A Chip and a Chair (Seven of Spades, #5)(79)
He was interrupted by the roar of a motorcycle engine. A Kawasaki Ninja zoomed into their corner of the parking lot, far sleeker and more graceful than the stout Harley Dominic had borrowed from his neighbor. Its single rider turned the bike off, dismounted, and removed her helmet, straightening her low ponytail.
“What the hell is going on?” Leila demanded.
She was staring at Levi, her face screwed up with confusion and a healthy amount of suspicion. Levi looked at Dominic, who shrugged and turned to Martine. Though Martine had been the one to enlist Leila’s help, with a brief pretense for why she needed Natasha’s key, it was clear from the ensuing uncomfortable silence that none of them had considered how to explain the real situation.
“I thought you made it out of Nevada hours ago,” Leila said to Levi. Her eyes roved over Natasha, narrowed, and came to rest on Martine. “And you told me that Natasha was missing. Ezra’s having a nervous breakdown. Why haven’t you told him-”
She froze. Dominic followed the direction of her gaze to the tablet Natasha was holding-the tablet on which Carmen’s face was still visible.
Leila lurched a single step backward, her face wiped clean of expression. For a moment, she seemed to be in a state of suspended animation. Then she shook herself, blinked a few times, and said, “You crafty bitch.”
Natasha snorted, at which Martine made an exasperated noise.
“I’m sorry I couldn’t tell you the truth over the phone,” Martine said.
“No, I get it.” Leila strode forward, joining them without any sign of reluctance. “But I’m here now, so seriously-what the hell is going on?”
“Levi can fill you in on the way to my unit.” Natasha extended her hand. “Can I have the key, please?”
Leila passed it over, and Natasha headed deeper into the complex at a rapid clip. Martine stayed on her ass, still covering her with a gun, while Dominic hung back with Rebel, listening to Levi summing up the events of the day for Leila.
Natasha’s unit was in the back corner of the complex, as far from the entrance as possible. Dominic had been wondering why she couldn’t just break into the unit, if she’d found it so easy to enter their apartments, but he understood as soon as he saw the lock securing the garage-style door. It looked more like a shapeless hunk of metal than a padlock. The shaft wasn’t visible, which would make it practically impossible to cut through, and only a world-class thief would have any hope of picking it.
She popped the lock open, rolled the door up, and disappeared inside. Martine followed her, but Dominic hovered at the threshold as Levi wrapped things up with Leila.
“Jesus,” Leila said. “So Nazis are about to bomb the city again, the police are compromised by double agents, and one of your closest friends is the serial killer you’ve been hunting for a year?”
“Could you make it sound more depressing?” Levi said wryly.
“You were right. The Seven of Spades is someone you trusted. I don’t even . . .” She rested a hand on Levi’s arm, her eyes soft with something Dominic was tempted to label sympathy, though he’d never seen her exhibit that before. “I’m sorry I reacted the way I did when you suspected me.”
Levi shook his head. “Don’t be. I’m sorry I hurt you. That was never my intention.”
Satisfied by their reconciliation, Dominic entered the unit to give them a moment of privacy.
The unit was a surprisingly large cement cube, lit by a single bare bulb overhead. As he and Rebel wove between haphazard piles of old furniture, cardboard boxes, and plastic storage bins, he scanned some of the labels: Baby clothes. Textbooks. Halloween decorations.
Despite every appearance of normalcy, he kept his guard up. This place reminded him uncomfortably of the murder room Natasha had trapped him and Levi in last month, and there was always a chance that this was a trap as well.
Natasha and Martine had stopped at the unit’s back wall, in front of a column of bins that were all labeled Christmas. Natasha was shoving other boxes aside to create more space.
“We need to get these down,” she said when Dominic approached. “Can you grab one of those chairs?”
He followed her pointing finger to several dining chairs that had been stacked atop each other. Fetching one down, he brought it over and held it steady while she climbed on and reached for the top Christmas bin. By the time she’d brought down all of the bins and laid them out side by side, Levi and Leila had rejoined the group.
“First things first.” Natasha opened the leftmost container, revealing a mass of boxed tree ornaments. “We need to be able to stay in communication with each other and Carmen, without everyone relying on me as a go-between.”
She felt along the insides of the container with both hands, then lifted out a dividing tray on which the ornament boxes were sitting. As she set it aside, Dominic leaned forward to peer into the container.
The bottom half of the bin was full of neatly sorted tech-everything from concealable cameras to bugs to a cell phone interceptor. He recognized the same brand and quality of equipment that she’d used to spy on them last summer.
“Whoa,” said Leila. “Creepy much?”
Shooting Leila an irritated look, Natasha picked up a handful of plastic-packaged devices. When she tossed one to Dominic, he realized it was identical to the earpiece she was wearing.