Drawing Dead: A Small Town Romance (A Good Run Of Bad Luck)

by Giulia Lagomarsino

  He jumped up, using his upper arm strength to pull himself up into a pull-up, then walked his legs up the wall again.

  “See, that’s what I missed. I didn’t do the pull-up,” Robert nodded.

  “Right,” I laughed at him. “That’s why you couldn’t do it.”

  He glared at me, but moments later, Sean had the hatch open and was climbing inside. He disappeared for a moment before reappearing on his stomach, holding his hand out.

  “Alright, give me your hand and I’ll pull you up.”

  Andrew stepped under him, jumping into the air to catch Sean’s hand. He just dangled there for a moment.

  “You know,” Sean grunted, his voice straining. “It would help if you tried to get up here.”

  “Oh, like, climb the wall?” He started swinging his legs around, trying to get a grip on the walls. His legs flailed and Sean’s arm was bulging with the effort to hold onto him. “How did you do that?”

  Sean let go of his grip on Andrew and blew out a harsh breath as Andrew tumbled to the ground. I watched as Sean rolled over onto his side. “Christ, it sucks working with amateurs.”

  “I got it, Hunty,” Andrew grinned, tapping his nose with one hand while he pointed at Sean. “You need me to help you out.”

  Sean looked down at me, shaking his head. “Who the fuck is Hunty?”

  I waved him off. “You don’t want to know. It’s best to just pretend he doesn’t exist.” I bent down and formed a step with my hands. “Here, Princess, you can use me for a boost.”

  “I’m not a princess,” Andrew grumbled, stepping into my hands and then pushing himself up. This time, Sean was able to pull him up into the hatch, grabbing onto Andrew’s pants to help drag him inside.

  “Ah! Watch the goods,” Andrew shouted. “I still want more kids!”

  Sean reappeared with a grin. “It’s a good thing we only have to do this once.”

  I laughed and bent down for Robert to go next.

  “I could go last, you know.”

  “Right,” I rolled my eyes. “With your bum arm and all.”

  “Yeah, it’s feeling better now,” he said, rubbing at his shoulder.

  “Just get on with it so we can figure out what’s happening.”

  I boosted Robert up easily and waited for him to climb through. He didn’t have quite the issues Andrew had, but it was still comical.

  “You got this?” Sean asked.

  “Yeah, I got this,” I grinned, knowing I could do this. I jumped up and caught his hand, then repeated his movements of walking up the wall until I could grasp the top of the floor inside the hatch. I pulled myself in as Robert and Andrew shot me dirty looks. Wet blanket my ass. I could out-climb all of my brothers any day.

  12

  Andrew

  I brushed the dirt off my clothes and breathed a sigh of relief that not only I made it up here, but that Lorelei wasn’t here to see my ultimate failure of not being able to get myself up through the hatch. Seeing how easily Eric hauled himself up made my humiliation even that much worse.

  “Where are we?” I asked, turning away from them.

  “This is a storage room. It’s the only room that has access to the underground tunnel.”

  “So, when they escaped, they would have all come through here? Even kids?” Eric asked.

  “Well, it’s not like they do it every day,” Sean laughed raucously, but when we didn’t join in, he cleared his throat and gestured to the door. “We should probably go to the control room.”

  He walked ahead of us all, walking around like he knew the place like the back of his hand. We passed so many doors that it felt like we were in a hotel, along with several large living spaces.

  “What the hell is this place?” Robert asked. “It’s huge.”

  “It’s meant to hold all of the employees and their families in case of an emergency.”

  I shook my head at how large this place was, and also well furnished. “I never knew he lived like this.”

  “Well, that’s sort of the point,” Sean said. “If you knew they had a panic room this big in case of an emergency, you would want to know why. Reed Security is very private about their business. Not to mention, Derek wouldn’t want you guys to know, because he wouldn’t want you to inadvertently get involved.”

  “Get involved?” Eric’s eyebrows shot up. “What does that mean?”

  Sean shrugged. “You know, if…someone were to come after you because of your relationship with Derek…”

  “Come after us? Are we in danger?”

  Sean barked out a laugh as he squeezed my shoulder. “Don’t worry, kid. One look at you and any enemy would know you’re not hiding anything worth knowing.”

  I flinched at his harsh assessment. “I’ll have you know I’m the hacker of all trades.”

  “Then prove it,” he said as we stopped outside a metal door. “This is the control room. I have no idea how their systems work.”

  He went through the same routine of entering a code and then placing his hand on the scanner. When he opened the door, I almost cried. It was a hacker’s paradise. Multiple screens filled the large space, with stations set up for multiple workers. I turned on the first computer and got to work hacking into the system. Whoever set it up was good, really good, but I was better. I broke down firewall after firewall, beating the counter that had been set up to keep anyone from breaking into the system. It was probably set up so only the person that got this online could get in through the back door.

  After several minutes, I was finally in. “Booya! Look at that. I’m in.”

  I searched through the camera footage, finding the last footage before all the systems upstairs went down. “This is the last thing Reed Security recorded upstairs.”

