Fletcher wolf-whistled. “Now that is a send-off,” she said.
“One of these days, I’m going to kill you,” I warned her. I stared after Lena, though she was already gone, wondering what it was she’d wanted to tell me. Finally, I shook my head and joined Fletcher at her car, sliding into the passenger seat, her envelope heavy in my pocket.
We had a kid to save.
Nineteen
Alec stared up at the ceiling of his cell, the grey stones a little blurry to his eyes. His whole body burned with a desperate sort of energy, and finally, he had to jump up off the wooden bench and pace. It took six steps to reach the bars on the far side and another six to get back.
Logic said he should trust MacBain and his partner to save Finn, but MacBain’s words percolated endlessly within his head. Despite his best efforts, Alec had brought this trauma upon his son, and so it seemed to him that he should be the one to make it right. Maybe he’d been wrong to leave all those years ago. He loved his family. Ainslee was his heart and soul, and he’d never felt such joy as when he’d first held his son in his arms.
Yet he hadn’t been able to give up the thrill of his work. It was all he knew how to do. He found he didn’t fit into the framework of a normal life. He’d tried, by God, he’d tried, but he’d looked out the window each night and wondered what he had done that day. Ran barcodes over a red laser and smiled at people who couldn’t be bothered to thank him. The night had called to him, and he had answered. For a few months, he thought he could have both, but he knew that his darker life would come for the light of his family eventually, and so in the end, he’d left, disappeared like the ghost he was. His decision had hurt every day, but he bore it, knowing he was protecting the people he loved.
And he’d failed, in the end. It had all been for nothing. Something like this would have happened no matter what. But Alec would fix it, and he would apologize, and then he would… well, he didn’t know what he would do after that, but first thing first, he had to get out of his cell.
Alec was alone in this part of the holding area, so he crouched down to examine the lock on the cell door. It was a simple thing that would be easy enough to pick if he had his tools, but of course, they’d confiscated all that when they arrested him. There was a small window set above the bench that he was, in theory, slim enough to wiggle through if the bars in front of the glass weren’t set deeply into the mortar.
He would just have to do something stupid and dangerous.
If he pressed himself up against the bars, he could just barely see the desk clerk at the far end of the hall, seemingly engrossed in a magazine. “Excuse me?” he called, and the clerk’s shoulders bunched beneath his shirt. “Excuse me, I--I don’t feel so good.”
The clerk swivelled his chair around and squinted suspiciously at Alec. The ‘I Don’t Feel so Good’ play was the oldest and most obvious trick in the book, but it was the only one he had right now. He clutched his stomach and contorted his face as he slumped against the bars for support, struggling to stay upright.
“Something’s wrong. I don’t--” Pain gripped his voice, and he groaned, finally losing the battle against gravity as he sank to his knees.
Either he was a better actor than he thought or the clerk had a soft heart because the man stood and made his way back to Alec’s cell. “What’s the matter?” he asked. He tried to keep his voice gruff, but Alec could see the concern in his eyes.
It made Alec feel almost a little bad as he shot to his feet, grabbed the front of the man’s shirt, and yanked him into the bars, making sure he hit his head hard. It took two tries before the man’s eyes finally rolled up, and he collapsed. Alec winced at the loud thuds still echoing around the space and waited for a beat to see if anyone was going to come and investigate before he knelt and unhooked the ring of keys from the clerk’s belt.
He unlocked his cell and hauled the man inside by his feet. “Sorry about that,” Alec whispered. He checked the clerk’s pulse just in case, relieved to find it thrumming solidly under his fingers. He stripped the man’s uniform off and put it on. It was a bit loose and long in the sleeve and trouser leg, but he hoped if he moved quickly enough, no one would notice. He hid his hair under the cap, tucking the trousers into the boots and cinching the belt tight to cover up the extra folds of fabric.
Alec locked the door behind him. He didn’t know how long the clerk would be unconscious, but he wanted to slow the discovery of his escape as much as possible. Hat tipped forward over his eyes, he walked quickly down the hall, pausing at the desk just long enough to turn off the cameras before he let himself out and walked up the stairs to the station’s main floor.
His heart pounded in his ears as he pushed the door open and stepped out into full view of the entire floor. The only person who noticed him right away saw his uniform first and looked away without a thought.
Alec let out a shaky breath. This might just work. He walked quickly and calmly towards the front door at the very far end of the large room. Every instinct screamed at him to run, but he forced the desire away. Luckily, it seemed as if MacBain
