Page 69 of Bare
Phillipe was face down, parts of his skull shattered by the close-range gunshot. Dried blood spattered and pooled on the walkway near his head and the stubs of his hands. Then the medical examiner had flipped him over. Aleksei saw Phillipe’s wide, glossy eyes and the grayish-black smudges that dirtied his face and speckled the front of his white shirt. That night, his only thought was that he wanted to wipe those marks away, that Phillipe shouldn’t have dirt on his face.
He mentally zoomed out to take in the entire scene. Cigarette ashes littered the ground. Now, he saw those smudges for what they really were. Ashes. Ashes on the ground weren’t surprising, especially in a warehouse in a blue-collar part of town, but something about the scene didn’t sit right with him.
Puddles.
There had been puddles on parts of the walkway, too. The fluorescent crime scene lights glinted off the wet grass. Ashes littered the walk, as if someone had smoked while pacing.
It clicked.
If the ashes were old, the rain would have washed them away. The ashes were fresh, and there were a lot of them. But no butts. Someone had smoked multiple cigarettes while waiting for Phillipe but hadn’t left one single cigarette butt—someone smart and cool-headed enough to think about DNA evidence in the face of murder.
He flipped the pages of the notebook, studying the drawings on each page, looking at them as if they were one complete picture instead of random, disjointed doodles. He found a few other sketches of Kemper—one with Moresco and others with a woman who looked vaguely familiar, but he couldn’t place her. It didn’t matter. Her identity wasn’t the priority. If Kemper was on Moresco’s payroll, Rose was in even more danger than he’d thought, and he couldn’t think of one friend he had in the bureau who would believe him.
It doesn’t have to be my friend!
Hemay not have a friend in the FBI who was close enough to call, butRosedid. She had Christian. When she’d called him, Christian had put his job on the line, skulking around FBI files to get her the information she wanted, no questions asked. If Christian thought Rose was in danger, he’d likely do anything to help her.
As he flipped more pages, Aleksei thanked the gods of preparation and paranoia. Before they’d trashed her phone, he’d told Rose to copy down all the phone numbers she might need. Neither of them had paper, so they’d written them down in the back of Phillipe’s godsend of a notebook.
Rose said Christian was a cyber whiz. Hopefully, he could access Kemper’s files and figure out where the hell Kemper was taking Rosemary.
* * *
Gunshots exploded behind her. The sounds were almost deafening. A streak of white-hot pain seared her arm. Rosemary stumbled but kept running. A car door slammed, and an engine revved. In front of her was a sea of blacktop. To the left, a concrete curb and a field of grass filled with a line of craggy trees separated the parking lot she was in from the one for the group of buildings next door.
She cut left, aiming for the trees, her arm burning and her knees shaking. The moon had not risen, so it was hard to see. She tripped over the curb, onto the strip of greenery, and then ran face-first into a chain link fence.
The force of the hit rattled the fence and her lungs, but she ignored the sensation. She was used to ignoring pain. She was used to pushing through. Her fingers gripped cold metal, and her hiking boots found purchase on the chain links. She climbed, tuning out the sound of the approaching engine.
If Gary got there before she made it over the fence, she was a dead woman.
Her strong arms pulled her up despite the fiery throbbing that ran from her wrist to her shoulder. She threw one leg over the top and jumped just as the Ford Bronco crashed through the fence and into a tree. She landed hard, twisting her ankle. She risked a glance over her shoulder. Smoke billowed from the hood of the SUV, creating an eerie fog in the headlights.
Shutting out her sore ankle, she scrambled to her feet and ran.
She stuck to the shadows, heading in the direction Kemper had indicated Moresco’s warehouse was located, being as quiet as she could despite the agony in her ankle and arm. She jogged around the edges of two parking lots and climbed another fence, her lungs aching from stress, constant motion, and the weight of the backpack. Finally, she came to a warehouse where light emanated from the narrow windows above the loading bays. At the end of the building, two large men stood on either side of a door illuminated by an overhead light. They both held weapons similar to the one she’d seen Virus holding.
It looked like she’d found Moresco’s warehouse.
She glanced behind her. Darkness. She heard no footsteps, but Kemper could close in on her at any minute.
It was now or never.
She raised her hands, her injured arm screaming at the motion, and walked into the light. “My name is Rosemary Cashman. I’m an accountant. I worked for Armando Pannetone. I need to see Mr. Moresco. It’s an emergency.”
She’d never been frisked before, but she didn’t flinch as rough hands groped her, ostensibly searching for weapons. She’d seen so many doctors that she was used to strangers touching her body. She tried to object when one of the men—Nico, if she could trust what the other called him—took her backpack from her, but he ignored her protests. He opened the door and waved her forward. His partner remained outside.
The sound of the heavy door slamming behind her sent her already erratic heartbeat skittering. This was a terrible idea. Maybe she should have kept running and tried to make her way out of the industrial park. Maybe she could have found a Good Samaritan to take her to a police station.
Or maybe Kemper would have found her and shot her.
At least with Moresco, she had a chance of getting out of this alive.
But she started second-guessing that assumption as soon as Nico pushed open the door that separated the small foyer they’d entered from the main warehouse. Floor-to-ceiling shelves filled with pallet after pallet of boxed TVs, computers, video games, high-end mixers, and loads of other stuff took up most of the building. She’d feel like she was in Costco if it weren’t for the six empty poker tables, bar, and improvised lounge that occupied a small portion of the warehouse.
Costco didn’t have an opulent sitting area with jewel-toned couches, chairs with plush pillows, and exquisite tables decorated with candles and fresh flowers. It also didn’t have numerous oversized men holding automatic weapons.
Salvatore Moresco’s icy, accusatory gaze also ratcheted down the happy shopping vibe.