  I played the footage, fast-forwarding through them all sitting around talking in the conference room. There was no audio, so we couldn’t hear anything they were saying.

  “There’s Derek,” Eric pointed to the screen. I stopped the footage and rewound just a few seconds. “He’s fine here.”

  “This is before the building was attacked,” Sean said, leaning forward to watch. “Right there,” he pointed to the upper left hand corner of the screen.

  I watched in horror as one of the guys was knocked over the head after someone stepped off the elevator. “Oh!” I shouted as he went down.

  Men rushed in from all around, pointing guns at all the men of Reed Security.

  “There’s Sebastian,” Sean pointed to the center of the screen.

  “What’s he doing?” Robert asked.

  “Rewind it,” Sean ordered. I quickly rewound it a few seconds and let it play again. “Stop right there!” He moved in closer to the screen. “Can you play that slower?”

  I nodded and got to work, working the settings on the screen. “Do you want it zoomed in?”

  “Yeah, on his left hand.”

  I zoomed in and played the video for Sean. I watched his face as he scrunched up his eyes to see. His lips moved, like he was reading something.

  “What do you see?”

  “He’s giving the signal to blow up everything.”

  “What? He started his own fire?” Eric asked.

  “Andrew can you find out where the fire started?”

  “I’m guessing the information from the servers was transferred after the fire broke out. If it came here, I should be able to find the path.”

  My fingers worked fast to get through all the folders, trying to find the right one that would tell me what I needed to know. I found the IT department folders and located access to the entire system. It was easy enough from there to find the activation system for the company.

  “If he did give some sort of command to set the place on fire, there would be a trail of it in here.” I worked for another few minutes before finding what we needed. “Right here,” I pointed to the screen. “The fire started in the IT room. Why would he set the IT room on fire?”

  “Because he didn’t want any of
their information falling into the wrong hands. You said yourself that if he set the fire, he would have had the information transferred.”

  I nodded, “But he wouldn’t take the risk that someone could get the information if they didn’t…beat the bad guys.”

  “Exactly,” Sean nodded. “Play the rest of it.”

  I went back to the footage and played what was left, which wasn’t much. The screens went blank after just a few more seconds. “That must have been when the fire started and the systems went down.”

  I scanned for more footage, finding more from the panic room. “Here, they record in here too. This is from the same day, only in here.”

  I fast-forwarded through the footage until it showed everyone from Reed Security showing up.

  “Stop,” Sean said. “Where are they coming from?”

  “Uh…”

  “They didn’t come in through the hatch, which means there’s still access to the main door of the panic room.”

  Robert and Eric were silent behind us, watching all of this play out. If I knew Eric, this wasn’t making anything easier on him. I needed to find the footage of them escaping. I kept going through the footage until I found the video feed from the parking garage we came in through.

  “They’re leaving…Time stamp of three a.m.”

  “There’s Cara,” Sean said in relief. “And she has the kids with her.”

  “And Claire,” Eric practically jumped over me to point to the screen. “And there’s Derek.”

  We watched for fifteen minutes as everyone loaded up in the vehicles and drove away. It was almost sad that the video feed was over. That was all we had to go on. There was no new information to find.

  “So, we can’t track them anymore?” Robert asked.

  “Sebastian took the trackers off the vehicles before they left,” Sean said, walking away from the screen. “He won’t contact me until they’re all safe, so that’s where this ends. Andrew, is there anything else you can tell us? Maybe a project they were working on?”

  I had already scanned through the system, but I looked again. “It looks like all the files are gone. The only thing left is the video footage.”

  “So, where would he have transferred the files?” Eric asked. “You said he would have gotten rid of the files. Is there a way to track that?”

  “Not from here. I can see what steps they took, but I can’t access the raw data. I would need to be on one of the computers in the IT room.”

  “It’s good news,” Robert said to Eric, squeezing his shoulder. “They’re not dead. They’re just…”

  “On the run,” Sean finished. “We won’t find anything else out today.”

  “So, we’re just supposed to go home?” Eric said incredulously.

  “They won’t resurface until whatever happened is over. And I’m guessing from the way they were hit and the casualties, that won’t be anytime soon. As soon as he checks in, I’ll give you a call, but until then, this is as far as we go.”

  13

  Eric

  “You’re back sooner than expected,” Will said as I walked through my door. It had only been two days since we left, so he probably thought we either found out a lot, or nothing at all. “I thought you would be gone for a while.”

  “So did we,” I sighed as I took a seat.

  As soon as I called, everyone rushed over here. Of course, Will lived furthest away, so everyone beat him over here.

  “What did you find out?” Will asked.

  “Well, first of all,” Robert piped up. “Derek lives nothing like we imagined.”

  “How so?” Joe asked.

  “They have an underground bunker,” Andrew grinned. “Totally badass. We’re talking suites for every employee, large living areas, and man, you should see the kitchen. It’s like a whole different world down there.”

  “Are we talking like a cult?” Will asked.

  “No,” I shook my head. “It’s a panic room. They have it set up in case something like this happens.”

  “And what did happen?” Josh asked.

