The burner phone buzzed, displaying an unfamiliar number and the name “Salander.” It was Lauren’s code name for BRS, and I balked a little at seeing it appear on a device in my own hands, but the interruption was a small respite from my fruitless efforts at searching the facility.
I slid the icon across the touchscreen to answer. “Yeah.”
“Did you find anything?” asked Lauren.
“No. I don’t know what you expected,” I said. Gravel crunched under my boots as I walked back to Lauren’s car. “This place is massive. Half the units are still locked up. It’s just a bunch of junk, Lauren.”
“Damn it. No footprints or anythi—shit.”
“What?”
“Someone else is there with you.”
“What?”
“I’m watching a livestream of the footage from the security cameras,” explained Lauren, her voice low and harried, “and someone just walked by the one at the entrance.”
I glanced over my shoulder, back toward where Lauren’s car was parked. If I made a run for it, what were the chances I could lose whoever had decided to come out to the storage facility?
“I have to go,” I whispered to Lauren.
“Wait, Nicole—”
I hung up. Pressing myself against the wall of the nearest unit, I edged around the side until I could peek down the next row. It was empty. With a sigh of relief, I jogged across, repeating the process until I was closer to the entrance. When Lauren’s car came into view, I froze. Someone was peering in through the tinted window as if trying to figure out who the car belonged to. Whoever it was didn’t seem all that threatening. They were shorter than me, but the black jogging pants and oversized snow jacket that they wore veiled any other details. I hid behind the last row of units, watching for a moment longer. Then I caught sight of my own reflection in the window of Lauren’s car. The person whirled around, and I ducked behind the units once more. Without thinking, I broke into a run then dove into one of the open garages and knelt behind an old yellow mattress that smelled faintly of urine.
It didn’t take long for whoever had been checking out the car to follow me down the unit row. The sound of their footfalls disrupting the gravel was easy to hear in the heavy silence of the industrial area. I held my breath as they paused outside my unit, afraid of making even the slightest sound, but when the footsteps crossed into the garage, I couldn’t take it anymore. In one swift movement, I pulled Wes’s gun from the back of my jeans, stood, and took aim from behind the mattress.
“Don’t shoot, don’t shoot!”
“Who are you?” I demanded. The person swept off their hood. I lowered the gun in shock. “Jo?”
“Shit, Nicole, what the hell are you doing with a gun?”
I moved away from the mattress, glad to escape its less than pleasant odor. “I think the better question is what are you doing here? I thought BRS made you leave the area?”
“They thought they did.” Jo held out her hand to help me step over a rickety crate blocking the mouth of the garage.
“What happened with all of that?” I asked, letting Jo steady me. “Last I heard, you’d been arrested for public intoxication. Was that even true?”
Jo shook her head. “It was all a setup, courtesy of BRS, just to get me expelled from Waverly. I thought you’d have figured that out by now.”
“I only assumed. You still haven’t told me what you’re doing here.”
The first time I’d met Jo Mitchell, she had shadowy eyes and limp hair, and looked like she needed a hot shower. Now she seemed invigorated. Her cheeks were pink and flushed, and there was a hard determination in the set of her mouth. It was almost as if this Jo was a completely different person than the one I’d first met, strengthened by her mission against BRS.
“I’m hiding here,” she admitted. As she said it, she glanced toward the end of the row of units where the cameras were. “I split my time between here and a couple of nearby motels.”
“You do know that Lockwood Inc. owns this property, right?”
She nodded. “That’s actually why I picked it. I’ve been tracking as much of the Raptors’ movements as I can. Occasionally, a few members come by here, but it’s easy to avoid them.”
“What about the cameras?”
“Cameras have blind spots, Nicole.”
I held up my hands in a defensive gesture. “Excuse me. Not all of us are born and bred spies. What do you mean you’ve been tracking the Raptors?”
Jo tipped her head down the row, indicating for me to follow her. Together, we headed farther into the maze of units.
“Ever since the Raptors had me expelled from Waverly, I’ve been keeping tabs on certain key members. That’s mostly just surveillance though. What I’m really trying to do is find out who else the Raptors have already screwed over. I know that list has to be extensive, and I figure the more victims we can rally, the better. Actually, I was hoping to get ahold of you sooner or later, so this worked out surprisingly well for me.”
“Have you been in contact with other victims?” I asked.
“I tracked down a few,” said Jo. She paused at one of the open units, stepped inside briefly, and returned with a tire iron. “Unfortunately, the Raptors have paid them off so well that they were scared shitless to even talk to me. At one point, I even pretended to be a member to see if I could
