Be­fore Quinn could make any guesses as to where his friend was go­ing, Nate stopped and looked around. Quinn was already sit­ting only high enough to peer over the dash, so slip­ping the rest of the way out of sight was simple and quick. He grabbed his phone, switched on the cam­era, and raised it just above the dash.

  Nate was slowly turn­ing his head, tak­ing in the neigh­bor­hood. After a few seconds, his eyes passed over Quinn’s car without paus­ing. Fi­nally, he headed down the street in the same dir­ec­tion he’d come from earlier.

  Quinn scooted back up, grabbed his own back­pack, and ex­ited the sedan.

  Fol­low­ing Nate would be tricky. Quinn had trained him to be cau­tious, so even the slight­est mis­step could res­ult in Quinn be­ing dis­covered. For­tu­nately, he didn’t need to do this on his own.

  He donned his wire­less earpiece and called Or­lando. “Nate’s on the move. I need you to help me tail him.”

  “Where is he now?”

  “Ap­prox­im­ately a block east of me,” he said, know­ing she likely had the loc­a­tion of his phone pinging on her screen.

  “Hold on.”

  Quinn crossed over to the same side of the street Nate was on.

  “He’s still a block ahead of you?” Or­lando asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Then he’s in a dark zone. If he keeps go­ing straight, I should be able to get him on a traffic cam­era at the next in­ter­sec­tion, though.”

  Nate con­tin­ued down the street, walk­ing cas­u­ally but slightly faster than his nor­mal pace.

  What are you up to?

  “Got him,” Or­lando said a few seconds later. “De­pend­ing on which way he goes, I should be able to track him for at least a few blocks.”

  Quinn eased back a bit.

  Nate con­tin­ued to the next in­ter­sec­tion and turned right.

  “We still good?” Quinn asked.

  “Yep,” Or­lando said. “Don’t fall too far be­hind, though. There are some dead zones com­ing up.”

  Quinn picked up his pace un­til he neared the in­ter­sec­tion. “Am I clear to turn?”

  “Yeah, go ahead. He’ll be about three quar­ters of a block away from you, on the other side of the street.”

  Quinn crossed the road be­fore turn­ing, so that they were on the same side. Two blocks up and one over, Nate crossed the road again and entered a new dead zone.

  Quinn re­mained where he was for now, not want­ing to draw un­wanted at­ten­tion.

  Ahead a light turned green and a group of vehicles moved in Quinn’s dir­ec­tion. Among them were a couple of de­liv­ery trucks. Quinn checked the other way, hop­ing for a break in traffic that would al­low him to cross be­fore the trucks blocked his view, but he was out of luck.

  “I’m about to have a line-of-sight is­sue,” he whispered.

  “I’m on the cam­era at the traffic light,” Or­lando said. “I can’t see him yet, but he should be com­ing into view any second.”

  Just as she said that, the first truck moved between Quinn and Nate.

  “I don’t have eyes on him,” he said.

  “Okay…I see move­ment about where he should…yeah, that’s him.”

  Quinn let out a sigh of re­lief as the second truck moved into block­ing po­s­i­tion.

  “Dam­mit,” Or­lando said. “Get to the other side. Now!”

  “What is it?” he asked as he looked for an open­ing in the traffic.

  “Nate just dis­ap­peared between a couple of build­ings, and there are no cam­eras back there. I don’t have him.”

  So much for wor­ry­ing about horns.

  Quinn ran into the road as the second truck passed, and zig­zagged through traffic to the op­pos­ite side­walk.

  “Which way?” he asked.

  “Head the way he was go­ing. When you’re at the spot, I’ll tell you.”

  “There!” Or­lando shouted as he came abreast of a neg­lected park­ing area.

  He skid­ded to a stop and looked into the lot. “I don’t see him.”

  “That’s where he went.”

  Quinn moved cau­tiously along the build­ing at the near side of the park­ing area, and paused when he reached the back corner. Be­hind the lot was a large field, at the end of which were build­ings on the next street.

  He was about to step into the field when he spot­ted Nate mov­ing along the back of an aban­doned-look­ing build­ing, dir­ectly op­pos­ite the park­ing lot.

  “I see him,” he said, and de­scribed the build­ing to help her ID it on a satel­lite im­age. “Wait, he just dis­ap­peared around the side, head­ing to­ward the other street.”

