The door of the fifth room stood open, propped by a wedge of wood. Two men entered it just before Roni got there. She followed them in. It appeared to be another office. A man was seated behind a desk and the other two men took seats in front of it. They stayed uncomfortably perched on the edges of their seats. The man who’d been in the office when they’d arrived was slouched back in his chair.
Roni glanced around again for security cameras but didn’t see any. She braced her cell phone against the wall and flicked on the video camera. One of the men said, “They said Nick should be coming home tomorrow.”
The man behind the desk grunted, “He okay?” Roni realized the man looked vaguely like Nick. Father, uncle?
The two men glanced uncomfortably at one another, “A little confused, but I’m sure he’ll get better.”
“Mario?”
The two men shook their heads. “Still alive, but they don’t think he’s going to make it. Even if he did…” The man shrugged, evidently implying no one would want to live that way. Or that their organization couldn’t use him anymore.
The Castano behind the desk didn’t curse, but the look in his eye was frightening nonetheless. “Thompson’s still in lockup?”
“Yes Mr. Castano. Our men’ll let us know when the cops let him out.”
Castano gave a little nod.
His expression made Roni gulp a little. He’s planning something bad for Mr. Thompson. Maybe I can leave Thompson some kind of warning so he can leave town or something. She pictured sneaking invisibly into the jail where Thompson was being held and tossing a note into his cell. But, she thought, they probably have several layers of locking doors between the outside and his cell.
“And little Frankie’s making Nick’s pickups without any trouble?”
“Yes sir.”
“Okay. Garcia’s going to deliver product Thursday night at 10. Make sure the boys are ready.”
“Yes sir, Mr. Castano.”
Castano flicked his fingers in dismissal and the two men left. Garcia? Roni thought, wondering if Garcia might have something to do with the drug cartels. Whatever Garcia delivers, it’d be good if I could get some video for the FBI.
Castano stared into space for a couple minutes; then his eyes turned back to his computer screen. He clicked something with his mouse.
Roni walked around behind him to look over his shoulder. She hoped to see some kind of schedule of dirty deals or an Excel spreadsheet of the Castano empire’s finances. At the least, maybe he’d be writing an e-mail to one of his flunkies. Instead, it was a movie of some kind. A young girl in torn clothing was chained to a bed. At first Roni thought Castano was watching some kind of horrible porn, but then a man entered the scene carrying a knife. The girl started screaming… Horror films, Roni thought disgustedly, just the kind of gross stuff you’d expect a Castano to get off on.
She looked around the office, wondering whether there was any evidence present she could gather. Nothing in plain view, she thought. She stepped toward one of the drawers, intending to pull it open and rifle through it. Roni stopped with her fingers on the handle, a sudden anxiety chilling her with the thought that she couldn’t possibly go through the man’s office while he sat there watching his horrible movie.
He’d surely notice.
Rationally, she told herself she could. But then she started to worry that if she had a feeling she couldn’t, she actually wouldn’t be able to telepathically hypnotize Castano into ignoring her—or whatever the heck it was that she did to keep people from noticing her. And, she developed a deep-seated fear that if he saw her once, she’d never be able to hide from him again.
Taking a deep breath, she walked out of his office. I’ve got this entire warehouse to explore, she thought. Tossing his office can wait.
An hour later, she’d walked the entire warehouse without seeing anything illegal. She didn’t even see anything suspicious other than the locked doors in the concrete block wall. She had a moment of doubt in which she wondered whether the Castanos only illegal activity might be the extortion she already knew about. Well, that and murder, she thought. And they have to be laundering their extortion money at their nightclubs, but I don’t have proof of that either.
She decided there had to be more, but she had a real aversion to going through Castano’s office while he was in there. Come on! she thought. You’ve done all this other stuff without anyone noticing you! Why are you chickening out now?
Squaring her shoulders, she headed back to Castano’s office, her heart beating more rapidly as she approached. When she arrived, he was putting on his coat. Picturing herself staying in the room after he was gone, she stepped quickly into his office and looked at the door. It had a deadbolt, but there was another keyhole rather than a thumb turn on the inside of the door. There didn’t appear to be a way to unlock the door from the inside without a key, so if she stayed, she’d be there until he came back.
Roni quickly exited right in front of Castano. He pulled the door shut and her eyes widened when he pulled on a key ring, stretching a spring-wound cable from a clip on his belt. He locked the door from the outside. If I’d looked closely enough at him to see that key ring, I could have taken his keys when I was in here before!
Roni followed Castano to the front of the building, feeling reluctant to try to pull the belt clip off while he was walking, even though she told herself he wouldn’t notice. Just like she couldn’t trip someone without their noticing it, she had a feeling that if she tugged hard on his belt or stumbled into his feet trying to do it, he’d notice.
Castano stopped at the door to the office and leaned in to talk to the people inside. Roni tugged gently on the belt clip. It slid right up off his belt like she’d hoped.
Roni was just feeling relief wash over her when Castano let go of the door and stepped back, bumping into her hand.
He whirled.
