The City at Night: A Matt Reeves Novella by Meg Buchanan

Author:Meg Buchanan [Buchanan, Meg]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Range Road Press
Published: 2024-05-14T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter seven

MOST of the explosion's damage was confined to about a fifty-metre radius. The full width of the level. With a bit of debris up to the next level but not quite to the ramp at each end. It still looked impressive. He got to the next ramp and hadn’t seen any movement or anywhere someone could hide.

“Charlie?” he called quietly.

No answer.

He called again, still keeping his voice down.

Now he’d have trouble explaining what he was doing. Charlie wasn’t a suspect, whatever crime this could be called. But she would be a witness, and he wasn’t sure he wanted her involved in the investigation. It didn’t sound like she wanted anything to do with the authorities.

He strode up the next ramp, and to his left, the doors to the lifts were closed. They didn’t look damaged. He hit the button between the two doors just in case. No sound of the lift coming, and the doors didn’t budge. No surprise there. The power would have been cut off months ago.

Beside the lift doors, there was another door. Smaller. Like a cupboard. Maybe for maintenance or cleaning gear. He turned the handle, and it moved. But the door wouldn’t open. A steering column was jammed against it and somehow tangled up with the stainless kickplate at the bottom and the twisted handrail leading to the lift.

This time he did hear something. It could be just rats, but the small noise meant there was something in the cupboard.

He knocked quietly against the door. “Charlie?”

No answer again. Must have been rats. He went to move on and check each car at this level. There were only five. But they all looked undamaged. Even if Charlie had been sleeping when the explosion happened, she’d have been woken, but she might have decided to lay low.

Then he heard it.

“Matt?”

Charlie was in the cupboard. How the hell did that happen?”

He wrenched the steering column away from the kickplate. It rolled down the ramp and got stuck in the gap where the ramp attached to the floor. He turned the handle, and this time the door opened.

Using the flashlight on his phone, he could see Charlie crumpled on the floor amongst the brooms and buckets. Above her, on the wall, the meter board to control the lifts, he guessed, with circuits and switches, sat menacingly.

“How come you’re in here?” he asked.

“Hiding,” she said as she struggled to stand.

“What happened? Something went bang, and everything shook, then I couldn’t get the door open.”

“One of the cars blew up.” He nodded at the steering column at the bottom of the ramp. “That was wedged up against the door.” He helped Charlie out of the cupboard. Her ankle had been bound, but it still looked like it hurt too much to put any weight on it. She leaned against the lift door to get her balance.

“I told him it wouldn’t work. I told him not to do it. I told him Fraser could just wait,” she murmured.

“Shouldn’t do what?” he asked.

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