  “The build­ing’s in a dark spot,” Or­lando said. “But there are covered areas nearby. I should be able to pick him up again in a few mo­ments.”

  Though Quinn wanted to rush across the field, he took a cir­cuit­ous route along the edge of the clear­ing so he’d be less ex­posed, and came at the build­ing from the op­pos­ite end of where Nate turned down.

  “Any­thing yet?” he whispered into his mic.

  “No,” she replied, her tone wor­ried.

  He eased along the back of the build­ing to the corner where he’d last seen Nate. He at­tached the goose­neck cam­era to his phone and slipped it around the edge. A twenty-foot gap filled with ratty, knee-high grass sep­ar­ated the build­ing from the one next to it. Scattered along it were piles of debris, in­clud­ing what looked like an old air con­di­tion­ing unit, ly­ing on its side.

  “He’s not here,” Quinn said.

  “He hasn’t shown on any of the cam­eras yet, either.”

  The only pos­sib­il­ity left was dir­ectly in front of the build­ing.

  Stay­ing in a crouch, Quinn moved down the gap to the front corner, and used the goose­neck cam­era to take a look street side.

  “We have a prob­lem,” he whispered. “He’s not in front of the build­ing, either.”

  “Could he have gone around to the other side?”

  Quinn frowned. “Maybe, but if that’s where he wanted to go, he would have turned down that side in the first place. It’s worth a check, though.”

  Con­cerned he’d be too ex­posed if he crossed in front of the build­ing, he began re­tra­cing his steps to the back. Halfway there, his at­ten­tion was drawn to a sheet of ply­wood he’d writ­ten off earlier as more debris. The thing was, the ply­wood was sit­ting on a con­crete plat­form.

  He slipped two fin­gers un­der the sheet and lif­ted it a few inches. Not a plat­form. The outer hous­ing of a con­crete stair­well. He raised the board higher, al­low­ing more light to flow in. Not only was there a door at the bot­tom, but there were faint, par­tial foot­prints on the steps.

  “I think he might have gone into the build­ing,” Quinn told Or­lando.

  “Why would he do that?”

  “Hell if I know. Why did he come to Chicago in the first place? And what about the Pear­sons in Las Ve­gas?”

  He lif­ted the ply­wood out of the way and leaned it against the side of the build­ing. He shined his flash­light on the nearest foot­print. Though it was only half a shoe, there was enough of the pat­tern for him to re­cog­nize it.

  “I’ve got prints here for Columbia run­ning shoes. Ba­jada trail run­ners, I be­lieve.” Know­ing this kind of thing was part of the con­tinu­ous home­work he did for his job. “Can you tell what kind of shoes Nate was wear­ing?”

  “Give me a mo­ment,” she said.

  While he waited for her, he des­cen­ded the stairs and checked the door. It was un­locked.

  He pressed his ear against it but didn’t hear any­thing, so he pushed it open enough to stick his head in­side. An empty room, about five feet square, with a dirt-covered floor and an­other door­way op­pos­ite his po­s­i­tion. In ad­di­tion to light in­dent­a­tions in the dirt that might be prints, there was an area of much thin­ner dirt, where most of the soil had been scraped away when the door had been opened. But not by Quinn, be­cause the scraped sec­tion went farther than he’d pushed the door.

  “Found a halfway de­cent shot of Nate’s feet,” Or­lando said. “He’s wear­ing Columbias.”

  “I’m go­ing in.”

  *

  Twice on the trip to Cruise’s build­ing, Nate had felt he was be­ing watched. The first time he checked, he saw a few people on the street, but no one he would have as­so­ci­ated with Cruise.

  The second time was right be­fore he turned off the road to­ward the field be­hind Cruise’s build­ing. He’d looked around again—cars and trucks but no ped­es­tri­ans.

  He reached the ply­wood-covered base­ment stair­well a minute later. Flash­light in hand, he slipped un­der­neath and des­cen­ded to the door. The dead­bolt was a little sticky, but he man­aged to work it free. A buildup of dirt on the floor provided some res­ist­ance as he pushed the door open. This told him no one had used the en­trance in a long time.

