into. My heartbeat accelerates to a slow gallop. This is probably why it’s a bad idea for me to be here.

And then I see it. The little cove of a door along the wall, shrouded in inky darkness. It’s a perfect hiding spot, thank the stars above.

Not one second too soon, I skitter on tiptoes to the doorway, and just as I catch the barest glimpse of the men round the corner, I step back into the alcove and let the shadows swallow me.

I land against something softer than a building, something that gives an audible grunt when I step on its foot. That something slips a hand around my face, covering my mouth, muffling my scream.