Dead Drop (The Guild #2)(101)

She didn’t comment on it, though, just arched a brow and carried on like it made no difference to her whether I was armed or not.

“About a year ago, or maybe more, there was a troublemaker in town,” she told me as she walked along the corridor at the base of the stairs. The lighting was dim, but we seemed to be the only ones down there. “Limp-dicked little bastard trashed my cafe. Totally destroyed it. Not a single stick of furniture left untouched.”

“I’m sorry to hear that,” I commented.

Nadia huffed a laugh. “I’m not. Got me a fancy new rebuild for the trouble. You saw how nice it is up there. Anyway, during the renovation, the builders discovered this tunnel hidden behind a false wall. Not totally uncommon, there’s loads of tunnels running around under Shadow Grove. Leftovers from the Prohibition era when one of the Shadow Grove founding families—the Burns family—operated an underground distillery.”

I smiled. “Entrepreneurial.”

Nadia flashed me a toothy smile, and the dim light gave her a slightly demonic quality. “Very. That family moved away a couple of generations ago. They’re in a different criminal industry now. But the tunnels remain…”

“Where does it lead?” I asked, unable to fight my fascination over this totally unexpected twist to an already interesting city.

Nadia chuckled. “Eventually? Probably anywhere you wanna go in Shadow Grove. But the reason I brought you down here, is this.” She strode forward another twenty feet or so, then stopped.

I glanced around, half expecting one of Blanchet’s beta team to leap out and garrote me again. But the corridor remained totally empty.

“Uh, I don’t understand,” I admitted.

Nadia gave another laugh. “Come closer, girl. Take a look, here.” She pointed to a brick in the wall, seemingly at random. But there was nothing random about the brick she tapped with her long finger. This one was inlaid with gold, carved into the same design as on the head of the key around my neck, and in the middle, a tiny hole.

“A key hole,” I whispered in shock. “Holy crap.”

Nadia gave another smug smile. “Right, I’ll leave you to it, then. Don’t forget, this is the way back out.” She pointed in the direction we’d come. “If you get lost down here, no one will find you before you starve to death. Clear?”

“You’re not staying to see what the key does?” I glanced around again before putting my gun away.

The old woman scoffed. “Mess around in Guild business? No thank you, ma’am. I did my time, made my deals, and got the heck out before they totally ruined my life. As far as the Guild is concerned, I don’t exist. I’d like to keep it that way, if you don’t mind.” She nodded to the gold symbol with the keyhole. “Whatever you find, you keep it to yourself. I was never here.”

With a decisive nod, she bustled off down the corridor toward the stairs once more, leaving me alone.

“Fuck it, here goes,” I muttered as Nadia’s footsteps faded away. For a small lady, she sure moved fast. Glancing around again, I lifted the necklace over my head and inserted it into the keyhole. I paused there for a moment, then gave a small laugh. “Fucking hell, Danny. This isn’t the Temple of Doom; it won’t be booby-trapped.”

Fuck, I hoped it wasn’t booby-trapped.

Biting my lip, I turned the key and felt the tumblers catch. It was stiff to turn, making me put a bit of effort in, but then it clicked into place, and the hole brick popped out a half inch.

“Fucking dead drop,” I whispered, looping the necklace back over my head and then grasping the edges of the false brick with my fingertips. It slid out like a drawer, and there, nestled inside the velvet lining, a collection of at least a dozen thumb drives. “Holy shit. Layla, you sneaky bitch.”

Then another realization slammed into me like a ton of bricks, and I peered down at the necklace. The very same necklace that had been found on Kai’s island, in Kai’s dresser drawer…

“Oh shit,” I breathed. Dread pooled in my stomach, thick enough to make me nauseous. I couldn’t dwell on what it all meant, not now. I needed to get all the hidden thumb drives back to Leon and figure out what Layla was hiding that was worth being killed for.

Thankfully, the jacket I’d tossed on to hide my guns had deep pockets, and those pockets had zips. So I secured half a dozen drives on each side and zipped them shut, keeping them secure while I replaced the dead drop brick. It locked smoothly back into place, and I hurried back toward Nadia’s Cakes.

Glancing behind me, I couldn’t help wondering where the other direction led. What would Layla’s access have been? Who was she leaving the data cache for? I had to assume—like with most physical dead drops—there was a second key somewhere. So… where? Or who?

The fact that the dead drop was still full, four years after Layla’s death, said that whoever she’d been leaving it for was also dead. Or maybe she never got to give them the location before she died.

Either way, they were mine now.

I passed back through the kitchen without a word to anyone and found Nadia out in the dining area, clearing plates from an empty table.

“You get what you needed?” she asked with an arched brow.

I jerked a nod. “I did. Thank you. If I can ever return the favor…”