Strike Me Down - Mindy Mejia Page 0,49
with the satisfaction of a guru who’d been waiting years for this moment, and suddenly she wanted to hit him. She wanted to take everything churning inside her right now, ball it into a fist, and punch him with it until this feeling was obliterated. But that made her think about Logan and the gravelly words filtering through clouds of steam: You’ve never had to fight for your life.
Shoving her phone into a pocket, she stalked out of the bedroom.
“Be careful out there,” Mike called after her. “You don’t want to get hurt.”
She wasn’t sure about that anymore.
Grabbing a flashlight, Nora disappeared into the woods that—two days ago—she’d babbled about to Logan Russo, imagining meeting her on one of these trails, the things she would say to make Logan laugh, to make her notice. Now all she could see as the beam of light bobbed over the dirt and threw shadows in every direction was two figures walking away from her, and a golden strike that flashed and died.
As she came to a fork in the trail her phone buzzed, but it wasn’t Corbett returning her calls; it was Inga. The computer had flagged some suspicious email content. Nora pulled up the document and started to read. Then she froze and the flashlight fell out of her hand and thudded to the ground.
The email was short, concise, but it punctured a hole big enough to swallow twenty million dollars.
And it was written by a dead man.
GREGG
ON WEDNESDAY morning, as the team ran through data from opening night and fired off orders and adjustments for round two, Nora appeared at my office door. I motioned for her to stay and wrapped up the meeting as soon as I could, sending the caffeinated troops back into battle.
Nora waited for everyone to leave before closing the door. “Inga found a lead in your email server last night.”
Immediately, my pulse leapt and I stood, tossing aside reams of tournament data. Nora moved to the other side of my desk.
“Does Strike operate any other place of business within Minneapolis besides your headquarters and gym?”
“No.”
“Are you sure? No other informal or unregistered locations?”
“Of course I’m sure.” She glanced at her phone and I had to restrain myself from tearing it out of her hand. “What is it? What did you find?”
Her expression and body language were indecipherable.
“Let’s take a walk.”
* * *
The Stone Arch Bridge was a freeway of pedestrian and bike traffic. The entire city seemed to be basking on the sunbaked limestone that curved over the Mississippi, connecting downtown to the Northeast neighborhoods. I wished I had a single ounce of their calm. I’d already assaulted Nora with a dozen questions since we left my office, but she’d fallen silent, apparently subscribing to show-don’t-tell investigative techniques. She walked briskly, single-mindedly, and I had to force myself to be patient.
As we passed our building, I glanced at the terrace on the top floor, then the ruins of the mill beneath it. I could still feel the bite of the railing into my back as Logan pressed me to the edge. I’d slept at the office again last night, which was more of a home than the penthouse at this point. I didn’t know where home would be after the tournament was over, after the money was recovered or the other shoe dropped. It felt like no matter what happened next, in the end one of us would have to go over that edge.
I pointed out the ruins on the riverbank, the twisted shards of metal which were the only remains of the original giants of the city. “They said it shook buildings a mile away, the blast was so powerful.”
“I didn’t know flour dust was combustible.”
“It’s not intuitive, is it?” I glanced over at her. “That what feeds you can also destroy you.”
Nora smoothed the strap of her briefcase, refusing to engage as we passed a family taking pictures of St. Anthony Falls and another couple leaning against the brick, lapping ice cream from rapidly melting cones. Her lack of attention seemed familiar, a replay of what I’d seen last night at the stadium.
“Why don’t you wear your wedding ring?”
She let the question hover, growing and forming its own life between us. Just as I started to think she wouldn’t answer at all, or merely deflect it as unprofessional, she stretched out her left hand and contemplated the bare fingers.
“It’s an antiquated custom, signaling ownership. Rings tend to create unproductive assumptions.” She paused. “They also