Say the Word(66)

Though many of the overhead streetlights had burned out and been left in disrepair, there was enough light from the few remaining illuminated posts to make out Santos, his black duffel still in hand, as he crossed the street and walked out onto the pier abutting the warehouse. He walked confidently, as though he’d been here many times before, and casually shifted the bag’s strap over his shoulder as he lit a cigarette. I held my breath and watched as he took a few slow drags, his eyes cast out over the still, gray waters of the Hudson. When he’d finished his cigarette, he turned back for the warehouse and approached a rusted metal emergency exit door on the side of the brick building. The jarring sound of his fist pounding against the metal reverberated in the night. Santos waited calmly before the door, wholly unaware of the watchful eyes trained on him.

After a few seconds, what looked like a slotted metal peephole slid open, allowing whoever was inside a glimpse at Santos. He was obviously recognized, as the door immediately swung open to admit him. It closed behind him as soon as he stepped through the entryway.

It didn’t open again for two hours.

Fae was snoring lightly in the backseat and Simon was nodding off sporadically, slumped over the steering wheel with drool pooling in one cheek, when the warehouse door finally creaked open and Santos walked out. I elbowed Simon in the stomach and he jerked awake with little grace.

“Whaaasgoinon?”

“Look,” I hissed, pointing toward the windshield.

Simon wiped the drool from his face and turned his eyes to Santos.

“Duffel.”

“What?” I asked, thinking he might still be half asleep and babbling nonsensical dream words.

“The duffel bag,” he clarified. “Look how full it is.”

I looked. He was right; Santos had definitely picked something up in the warehouse. The question was, what?

“When he went in, it was limp. Now, it’s practically exploding,” Simon noted.

“That’s what she said,” Fae chimed in from the back seat with a faint giggle.

I rolled my eyes. “Really, Fae?”

“It’s two in the morning.” She shrugged. “My humor isn’t exactly on-point at the moment.”

“So what’s in the bag?” I muttered.

“Could be anything. Money, drugs, you name it.” Simon’s brow furrowed as he watched Santos start up his car and pull away from the curb. “But he was in there for more than two hours. His shift is pretty much over now, and he barely patrolled. I don’t think that’s standard operating procedure for an NYPD officer.”

We all fell silent as we contemplated what that might mean.

Simon waited until Santos was a few blocks out of sight before starting the car and steering us back to Manhattan. I didn’t know how I’d do it, but I needed to find out what was in that duffel bag. And then, I had to come back here to see what was going on behind the tightly sealed doors of that warehouse.

As we wound through the streets and back across the bridge to the bustling island we called home, I thought about the missing girls, and how I was essentially no closer to finding out what had happened to them. But mostly, I thought about Simon and Fae, both of whom had work in less than six hours, and how they’d insisted on coming along with me on this charade just so I wouldn’t be alone. As it turned out, stakeouts weren’t like the movies. I’d been bored to tears, my butt had gone numb after sitting for hours in the same position, and I’d learned virtually nothing about Santos other than the fact that he liked to frequent strange, abandoned places in the dead of night. Which may have been suspicious, but was certainly not illegal.

I wanted a smoking gun, something we could easily pin on him. I wanted to feel like I was doing something other than spinning my wheels while more girls became targets and vanished off city streets. I wanted Vera back home, and Miri safe again.

But, as I knew better than most, life rarely works out the way we want it to.





Chapter Twenty-One





Now


Remember when you were eight years old and the most entertaining thing on the planet was challenging someone on the playground to a staring contest? And the most important thing on the planet was winning said staring contest and becoming the dry-eyed, unblinking champion of the recess yard?

I was engaged in a new kind of staring contest right now, and it was imperative that I win. Because, you see, I wasn’t eight anymore, and Sebastian and I weren’t gazing into one another’s eyes willing the other to blink and cry uncle. Oh, no. We were in a uniquely adult version of the staring game, with new rules. In this round, the goal was to see who could go the absolute longest without so much as a glance in the other’s direction.

So maybe it wasn’t so much a staring contest as an avoid-at-all-costs contest.

An absolutely-do-not-stare-at-me contest.

An I’m-afraid-what-might-happen-if-I-look-at-you contest.

Anyway, I think he was winning.

See, after his absence for the last two days, I’d kind of gotten used to not seeing him. Yesterday, Cara and her posse had been at a fashion event across the city, modeling for a new fall line, and I’d had a gloriously normal day of discussing set designs and hashing out costume ideas with the designers for the 1920s shoot. The roaring twenties was an exciting era, so our team had a lot of options to play with. And despite a terse email from Jeanine, reminding me that I was still on the hook for my normal Luster column at the end of the month, I’d had a great time.