Chapter 10 - Warehouse 14
Nobody touched the phone.
It rang five times.
Stopped.
Started again.
Gabriel picked it up.
"Hello."
A distorted voice answered.
"You should have listened to your mother sooner."
Gabriel's expression did not move.
"Vincent?"
A soft laugh.
"Still guessing."
Chloe stepped closer.
Gabriel put the call on speaker.
"You dragged the waitress into this," the voice said. "That was careless."
Chloe looked at Beatrice.
Beatrice signed.
Ask about Carlo.
Chloe spoke. "Did Vincent kill Carlo?"
Silence.
The voice returned, no longer amused.
"You sign beautifully, Chloe. Leo would be proud."
Her blood turned to ice.
"Who are you?"
"Someone who remembers your brother better than you think."
The line went dead.
Gabriel looked at Mateo. "Trace it."
"Working."
Chloe stared at the phone.
"They knew Leo."
"Maybe they knew his file," Gabriel said.
"No. They said my signing. They have seen me tonight."
Mateo pointed toward the ceiling.
A tiny camera blinked red above the office door.
"We are being watched."
Gabriel raised his gun and shot it.
The room exploded with the sound.
Beatrice did not flinch.
She pointed toward a metal cabinet.
Chloe opened it.
Inside were old manifests, fuel receipts, and dozens of cheap prepaid phones.
Mateo started photographing everything.
Chloe found a folder labeled M-7.
Her hands shook.
Inside was a delivery sheet dated the night Leo died.
Driver: Daniel Mercer.
Cargo: medical solvents.
Destination: Warehouse 14.
Arrival: 9:30 p.m.
Leo had been hit at 9:07.
"He was rushing here," Chloe whispered.
Gabriel read the page.
"Maybe."
She turned it over.
On the back was a handwritten note.
DELAY CAUSED EXPOSURE. CLEAN DRIVER. V.C.
Chloe's vision narrowed.
"Clean driver?"
Mateo took the sheet. "Could mean pay him, move him, keep him quiet."
"Or kill him."
Gabriel looked around. "Where is Mercer now?"
Mateo searched.
His face tightened.
"Released from parole fourteen months ago. Address in Queens."
"We go now."
A crash sounded deeper in the warehouse.
Everyone turned.
Mateo signaled two men forward.
They moved between rows of empty shelving.
A shadow ran.
"Stop!"
Footsteps pounded toward a side exit.
Gabriel and Mateo chased.
Chloe stayed with Beatrice.
Then a man dropped from the catwalk behind them.
He grabbed Chloe by the throat.
Beatrice swung her cane into his knee.
He cursed and turned.
Chloe drove her elbow backward into his ribs.
The man shoved her into a shelf.
Beatrice grabbed his coat.
His hood fell.
Chloe stared at the face beneath it.
She knew him.
Daniel Mercer.
May you like
The drunk driver who killed Leo looked at her and whispered,
"Your brother was never supposed to be there."