She skittered back, immediately moving sideways across his visual field to keep from steadily blocking some object. She continued backing away as he looked about suspiciously. He felt at his side where he’d bumped into her.
He’s going to notice his keys are missing!
To her astonishment, he didn’t. Instead, he seemed more intent on the area behind him. He kept sweeping the warehouse with his eyes while he leaned back in the door of the office back open and stuck out a hand. He said, “Gimme a flashlight.”
Even though he didn’t seem to be able to see her, Roni’s heart was pounding. She kept backing away and changed her direction to start moving across his field of view the other direction. Though she told herself she didn’t need it, she looked around for some place to hide.
Castano took a flashlight from someone inside the door and stepped back out into the warehouse. With horror, Roni realized he had the flashlight in his left hand and a gun in his right. She’d reached a stack of huge six foot deep shelves that formed one of the aisles of the warehouse. At first she walked along them, but then looked up.
A moment later she’d climbed up the shelves and hidden herself near the back of one of them. Castano walked past her and continued down the aisle, turning the flashlight this way and that. She wondered why he didn’t call for help or have someone turn on the big lights she’d seen hanging up near the ceiling. Only every fourth light was on at present, presumably to save power, but it left the lighting dim. Of course, that was good for her.
She wished now that she hadn’t taken the keys. He was sure to notice they were missing soon. She probably had the key to his car, so he wouldn’t be able to go home without them. If she could drop them on the floor by the door of that office, maybe he’d think they’d caught on something and that had been what he’d felt?
If only she could copy them first, but there’d never be enough time. She knew hardware stores copied keys, but didn’t know of any nearby hardware stores. She pulled out her phone to do a search, but Castano turned and went back to the exit before she found anything. He stepped into the office, apparen
tly to drop off the flashlight, then came back out and went out the door to the street.
Immensely relieved, Roni climbed down and headed for the door to drop the keys outside the office. She stood there wondering where she could place the keys to seem the least suspicious. The office door wasn’t closed and she noticed a stack of copier paper on a shelf inside the door.
She stepped in the door and picked up a sheaf of paper. She plucked three pencils out of a cup on one of the desks and went back out. Excitedly, she walked down to the mysterious doors, studying the key ring. There were five heavy-duty keys on the ring that looked essentially the same. She thought they were likely for the door of the warehouse office she’d just come from, Castano’s office door, and the three mysterious doors in between. She stopped at the first of the three rooms she hadn’t been in. The first key she tried fit the lock, but didn’t turn. She tried three more before the fourth key opened it.
She opened the door wide enough to see a plastic crate holding twenty to thirty loose handguns. She wanted to go in and take pictures, but decided she didn’t have time. Castano might be back soon if she had his car key.
Roni considered trying the other four keys in the rest of the doors to be sure they were correct but worried that she didn’t have time for that either. She pulled the five similar keys off the split ring and knelt in one of the better lit areas of the floor. She laid out one of the keys and laid a sheet of paper over it. Taking one of the pencils, she quickly but carefully did a rubbing of the key.
It looked terrible.
She’d been rubbing transversely to the key, so she tried another rubbing, this time scrubbing the pencil parallel to the blade of the key. This method produced a sharp outline of the teeth and the groove on one side of the key. She flipped the key over and did the other side. On that side, the teeth were cut back away from the surface of the key and the pencil outline of the teeth was poor, though you could see the grooves pretty well. She did a rubbing of the flat back end of the key with which she could identify the Schlage brand and perhaps the type of key. She used a separate sheet of paper for each of the other four keys, working hardest to get a good tracing of the teeth since she thought the shape of the teeth must be the most important.
Roni’d picked up her papers and was putting the keys back on the split ring when the door slammed open and Castano came back in. His face looked thunderous. For a moment he seemed to look right at her and Roni felt certain he’d seen through her invisibility. However, his eyes swept by and he stalked toward his office at the end of the row of doors. Roni ran to the door of the office where she’d taken Castano’s keys. She was going to lay the keys on the floor there by the door, but then noticed a gap between the doorframe and the concrete block. Inspired, she stuck one of the keys in the gap at waist height and it caught there. She carefully dangled the spring reel beneath it.
Stepping back, she eyed it. Could he possibly think that the key caught in the crack and that it was the jerk of the spring reel coming off his belt that he felt, rather than something invisible he bumped into?
Looking at it critically, it seemed unlikely that anyone could believe that. However, when there was no better explanation—other than the utterly unbelievable one that you’d bumped into something invisible—maybe he’d go for it?
Castano had turned and was coming back toward her. Roni backed away from the door. She wanted to go out the door of the warehouse, but she stopped. Somehow she felt like she couldn’t get away with opening a door right in front of him when Castano was so suspicious and wound up. He stepped up to the door and leaned into it again. He spoke to the people inside, “My keys’ve gone missing! Call Rico, we need him to change out the locks.” Castano glanced back out into the warehouse. A moment later, he cupped his hands around his mouth and shouted, “Jamie! I need you up front.”
Roni’s heart sank. She couldn’t get keys made tonight. Even if she could, if this Rico changed the locks this evening the keys would be useless.
