Garrett followed suit, climbing the eight-foot chain-link fence with way more upper-body strength than I had and dropping beside me. But could he tie a knot in a cherry stem with his tongue?
We started out across the open field toward the warehouse. It took most of my concentration to keep from falling, and even more of my concentration to keep from clutching on to Garrett’s jacket for balance.
“I read that grim reapers collect souls,” he said, jogging beside me.
I tripped on a cactus and just barely managed to catch myself. Night was so dark. Probably because of the time. The moonlight helped, but traversing the uneven ground still proved challenging.
“Swopes,” I said, breathing slowly so he wouldn’t realize I was getting winded, “there are oodles of souls running around, wreaking havoc upon my life. Why would I collect the darned things? And even if I did, where would I keep all the jars?”
He didn’t answer. We sprinted across the parking lot to the back of the windowless building. Luckily, it had no security cameras. But I could tell from the soft glow illuminating the roofline that it did have skylights. If I could get to the roof, I might be able to see what they were up to. No good, surely, but I did need some kind of evidence to back that up.
When Garrett pulled me behind a grouping of garbage bins, I bumped into a metal pipe that led all the way up and over the roofline with brackets every few feet for stability. Perfect footholds.
“Hey, give me a boost,” I whispered.
“What? No,” Garrett argued, eyeing the post faithlessly. He shoved me aside nonetheless. “I’ll go up.”
“I’m lighter,” I argued back. “This pipe won’t hold you.” Even though I was pretty much arguing for argument’s sake, the pipe did look a tad flimsy. And it had more rust than a New Mexico sunset. “I’ll go up and check out the skylights. Odds are I won’t be able to see in, but maybe I can find a hole. Maybe I can make a hole,” I said, thinking aloud.
“Then the guys inside will make a hole as well. In your obstinate head. Probably two if history is any indication.”
I studied the pipe while Garrett ranted something incoherent about holes and history. I’d chosen that particular moment not to understand a word he said. When he was finished, I turned to him. “Do you even know English? Give me a boost,” I added when his brows furrowed in confusion.
Shouldering past him, I gripped the pipe with both hands. He let an annoyed breath slip through his lips before stepping forward and grabbing my ass.
Thrilling? Yes. Appropriate? Not on your life.
I slapped his hands away. “What the hell are you doing?”
“You said to give you a boost.”
“Yes. A boost. Not a cheap thrill.”
He paused, looked down at me a long, uncomfortable moment.
What’d I say? “Cup your hands,” I ordered before he got all mushy. “If you can get me to the first bracket, I can take it from there.”
Reluctantly, he put one hand in the other and bent forward. I’d brought my gloves to go with my black-on-black ensemble, so I slipped them on, placed one foot in Garrett’s cupped hands, then hoisted myself up to the first brace. Easy enough with his upper body strength and all, but the second was a tad trickier. The sharp metal of the brackets tried to cut its way through my gloves, making my fingers ache instantly. I struggled to hold on to the pipe, struggled to keep my footing, and struggled to lift my own weight to the next bracket. Surprisingly, the worst pain centered in my knees and elbows as I used them for leverage against the metal building, slipping and squirming far more often than was likely appropriate.
A decade later, I pulled myself up and over the roofline. The metal cap scraped agonizingly into my rib cage as if mocking me, as if saying, You’re kind of dumb, huh? I collapsed on the roof and lay completely still a full minute, marveling at how much harder that had been than I thought it would be. I’d have hell to pay in the morning. If Garrett had been half a gentleman, he would have offered to climb the pipe in my stead.
“You okay?” he whispered into the radio.
I tried to respond, but my fingers were locked in a clawlike position from clinging on to the brackets for dear life, and they couldn’t push the little button on the side of the radio.
“Davidson,” he hissed.
Oh, for heaven’s sake. I pried my fingers apart and pulled the radio out of my jacket pocket. “I’m fine, Swopes. I’m trying to wallow in self-pity. Would you give me a minute?”
“We don’t have a minute,” he said. “The doors are opening again.”
I didn’t waste time with a response. After rolling to my feet, I hunkered down and crept to the skylights. They were actually greenhouse panels, but they were old and cracked and had more than one peephole I could see through. To do so, however, to be able to see down into the warehouse, I’d have to almost lie across a panel. A thin beam of light shot up through one of the cracks and I leaned into a push-up, my wobbly arms braced on either side. As long as the metal frame held, I figured I wouldn’t fall through the roof. Which would be a plus.
The van was driving out of the warehouse when I peeked down. Two men were boxing up papers and files from an old desk. Other than the desk, the warehouse itself, at least fifty thousand square feet of space, was completely and startlingly empty. Not a candy wrapper or cigarette butt in sight. My concerns had been well founded. Whoever owned this warehouse cleaned it out the moment Carlos Rivera met with Barber.