Queen of Humbolt by Tagan Shepard

Author:Tagan Shepard [Shepard, Tagan]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781642471564
Publisher: Bella Books
Published: 2020-09-30T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter Seventeen

2019

Letting her steps roll quietly from heel to toe, Marisol crept across the dark warehouse. The floor was concrete, and her boots would slap loudly if she wasn’t careful. Clouds covered the half moon, the skylights and high windows barely glowing. She’d kept one eye closed while picking the lock, preserving her night vision.

Despite her careful pace, she was able to cross the warehouse in little time. She’d watched an endless stream of tractor trailers leave earlier in the day, so she wasn’t surprised to find the place empty. It wasn’t in the greatest area of town and she worried about squatters. Once she reached the stairs at the far end of the building she was confident that she was alone in the freezing warehouse.

Moving with more speed and only slightly more sound, she climbed the stairs. The lock on the office door was pathetic, just a rattling knob with a three-pin lock. Marisol had it open in fifteen seconds. Sweeping the room with her dim flashlight, she took a moment to slide aside a tile from the drop ceiling.

The computer on the desk was a red herring. It was a dusty old box that would probably take an hour to boot up. She doubted it held more than shipping manifests and preinstalled solitaire. If her intel on these guys was anywhere close to accurate, the solitaire got a lot more play than the paperwork. They were so sloppy she sneered at even calling them businessmen.

The file cabinet against the back wall was a little more helpful. Nothing was incriminating by itself, but she got a few useful names and addresses. She didn’t have anything personal against them, so maybe she’d just send them to prison rather than kill them. Killing was so messy and, after all, she hadn’t gotten the ex-State’s Attorney a parting gift yet.

The flashlight played across a cheap folding table. A familiar map caught her eye. Incredulous, she studied the papers. The maps, diagrams and reports were all familiar. Marisol had a copy of them herself, and she had come by them at great expense and trouble. Unlike her copies, these were Chicago Police Department originals.

Marisol’s phone vibrated insistently in her pocket. She flipped off her flashlight and pulled herself into the ceiling. The warehouse door banged open just as she slid the tile back into place, leaving a barely perceptible gap. Balanced on a ceiling beam above the office, she could hear the men climbing the stairs to the office. Among the rafters was an open skylight a hundred yards away, but she waited to see if these jokers had anything interesting to say. They chatted like TV-show bad guys, complete with dick jokes and long, obviously untrue stories about women they’d picked up in bars. Marisol was about to leave when the office door opened again and the laughter died.

Marisol couldn’t see the newcomer’s face, but there was no mistaking those orthotic black sneakers and black polyester uniform pants. Whoever this guy was, Marisol hadn’t seen any cops with these guys before.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.