Page 52 of Deliverance

“Okay,” he said slowly, not entirely convinced.

“What’s up?” Alexander asked.

“Sebastian and Liam found the building.”

Sitting inside a gated business park,the office building Sebastian and Liam had found was nothing remarkable. A two-story brick building, it was indistinguishable from the four others that flanked it. Neat landscaping, clean windows, and a small placard by the door with a company name that meant nothing to anyone who hadn’t spent three days tracing it back through three layers of shell companies.

Sebastian and Liam had combed the area for cameras, and we had sent three Archers dressed in business casual around the park at different times throughout the afternoon to scout out any security measures. It seemed like this business park relied on the gate to keep people out, but once you were past the gate, there were barely any cameras. I wonder if that was by design. If Kingfisher chose this place intentionally for that reason, so there was no digital footprint to be traced back to him.

Still, we waited until darkness fell and dressed in the standard Archers uniform, wearing masks and hats so any cameras wouldn’t be able to pick up our faces. We needed the element of surprise if we were going to get ahead of Kingfisher.

My five guys and I traveled stealthily across the darkened parking lot. With quick fingers, I picked the lock on the front door. The door swung open silently. The alarm code panel beeped. Sebastian pulled the cover off the wall and connected a small black box to the wires of the panel. The beeping stopped, and I breathed out a quick sigh of relief.

With the alarm taken care of, we fanned out through the office. Adrian and I headed down the hallway to the left, while Alexander and Marcus took the right. Sebastian and Dominic cleared the lobby area and disappeared behind a door behind the receptionist’s desk. There were three rooms off each hallway. Adrian and I cleared them one by one. All three were empty, with a desk and a chair pushed against the walls but with no other furniture. The walls were painted stark white, and the carpet was a drab beige commonly found in office buildings. There were no signs that any women were kept here.

When we cleared the last room, we joined Alexander and Marcus in the lobby area.

“Anything?” I asked.

“Nothing but desks and chairs,” Marcus said.

“Could we have gotten the location wrong?” Adrian asked.

“Hey.” Sebastian poked his head out of the room behind the receptionist’s desk. “Come look at this.”

The room had more furniture than the others. A desk and two chairs, along with a large filing cabinet against the back wall.

“What is it?” I asked.

Dominic stood in the center of the room, hands on his hips, as he studied the blank wall in front of him.

“Does this room feel weird to you?” he asked, looking at us over his shoulder.

I studied the room with a more critical eye. Nothing seemed out of place at first glance. The room was small, and the desk and filing cabinet took up most of the room.

“The room is small, right?” Dominic asked. “Too small.”

I made a slow circle. The other offices were bigger, but I wasn’t seeing what Dominic was seeing. “Yes?”

Dominic pointed to the wall with the filing cabinet. “This wall should go back another five feet, but it stops here.”

My eyes widened. “There’s a secret room.”

“I would bet money,” Dominic said. “I think the entrance is behind the filing cabinet. Adrian, help me out?”

Adrian joined Dominic at the filing cabinet. “Let’s tip it away from the wall and lift it up that way,” Adrian suggested.

Dominic nodded. They tried tipping it away from the wall, but it wouldn’t budge. They tried a second time, but it was like the cabinet was glued in place. It rocked a little bit but wouldn’t tip away from the wall. I lay down in front of the cabinet, pressing my cheek to the carpet to peer underneath it.

“I think it’s on a track system of some kind,” I said, seeing some kind of metal strip attached to the carpet. I stood up and moved to the side of the cabinet, then tried tugging experimentally. It still didn’t budge.

“Look.” Sebastian pointed to the filing cabinet. “There’s an extra keyhole here.”

He was right. There was a keyhole to lock the drawers, but there was a second one at the top of the cabinet. I pulled my lockpick kit out and picked it quickly. When I heard the softclickof the lock flipping open, I tried tugging on the filing cabinet again. It rolled away smoothly, revealing a small opening in the wall about four feet high and two feet wide.

Alexander put a hand on my shoulder when I went to slip into the opening. Sebastian moved through it instead, and I shot a glare over my shoulder at Alexander. He looked unrepentant.

“All clear,” Sebastian said, poking his head back through. “But we’re not all going to be able to fit.”