A Friend in the Dark - Gregory Ashe Page 0,81
around the first and the heater’s turn nozzle. Rufus tugged the pistol free from Bruno’s waistband next, holding it pinched between his thumb and forefinger like it was a used tissue. He brought it to the box full of fake tits and slipped it between the pages of a retro Penthouse.
Rufus left the room after that. He shut the door behind him, eyed a second door across the hall and to the left, a staircase at his right, and opted to rush downstairs as fast as humanly possible. Sure enough, Rufus entered an empty auto body shop at the bottom of the stairs. Some tools and machinery appeared to have been abandoned by whoever’s business had since left the premises. Rufus could almost imagine a For Sale sign posted somewhere outside, but judging by the looks of the place, no one had been interested for some time. There was a small window overhead and to the right that sickly colored sunlight filtered through. Rufus would have to find a way up there. He could break the glass and shimmy out—he was skinny enough—and then what, scale the side of the building? It was better than being stuck in here with Bruno just a floor away. Rufus drew closer, and his heart sank when he saw there were bars on the window.
All right. Fuck the window. Obviously there had to be a door to this garage. Rufus backtracked and found a rolled down metal gate at the far end of the room. He bent, grabbed the handle near the floor, and gave it a tug, but the gate didn’t budge. He got on his knees to inspect the floor in the near-dark, and his hands found a padlock. Rufus quickly dug out the keys he’d stolen from Bruno, but none of them matched.
Why bring Rufus to a place as secure as fucking Fort Knox? It didn’t make sense—he wasn’t worth the trouble. Keep him alive, sure, until they found out where the pickup was, but all this? Rufus looked over his shoulder at the staircase, then raised his gaze to the ceiling. There was that second door…. So maybe it wasn’t about Rufus? Maybe it was simply convenient to drop him off here, where they were already keeping someone else more important.
Rufus left the garage area and, on the balls of his feet so as not to make any noise, hiked the stairs again. Each step up, Rufus could only think, Sam must be in that room. Because Sam came to New York looking for trouble from the start. He’d known Jake, his home address, information about his police investigations, had Juliana’s name—and even Rufus hadn’t known she was a CI. In that sense Sam had had more information than Rufus ever did. He was most definitely a threat to this disgusting enterprise.
Rufus stopped outside the second door, withdrew the keyring again, and tried the lock. This time there was success. He pushed the door open, and in the grimy light, he saw not Sam, but at least a dozen teenagers and young adults—boys and girls—all races, looking back at him with a particular sort of terror, a familiar terror, that made Rufus’s heart break.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Sam had the gun in his hand when the knock came at the door. Pressing himself against the studio’s wall, he drew a bead, visualizing a point chest-high on an average man. Then he called out, “Who is it?”
“Hayes” came Ophelia’s voice, slightly muffled.
“Are you alone?”
“Yes. Open the damn door,” she growled.
“I’ve got a gun in my hand. Door’s unlocked, but be really smart when you walk in.”
A moment, a full moment by Sam’s count, had passed before the knob turned and the door was pushed open. Ophelia stood to one side, arm extended to hold the door, and angled to keep her body out of the firing zone. She glanced inside and tapped the holster on her own hip. “Please don’t make me shoot you.”
Sam let the Beretta drop ten degrees. “Close the door.” And then, because he couldn’t keep it inside any longer: “They took Rufus.”
Ophelia’s step faltered. “They who took Rufus?” She entered the apartment and shut the door. “What the hell is going on with you two?”
“Whoever was holding those kids in that house in Queens. Whoever’s bringing them into the city and making them work. Heckler. Christ, whoever else is involved. And if I had a fucking idea where Rufus was, do you think I’d be sitting here with my dick