  “Well, we checked out their house first, but no one was home. Claire’s car was still in the driveway. We talked to the neighbors and no one knew anything. They just hadn’t seen them in a few days.”

  “How do neighbors go missing and nobody notices?” Will asked, acting like everyone should be on top of their disappearance.

  “Do you keep track of all your neighbors?” I asked.

  “Well, no, but I also have cameras set up.”

  “Security cameras?” Josh asked. “When did you get those?”

  “Okay, not technically security cameras. They’re just cameras pointed at my neighbors house. I swear to God, my neighbor is slowly trimming down my tree, branch by branch.”

  “Why?” Robert narrowed his eyes at Will. “What did you do?”

  “It’s not what I did! Okay, I may have tossed a few of his Christmas decorations on the burn pile, but it was fucking June and he refused to take them down.”

  “So, now he’s cutting down your tree.”

  “He says it blocks the light from the south.” Will sighed dramatically. “Whatever, I’m not chopping down my tree.”

  “So, did you catch him yet?” Josh asked. “Because if not, we could always set a trap to catch him.”

  “I think he knows I have cameras pointed at him. Get this, my cameras cut out for a half hour the other night, and the next morning, I was missing another tree branch.”

  “We should get Jack on that,” I nodded.

  “You think?”

  “No,” I snapped. “I think we should worry about the fact that our brother is missing.” He shot me a dirty look, but didn’t argue. “Anyway, after Derek’s house, we went to Reed Security. It’s burned to the ground.”

  “Seriously?” Joe asked.

  “Dude, I got pics,” Andrew said, whipping out his phone.

  “You weren’t supposed to take pictures,” I snapped.

  “I did,” Robert said, pulling out his own. “You never said anything about not taking pictures. Besides, if we got stuck in that labyrinth, I needed to be able to send pictures so someone could get us out. How else would you tell someone how to get to us?”

  “Delete this,” I demanded. “Fuck, what’s next? You’ll be uploading the video of Andrew hanging from Sean’s arm like a monkey to the town page?”

  “Already done,” Robert grinned. “Sorry, it was too good to pass up.”

  “You took a video?” Andrew exclaimed, jumping out of his chair. “Not cool, Hunty. Next thing you know, my bae will see that and be all cancel.”

  “Oh fuck,” I sighed, running my hand over my face. “He’s freaking out.”

  “Don’t be so salty,” Robert grinned. “It’s totes fire.”

  Andrew scrunched up his face. “You’re not even saying it right.”

  “Would you calm down?” Josh laughed. “So what if you couldn’t…get it up.”

  “I can get it up, I just couldn’t get up. There’s a difference.”

  “Not from this video,” Robert laughed, playing it for everyone to see.

  “Are you trying to climb the wall?” Joe asked.

  I rubbed my head, feeling a headache forming.

  “No,” Josh shook his head. “That’s not…What are you doing?”

  “Hey, I’m not trained in evasion and…stealth. I’m a computer guy.”

  Josh snorted, covering his laughter. “That’s just embarrassing. It’s on the town page?” He pulled out his own phone and started scrolling. “Man, just wait until Carly sees this. I might be able to get back on her good side with this.”

  “Wait, wait, wait,” Will laughed, pointing at the video on the phone. “It gets better. He…he had to use Eric for a foothold!”

  The guys all burst out laughing, even Robert. “What are you laughing at? You needed it too.”

  “How did you get up there?” Josh asked.

  “Brute strength,” I said irritated
ly. “Are we done looking at videos? Can we get back to the point of all this?”

  Josh was grinning as he typed out something on his phone, his lips moving as he typed. When he was done, he put his phone down and grinned. “Carly said she could have done that nine months pregnant.”

  “Right, like you would let her jump in her condition.”

  “Like he lets her do anything,” Joe laughed. “That woman could hand him his ass.”

  14

  Carly

  “Hey!” Sofia shouted happily as she walked into my townhouse.

  I glared at her, though she couldn’t see me through the wall. I was still waking up. Alessa didn’t sleep well last night, and no amount of coffee would wake me up. It wasn’t right for someone to be so chipper so early in the morning.

  She walked in with a big smile on her face and her daughter in her arms. “Amelia and I were thinking that you need to get out of the house. We should walk down to Mary Anne’s and grab some coffee and some of those danishes.”

  “Is that within my range?”

  She rolled her eyes exaggeratedly. “Oh, come on. After Charlie told off Josh, he’s been better.”

  “Slightly,” I amended, “and only because he knew he took it too far. You know, last night I dropped a pot on the ground and he came running into the kitchen, panicked that I was dead on the floor.”

  “You dropped something else?” she frowned, taking a seat at the table with me. She sat Amelia in her lap, holding her up to face me.

  “That’s not the point,” I snapped. “The only reason he backed off was because of the death look I shot him.”

  “Why didn’t that work the first time?”

  “Because then he wasn’t sleeping on the couch. Since we came home from the hospital the other day, he hasn’t been allowed in our bedroom.”

  “What about getting clothes?”

  “I lay them out for him every day,” I smirked.

  “Okay, well…how long are you going to punish him?”