  Cup­ping his hand over his flash­light, he nav­ig­ated through a small en­trance room to a large, open area that he guessed took up the bulk of the base­ment. Though he walked as deftly as pos­sible, he was well aware he wouldn’t make it across the space without leav­ing some trace of his pres­ence. There was too much dirt. If he felt it ne­ces­sary, he could brush away any prints he left be­hind when he went back out.

  From the big room, he moved into a long cor­ridor, and found a set of stairs next to a pair of empty el­ev­ator shafts.

  He took a few steps up the stairs and crouched there, ear cocked up­ward.

  He could hear people mov­ing around. Voices, too, and laughs. The noises were dis­tant, either some­where on the ground level far from the stair­well, or, more likely, from one of the up­per floors.

  He went back down to the el­ev­ator shafts. The one on the right still had an old metal door block­ing most of the open­ing, but the one on the left was miss­ing its door. He looked in­side.

  The only thing di­vid­ing the two shafts was what re­mained of the metal fram­ing that had sup­por­ted the el­ev­ator cars. A glance down­ward re­vealed the shaft con­tin­ued for an­other four feet or so, to a con­crete pad littered with trash. Above, the shaft was open all the way to the roof. Al­most all the way, as here and there metal pipes and wooden boards pro­truded from the walls. There were two doors on each floor, one per shaft. The doors on the first three floors ap­peared to be in­tact, but at least one was miss­ing from the fourth and fifth floors, the gaps al­low­ing a little sun­light in.

  He grabbed one of the sup­port struc­ture’s cross­beams and gave it a gentle tug. The frame moved a bit but felt like it was still a few years from com­plete col­lapse. Nate didn’t have a clear plan in mind just yet, but if he de­cided to take ac­tion, he knew the ele­ment of sur­prise would be key. So, in­stead of us­ing the stairs, he swung into the shaft and began to climb.

  He paused at each floor to check for the sounds. The higher he went, the louder they grew. Right be­low the open doors of the fourth floor, his path was blocked by a thick lead pipe that had fallen and be­come lodged pre­cari­ously in the sup­port frame. One bump and he was sure the pipe would crash to the bot­tom. With great care, he twis­ted around the ob­struc­tion, barely tak­ing a breath un­til he was clear.

  The voices were still com­ing from above. As he neared the fifth floor, he knew he had fi­nally reached his des­tin­a­tion.

  He worked his way ho­ri­zont­ally around the frame to get be­hind the el­ev­ator doors that were still in­tact, and peek through the slit down the middle.

  Mat­tresses were scattered haphaz­ardly through­out the space, and sprawled upon them were sev­eral men and wo­men, some asleep, some in what Nate guessed were drug-in­duced trips. He didn’t see Brian, so hope­fully the boy had re­turned home. Cruise wasn’t vis­ible, either, but Nate could hear his voice, some­where off to the right. The punk was crack­ing jokes with a few other guys, who laughed hys­ter­ic­ally at every punch­line whether it was funny or not.

  Nate was look­ing at a drug den, with Cruise and his lack­eys the den lead­ers.

  Nate scooted to the back of the shaft un­til he could see the rest of the floor through the door­less side, and there was Cruise, sur­roun­ded by four guys around his age. On a port­able card table next to them were a camp stove, small bag­gies filled with white powder, and at least twenty syr­inges lined up in a row, ready for use.

  Per­fect, Nate thought. He wouldn’t even need to get his hands dirty. All he had to do was take a hand­ful of cov­ert pho­tos and send them in an an­onym­ous email to the po­lice, with the build­ing’s ad­dress and the mes­sage that the party was in full swing. Cc: the FBI drug task force and the po­lice would jump into ac­tion. Nate could then sit across the street and watch the show un­fold.

  He anchored him­self and began snap­ping pic­tures. When he’d taken all he could from that angle, he moved around to get a good view of the mat­tresses. A girl on one of the closer bed­rolls flopped onto her side and no­ticed him. She smiled and star­ted to wave at him. Nate raised a fin­ger to his mouth, and she clum­sily star­ted to mimic him, but then her head lolled back and her eye­lids slid shut. When she didn’t move again, he con­tin­ued his doc­u­ment­a­tion work.

  After he had everything he needed, he moved back around so that he was hid­den by the closed door, and com­posed the email. In ad­di­tion to the gen­eral po­lice ad­dress and the FBI’s, he in­cluded the email ad­dresses for De­tect­ive Mar­tinez and the chief of po­lice. In an hour, if not sooner, the build­ing should be crawl­ing with cops.

