The Dirty Series 2(156)

He looks me in the eye, a faint trace of color returning to his cheeks. “Red.”

“Okay. I’ll be right back.”

I don’t have time to be running up to the red line catwalk for Jacobs, but what the fuck other choice do I have? It’s that or wait for him to get his nerve back, and that’s not going to happen without a stiff drink or five. Which would be highly against regulations. Then again, so is leaving your lock-out card anywhere but on your person.

I put the ear muffs back on and head back over to the elevators, hauling ass to the catwalk access.

“Hey!” The shout comes from behind me and sounds vaguely like the foreman, Ward, but I ignore it. He tries one more time before I’m gone. “Taylor!”

When I started here three years ago, my steel-toed boots dragged me the hell down climbing these stairs. I’d thought I was in shape from the time I’d spent in the gym when I worked a less taxing job, but the first week kicked my ass. I broke a sweat just walking around in the boots and the heavy clothes. If I was up all night with a baby, like Jacobs, it would probably feel like the same damn thing. Add in a fear of heights you usually try to ignore, and it’s a recipe for puking your guts out in the bathroom and forgetting shit you’re never supposed to forget.

My boots clank against the metal stairs with every step, but the sound is muffled by the two layers of ear protection and the constant racket of the preheated rock, crushed and tumbling, through the kiln. Up at the top, I plant my feet in the center of the catwalk and look down its length.

There’s no lockout card up here, and it would be damn obvious.

I take a few steps, scanning more closely. Did Jacobs clip it to something? If so, what the hell did he clip it to? Why did he unclip it from his belt in the first place?

There’s no fucking point in answering any of these questions, so I just go back to looking. Below me, between the catwalks, the conveyor belt hums as it carries rubble toward the preheat tower.

I take one last look. I guess Jacobs was mistaken, which means I’ve hauled myself up here for nothing.

I’m turning around to leave when I see it. It is right in the middle of a catwalk—but it’s the catwalk for the blue line, which is at least eight feet away from where I’m standing.

Well, screw this.

I should go all the way back down to the other access point and climb all the way back up, but I’ve got Jacobs waiting in the bathroom, Ward probably on his way up here to find out what the hell I’m doing, and somewhere Jacobs’ wife is waiting for him to get home. I’m never going to know what that’s like, but I bet it’s pretty fucking pressing for him right now.

So instead of doing the right thing, according to regulations, I go to one of the gaps in the catwalk. There’s a matching one across from it on the blue catwalk. I don’t even think about it. I step to the edge, twenty feet above a running conveyor belt, and jump.

A two-second flight through the air, and my boots land solidly in the middle of the blue catwalk. My heart thuds once against my rib cage, then it settles back into its regular rhythm.

Five steps, and I’ve snatched up Jacobs’ lock-out card.

I’m at the threshold when Ward bursts onto the red catwalk. His eyes go wide, then they narrow, and by the time he turns all the way around, I’m already gone.

The leap, the heights…it doesn’t make any fucking impression, because it’s moments like this that I know.

I’ve known ever since she left me. Or I left her. Or we both turned our backs and left each other.

I have nothing left to lose.





Chapter Three





Samantha



It’s high noon on Friday when I pull onto the access road for Cerberus Cement. I wasn’t here for the site visit, but it’s a long road by the lakeshore and I’ve driven here before. Anybody who learned to drive in Lockton has driven this dirt road a million times.

It’s not going to be a dirt road for long. Cerberus, in tandem with the planning going on at the firm, has worked out a deal with the township to have the whole thing paved as part of the landscaping project.

At the end of the road, there’s a little guard station with a gate, and I pull up next to it and climb out. The guy inside looks familiar, but I can’t place him.

“Hi.” He looks out at me through the open window, smiling. It’s a mild day toward the end of September—gorgeous, actually—but my stomach is in knots just from driving through town. It’s not even like he lives here. I don’t know where he lives, but it’s probably not here. Why would he stay?

“I’m Samantha—”

“Sam Kennedy!” Guard Man says, a wide grin stretching across his face. “I thought that was you.”