A Friend in the Dark - Gregory Ashe Page 0,84

scratch of the legs against the cement floor. He pushed it against the far wall under the lone window, and then wiped his forehead. By the time he got it against the opposite wall, his head ached like he’d fallen asleep to Pauly Paul drumming all night long. Rufus climbed onto the table, but even standing at six feet, the window was still out of reach. He hopped down, unearthed a plastic crate that’d give him another foot’s reach, and carefully climbed back up.

He held on to the windowsill and looked out the tinted glass. Rufus didn’t see any pedestrians. There was a single-family home across the street, a lot under construction to the left of it, but it was the weekend so no crew, and beyond that, he couldn’t see shit. Rufus took a deep breath, turned his head away, and slammed his elbow against the glass. It took a few tries, but he finally shattered the window. Rufus pushed broken glass from the frame, grabbed onto the bars, and tried to get that much more view of his surroundings.

“Queens,” he muttered after a moment of deliberation. He heard the distant roar of engines—a lot of cars—somewhere to his left. “Parkway….” Not that it helped Rufus all that much, but having a sense of place grounded him. He started to let go of the bars and make to climb down, but a car sped down the street and brakes screeched as it came to a sudden stop in front of the auto shop. Rufus held his breath, but when the passenger door opened, he let out a sob and shouted, “Sam!”

Ophelia slammed shut the driver’s door and moved around the backside of the car. “Hey, Red,” she called.

“I’m locked inside,” Rufus called back.

“Did you try a key?”

“Don’t be an asshole!”

Ophelia jabbed a finger in the air, but even with the distance between them, Rufus could feel it drilling into his chest. “It’s a fucking garage. Are there any tools?”

“I don’t—” Rufus glanced over his shoulder into the dimness where shapes of machinery could be made out. “Let me check.” He climbed off the crate, down from the table, and moved into the dark corners of the garage.

Rufus found a Craftsman toolbox nearly as tall as himself. He started opening the drawers, the top ones empty but for greasy paper towels and a lone wrench covered in rust. He tried the bottom cabinet next and found an electric hacksaw. He swore under his breath, grabbed it, and carried it to the rolling gate with the padlock. He felt around the wall for a moment before finding a power socket. He plugged the saw in, and it roared to life. Macho man tools were so not Rufus’s area of expertise, and he really didn’t want to lose a thumb, thank you very much, but Sam was on the other side of that door….

He crouched down and put the teeth to the padlock, and it tore through the metal in no time. Rufus turned the hacksaw off, pulled the lock free, grabbed the handle for a second time, and lifted the out-of-date security gate enough that someone could slip underneath with a bit of wiggling. He gave it another heft, stopping less than halfway when the door got stuck and his head was hurting so badly that he thought he might vomit.

A moment later, Sam squeezed under the rolling door. As the big man came up onto his feet, he took in Rufus with one rapid glance, grabbed him, and pulled him tight. When Ophelia shimmied under the door, Sam released Rufus and said to him, “Took you long enough.”

Rufus pointed at the hacksaw. “I’m not a fucking lumberjack.”

Sam rolled his eyes and held out a hand for Ophelia. “I guess I got confused. Those big arms. Those jacked shoulders. Anybody could have made the same mistake.”

Ophelia got to her feet with Sam’s assistance. “Both of you, can it.” She studied Rufus. “You’re not here alone, right?”

Rufus started to shake his head but thought better of it. “No. The kids are upstairs.”

“Where’s the guy you knocked out?” she asked.

“I zip-tied Bruno to a radiator in the storage room. He’s not dead, but I had to knock him out. It was self-defense, I swear to God.”

Ophelia unholstered her weapon and held a hand up. “Don’t get all panicky.”

Rufus nodded. He squeezed Sam’s hand, let go, and motioned for the two to follow him upstairs. He took each step carefully, slower than even twenty