  As he slipped his phone back into his pocket, he heard steps run­ning up the stairs. One per­son, by the sound of it.

  A few seconds later, Cruise said, “About fuck­ing time! What took you so long? I’m starving.”

  “Sorry. They were busy.” The new voice was younger and male.

  “Give me that.”

  As the smell of ham­burgers waf­ted into the shaft, Nate moved back around to where he could see Cruise and his friends.

  The pit of his stom­ach clenched.

  Stand­ing with the older guys and hold­ing sev­eral fast-food bags was Brian King.

  So much for not get­ting my hands dirty.

  *

  Quinn moved through the base­ment, into a wide cor­ridor, and over to where stairs led up to the ground floor. Be­fore he placed a foot on them, he heard voices com­ing from in­side the el­ev­ator shafts.

  One of the big les­sons his mentor, Dur­rie, had taught him, and he had sub­sequently taught Nate, was to, whenever pos­sible, never leave any­thing of con­cern un­checked.

  He crept over to the shaft and peered in.

  The voices seemed to come from an open door on one of the up­per floors. But the noise was not the most in­ter­est­ing thing about the shaft. That honor fell to Nate, who was two and a half floors up and head­ing higher.

  Quinn dis­missed the idea of climb­ing up after him. Whatever Nate was up to, Quinn didn’t want to throw a wrench into it. At least not un­til he knew what it was first. The best thing he could do would be to po­s­i­tion him­self some­place from where he could of­fer aid if ne­ces­sary, but oth­er­wise stay out of sight.

  He used the goose­neck cam­era to keep tabs on Nate’s climb. When it be­came ap­par­ent the des­tin­a­tion was the top floor, Quinn de­cided to get as high in the build­ing as he could without any­one know­ing.

  He crept up the stairs to the first floor. Many of the walls were gone, cre­at­ing a pil­lar-strewn open area from front to back and side to side.

  Quinn was mov­ing to the next flight when the door at the back of the build­ing swung open in a splash of bright light.

  He hustled back to the base­ment stairs.

  The streak of light cut­ting across the room above the stair­well winked out as the door shut, plunging the first floor back into per­petual twi­light. Upon hear­ing the new ar­rival walk­ing rap­idly in his dir­ec­tion, Quinn moved to the bot­tom of the stairs, ready to re­pos­i­tion deeper in the base­ment if ne­ces­sary. But a few seconds later, the per­son headed up the stairs.

  Quinn climbed back to the first level, ar­riv­ing in time to see a pair of legs and youth­ful-look­ing sneak­ers. A younger man, Quinn guessed, maybe a teen. Us­ing the guy’s clunky steps as cover, Quinn star­ted up the stairs.

  Within only a few steps, he found him­self en­gulfed in an odor­ous cloud of greasy french fries and ham­burgers. Ahead of him, the de­liv­ery boy kept go­ing to the third floor, then fourth, and fi­nally the fifth.

  Quinn hal­ted on floor four. The voices he’d heard were clearly com­ing from one level above and he had no de­sire to crash the party.

  In ad­di­tion to the aroma of bur­gers and fries, there was a new smell here, a mix of vin­egar and some­thing…med­ical. Since it had been a while since he last came across the odor, it took him a mo­ment to place it.

  Heroin.

  Nate had been in a bad place for a while, but Quinn knew he wouldn’t stoop to tak­ing drugs. Be­sides, if he was here to buy, he’d be us­ing the stairs. Was he at­tempt­ing to take the place down?

  Quinn looked over at the el­ev­ator shafts. Both doors on this floor were miss­ing.

  The drug trade, es­pe­cially at the user level, was a messy, un­pre­dict­able busi­ness. Whatever Nate was plan­ning, Quinn guessed it would be bet­ter if he didn’t act alone.

  He headed to­ward the shafts, think­ing it was time for them to have a talk. But he made it only halfway there when some­thing plummeted past the open­ing.

  A frac­tion of a second later, the build­ing shook with a loud crash.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Nate’s plan, in its most ba­sic terms, had been to keep Brian King from get­ting ar­res­ted on drug charges while he was still a kid. But now the cops were on the way and the boy was here.

 

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