“Do you know how many times my previous residence was broken into after I started working for you?”
“That was back in the St. Louis days,” Paige said.
But Daniels barely skipped a beat. “Lots. So when this apartment came up for rent, I took it and used it as a storage space. Burning through the ceiling was easier than you might think. It’s a crude access point, but very functional. Whenever someone comes around that I don’t want to speak to, it’s just a simple matter of climbing through the floor of one apartment and pulling a rug over that hole. If someone happens to come in here, I just shut the closet door.”
Cole peeked into the large closet, which was probably meant to hold a washer-dryer unit. Now, it held a ladder and a charred hole in the ceiling. “You could just pretend you’re not home.”
“Pretend?” Daniels sputtered. “What kind of solution is that?”
“And there’s another hole in the bedroom?” Paige asked.
Daniels nodded and ran his hand over the top of his head. His fringe of hair shifted a bit, but not as much as the black tendrils beneath the rest of his scalp. “I got that one for a steal, seeing as how I was already renting these two.”
Paige stopped her pacing at a large freezer that looked more like a plus-size coffin. “You mean the rental office knows you’ve got all three apartments?”
Daniels nodded.
“So if someone wanted to kill you and they asked around your rental office, they’d find out you rented three apartments?”
“Do you really think someone would go to all that trouble?”
The patience in Paige’s tone was no longer there when she asked, “If you thought your would-be attackers were so stupid, why burn through your floors?”
That stopped Daniels cold.
Rather than wait for a response, she waved her arms and stomped toward the door. “Is your lab still upstairs?”
“Yes, but someone’s watching that apartment. Why do you think I pulled you into this one?”
Paige turned and tossed the package from the front porch at the Nymar. Placing her hands together at chin level, she said, “Daniels, I’m begging you. Please tell me you’re not going to make us hide here until some car leaves the parking lot. I’m tired and you knew I was coming. Is the new stuff here?”
“No,” he replied while still trying to recover from clumsily catching the package. “It’s upstairs. I just didn’t want you being watched.”
She looked to the closet and stomped across the floor. “Fine. But before I climb this thing, tell me whether the stuff’s ready or not.”
“It’s…sort of ready.”
“Good enough.” With that, she climbed to the next apartment with a series of sharp, clattering steps on the molded aluminum.
Daniels watched her ascend through the crooked, blackened hole. Tilting his head to keep her in sight as long as possible before she disappeared into the upstairs apartment, he whispered, “Why is she dressed like that?”
Even though Cole was right beside the closet, he wasn’t watching Paige. One of the banker’s boxes was open and something inside had captured every ounce of his attention. Without looking up, he said, “We went to see Stephanie before coming here.”
“Is Paige working for Ste—”
“For the love of God,” Cole said quickly, “don’t finish that question.” Shifting to look up to the top of the ladder, he didn’t speak again until he knew the coast was clear. “Is this what I think it is?”
Stretching out his hands like a monk preparing to grasp an idol that had been sanctified by his favorite higher power, Daniels replied, “It’s very valuable and very delicate. Please…just put it back.”
Cole started to lower the object back into the box from whence it came, but couldn’t bring himself to let it go. Reverently, he raised it up again and gazed upon its divine wonder. “This looks like a pristine, twelve-inch, fully posable Boba Fett figure. Is that—” He snapped his head forward so the toy in his hand wouldn’t have to be moved too abruptly. “Is that a Wookie scalp hanging from his belt?”
Having been fully prepared to use any means necessary, Nymar or human, to get that figure away from Cole, Daniels snarled. “Yes. It is. I don’t have the original packaging, but those are all the original accessories.”
“I used to have one of these,” Cole said. “And not one of the newer ones they made for the re-release of the trilogy. I’m talking about one just like this.” Slowly rotating the plastic bounty hunter, he lovingly soaked up every detail. “I was about ten years old and I had all the Star Wars toys, but only one figure this size. I couldn’t play with it along with all the other smaller figures, so I traded it to my friend for one of those plastic light sabers with the flashlight in the handle.”
“The red one or blue one?”
“Red.”
Daniels nodded. “Nice choice.”
“That’s what I thought. I got it home, ready to start kicking some butt, and my dad takes it away from me. He says I’ll knock stuff over, so he took it to his workshop, sawed the tube in half, and covered the end with masking tape.”
Daniels’s eyes widened as if he’d just witnessed a puppy being tortured.
Cole sadly shook his head. “The light still worked and the stumpy tube lit up, but it just wasn’t the same. I’d traded my Boba Fett with the real Wookie scalp for a light saber neutered by a piece of masking tape. I love my dad and all, but I’ll never forgive him for that.”
There was compassion in Daniels’s eyes, but he still reached out to take his figure back. “I feel your pain. This one’s mine, though.”
“What else do you keep down here?”
“Besides the work stuff, there’s every issue of the X-Men dating back to 1963. I’ve also got some model kits from the original Star Trek and stamps that come from—”
“Is anyone else coming up here or do I have to pull you both up through the floor?” Paige shouted from upstairs.
Daniels reflexively stepped toward the closet, but stopped and bowed his head. “After you, Cole.” When Cole started climbing the ladder, Daniels placed the action figure into the box in much the same way he might tuck a newborn into its crib. Just to be safe, he stuck that particular box under a different pile than the one where Cole originally found it. Then he scampered up the ladder.
Having just crawled up through a hole that had been burned through the floor, Cole was surprised to find himself in a very comfortable, very normal apartment. The living room contained a television, couch, easy chair, and coffee table. The kitchen was sectioned off by a counter and a few stools. All the appliances looked to be the ones that had come with the place, and the floor was covered in clean beige carpeting. A short hallway presumably led to a bedroom and bathroom, but his attention had been caught by the wire racks of video games next to the flat screen television. “So,” he said after Daniels had emerged from the floor, “what do you think of
Daniels nodded approvingly. “I guess it’s all right.”
“Just all right? What about the Cerberus level?”
Paige walked down the hallway, pulling a Chicago Bears jersey over her head. If she’d been wearing regulation shoulder pads, it would have still been a little loose. She walked straight to the kitchen and began sifting through the cabinets. “You’d better answer him or he’ll just keep bugging you. He designed the game.”
“Really?”
Cole nodded proudly. “And you really seem to know your way around this guy’s closet.”
Glancing down at the jersey she’d thrown on, Paige let out a single snorting laugh. “I left this here before I had a place of my own.”
“You did?” Daniels asked.
“Under the bathroom sink. Remember, back when the Mackey brothers were trying to chase me and Gerald out of Chicago? That was before you started burning through the floor like some sort of mole.”
Growing increasingly uncomfortable with the conversation, Daniels shifted his eyes toward Cole and said, “Maybe you could tell me how to unlock the Rotary Saw Bracer.”
