Collateral(10)

Dad pulls the station wagon into the parking lot behind a liquor store of all places. He kills the engine and removes the keys from the ignition. “Sloane, you have to know that I’m sorry. I didn’t withhold anything from you to deceive you, or your mother. I—”

“How about you just show me what you so desperately need to show me and then you can take me back to the people who don’t lie to me and abuse my trust, huh, Dad?” It strikes me as very strange that this is actually the truth. Zeth has never asked for my trust and then let me down. He’s never hidden anything from me. If I’ve wanted to know something, if I’ve found myself in a situation where he has control over me, if a situation’s been bad, he hasn’t hurt me or betrayed me. He’s been honest, and he’s kept me safe. Zeth, a man I know to be a criminal, has treated me with more respect than my own father, a man of the church.

Oh, the irony’s so bittersweet, I feel like I’m choking on it.

“Just keep an open mind, okay, kiddo?” Dad tells me.

Lowell and her subordinates have pulled up in their hulking great SUVs, and are already out of the vehicles, waiting not so patiently for us to get out, too. I don’t answer my father. I get out of the car, shooting an evil look at the woman who seems to be at the heart of this whole fucking mess. Lowell gestures toward a flight of metal stairs that zigzag up the side of the liquor store, wearing a grim smile. “After you,” she says. The diamond tread on the steps of the staircase have almost worn clean away in the middle, a slick silver patch of steel in the center of the otherwise rusted metalwork. My footsteps clang out, echoing around the parking lot as I climb up one, two, three flights, and then I can’t go any farther.

We’ve reached the top of the stairs, and in front of me a solid, reinforced steel door covered with dark green chipped paint bars the way. Lowell slips by me and punches a code into the keypad on the wall; the door shunks open, and an alarm sounds from within the building, a single-pitched ernnnn noise that reminds me of prison gates. The ones I’ve seen on TV, and hopefully not the one I will soon be calling home.

Lowell hurries into the building, not bothering to check behind her to see if I’m following. I wouldn’t have a choice even if I didn’t want to; my dad is right behind me, followed by the giant who told us to hurry up on the side of the road before, and two other guys in immaculate suits. Dad smiles sadly at me, and I don’t smile back. Inside, the building smells like Pop Tarts. Burnt ones. Someone’s obviously charred the hell out of their late breakfast.

A florescent strip light flickers overhead, emitting a high-pitched buzz, as the five of us move in quick, silent efficiency down the corridor. There are rooms off to the left and the right. We pass open doors that give way to empty, bare concrete boxes beyond. No office furniture. No admin workers. Just the occasional smashed-up cardboard box and in one room a broken wooden stool with only three legs instead of the four it obviously started out with.

Lowell proceeds with military precision, turning left and then right as the corridor snakes out in front of us, until we hit another heavy metal security door. Another code goes into another keypad. Another alarm. This time there are people on the other side of the door. Hastily thrown-together work spaces, photo-fit images taped to walls, ringing telephones and curious glances welcome us as we head toward an office with an open door at the far end of the vast room.

Lowell goes inside, as do I. Dad follows behind, but the nameless men peel off to various workstations, dismissed with a perfunctory glare from Lowell.

“Why don’t you have a seat?” Lowell nods her head at a chair facing what I assume is her desk. When Dad shimmies around the unnecessarily large desk and sits down on the same side as her, I almost vomit again, right there on the floor. This is fucking crazy.

“Now, since you don’t care about my photos just now, I’m hesitant to try and show you any more,” Lowell says. “Your father has other ideas, however. He feels you ought to see why it’s important for us to find your sister. Are you willing to listen to what we have to say this time? To let us show you what you’ve gotten yourself into?”

I glance at Dad; he doesn’t look away, though I get the impression he wants to. “I’m kind of a captive audience right now,” I snap. “Let’s just get this over with.”

“Good.” Lowell opens up a laptop that’s sitting on her desk and frowns, concentrating on the screen for a moment. She clicks a couple of times, apparently finds whatever she’s looking for, and then spins the thing around so I can see the display. It’s footage from a security camera of some description, dark and blurry. It’s hard to make much out at first, but it looks like there’s snow on the ground. Lowell reaches over and hits the play button, and the still image comes to life. There’s no sound. I see a dark figure walking quickly down an abandoned street, alone, and my heart feels like it’s swelling in my chest. It’s Lexi. I can tell by the huge, sloppily knitted scarf she has wound around her neck—she spent three months trying to finish that thing before winter arrived, and then refused to leave it at home once it was done.