Footsteps signaled the arrival of Jamie—apparently a guard—at a trot. As he puffed up, he said, “Yes Mr. Castano?”
“My keys are missing.” Waving at the doors in question, he said, “I need you to stay and watch these doors until we get the locks changed. Call in your backup to make rounds on the rest of the warehouse.”
“Yes Mr. Castano,” Jamie said as if by reflex. Then he pointed at the doorframe, “Aren’t those your keys?”
Castano stepped back and stared as if he’d just seen a snake. Leaning closer, he touched the key that was wedged in the doorframe. It immediately fell loose. He bent over and picked up his key ring. “Yes,” he said sounding very mistrustful. “These are my keys…” He carefully inspected them. Roni feared she’d put them back on the ring in the wrong order and he’d notice. Evidently, he didn’t see anything suspicious. He hung them back on his belt and patted them.
Castano stepped back up to the door and leaned into the doorframe, peering down, evidently to see if the keys hung near the crack.
They didn’t.
Roni thought, There’s no way he’s going to believe this.
However, Castano moved, wiggled, and twisted around, evidently trying to convince himself that the keys might have bumped into the crack. He was able to bang them into the frame, but Roni could see there was no way one of the keys would have caught there accidentally. Looking skeptical, Castano turned and thoughtfully looked back out into the warehouse.
Roni backed away and moved to the side, feeling like he was going to see through her invisibility at any moment. She glanced over her shoulder, wanting to run and wondering where other exits from the warehouse might be. Though she’d walked around the entire warehouse earlier, she hadn’t been thinking about exits.
When she turned back, Castano had turned and wedged a key back into the doorframe. He turned away from the doorframe like he had when he bumped into Roni. The spring reel extended and caught, jerking the key out of the doorframe, not the clip off of Castano’s belt.
Roni’s heart sank again at this evidence of the implausibility of what she’d tried to sell the man. But, then to Roni’s complete astonishment, Castano shrugged his shoulders, patted his keys against his side, and leaned back in the doorframe. “I’ve found the keys Amy, forget about Rico.” He turned and slapped Jamie on the shoulder, “Thanks for seein’ them.” He winked, “Better not tell Rico you cost him some business.”
Castano turned and went out the door.
Jamie headed back into the depths of the warehouse.
Roni stood there wondering whether Castano might be trying to fool her. Whether he might come right back in the door with some strategy for catching her. Maybe he’s just sold it to himself? No other explanation seems plausible, so Castano talks himself into believing what I’d implied with that set-up?
And, I can’t believe he went for it only because I do know of another explanation.
After a few more minutes, she shook her head and left, still worrying.
Chapter 7
His mother showed Hax where she kept her guns. To his astonishment, there was a false wall on one side of her closet. She demonstrated how to pop it open. Then, because he’d been so surprised by the fake wall and the weapons hidden there that he hadn’t paid attention; she had to demonstrate the latch to him a second time.
She had two rifles and two pistols hidden behind the panel. Each was packed into foam cutouts in its own individual heavy plastic case. The rifles had telescopic sights. One of the pistols had a surprisingly long barrel. It apparently fired small caliber marksmanship rounds. Tansey closed its case, saying, “This isn’t what you’d need in an emergency.”
The other was a more ordinary looking nine-millimeter pistol made by Springfield. That’s the one she got out. She also handed out a towel and another box to Hax. After closing up the false side of the closet, she laid the gun out on the towel and opened the second box. The box contained a cleaning kit, shooting glasses and earmuffs. She looked ove
r the glasses and muffs, then tried them on as if she feared something might have gone wrong with them.
Tansey quickly disassembled the gun, naming the parts and showing Hax how they went together. She coached him through reassembling it, then had him strip and clean it. Only after he’d reassembled it one more time did they leave the house.
Hax looked around, wide-eyed. He’d had no idea there was a shooting range less than ten blocks from his home. When they stepped up to the counter, the man behind the register turned and said, “Tansey?!” At her nod, he looked eager, saying, “Are you going to start shooting again?”
Hax gaped back and forth from the man to his mother. The man looked like he thought he was in the presence of royalty.
Tansey shook her head regretfully, “No Jorge. And I’ll thank you not to tell Ravinder I’ve been back down here.”
“Sure, sure, okay. But what’re you doing back in here if you’re not going to go back to shooting?”
Tansey waved at Hax, “This is my son, Hax. I just want to teach him the basics… In case… you know,” she trailed off.
The man grinned, “You don’t need to be embarrassed about self-defense shooting in here!”
“I know,” she said with a sigh. “But I guess my husband’s worn off on me after all these years.”
“Sorry to hear that,” the man said in a sympathetic tone. He glanced down at the case in her hand, “Need some nine-millimeter ammo?”
Tansey nodded and pulled out some bills.
Jorge took them back on the range, explaining things that had changed in the years since Tansey had last been down there to shoot. From the way they talked, Hax got the impression she hadn’t been to the range since before Roni had been born.
The Girl They Couldn’t See (Blind Spot #1) (Blind Spot Series) Page 19