Page 49 of Don't Cross the Blue Line
“Hey!” The leader’s voice echoes, all traces of warmth gone. The napkin’s been pulled. “Stop!”
I take the lead. Not because I’m faster—Beckett’s legs are approximately twice the length of mine—but because I know this building. Every corridor, every dead zone, every blind spot.
“Left,” I hiss. We bank left at the T junction near the food court—the same junction Helen told me about just this morning. “There! Go!”
Through the Staff Only door. It’s a narrow corridor, cinderblock walls, the smell of cleaning solution permeating the air. Our footsteps slap linoleum. Behind us, the door bangs open—heavier, faster footsteps.
We’re running through an abandoned building. See, I am in a Jurassic Park movie.
“Right.” Right turn at the electrical panels. Past the loading docks. Down a side corridor to a maintenance room with a door that locks from the inside.
We duck through. Beckett pulls the door shut and slams the bolt.
The darkness swallows us whole.
My back is pressed to the door with Beckett standing close, his free hand braced over my shoulder. We stifle our breaths. Keep quiet. Try to listen over the pounding of adrenaline in our ears. His hand still holding mine—or mine holding his, I’ve lost track.
Footsteps. Heavy. Fast. They go past our door and continue down the corridor. I pull up the mental layout—I think there are six doors in this hallway. They started at the far end.
We should have a few minutes.
“You were right,” Beckett whispers, his breath warm against my forehead. We’re pressed into a space that smells like motor oil and cleaning chemicals. “I should have listened.”
“Never mind that now. Do you think those are the guys Cole was running from?”
“I don’t think they were trying to reach him about his car’s extended warranty.”
Above us—a ventilation grate. Large, rectangular, connecting to ductwork throughout the building. And carried along by the metal conduit like a telephone made of tin cans—voices.
I hold up one finger. Listen.
“—can’t find him in the stores. He’s not in the main concourse.”
“Check the rink offices.”
“What about the other two?”
“They’re not a priority. Thompson is. He owes three hundred grand, and he’s been dodging two months. Boss says if he doesn’t pay or throw the next three games, we make an example.”
“What kind of example?”
“The kind that convinces the next guy to pay on time.”
Silence. Then, “What if his teammate and his friend get in the way?”
“Then they get in the way.”
The voices fade. The maintenance room is silent except for breathing and the hum of dead infrastructure.
All right, yes, I’m putting together the pieces. “Sports betting,” I whisper. “Cole’s in debt to a gambling ring. Those are hired muscle.”
“Three hundred thousand.” Beckett’s voice is hollow. “And throw three games. That’s season altering. That gets the entire organization investigated.”
“That’s the kind of thing people kill over.”
Oops. Because now the word kill hangs between us.
“We need to get out,” he says.
