When Megan Smiles

He stopped, then turned. “You never checked in, so technically you aren’t here. You don’t exist.” And he left.

She sank back into the car, horrified to feel her eyes smarting with tears. She swiped at them. She never cried. Never. But now she was on the verge of springing a leak. She could hate him, really hate him, for the way he got to her.

She put the car in gear and headed for the exit. Maybe she wouldn’t see him again. It looked as if he worked nights, and she wasn’t about to stay late anymore. She wouldn’t have to with the setup at the loft.

She got to the closed security gate and it didn’t move to open. She realized she didn’t know what to do to get out. She’d come in with other cars that morning.

She spotted a keypad by an empty booth, rolled down the window and leaned out to examine it. One of the buttons was labeled Assistance, and she pressed it. She pressed it again, and still nothing happened. Everyone must be gone for the night and she was stuck.

She sank back in the seat and felt the beginnings of a headache behind her eyes. She wasn’t sure if she should go inside again and find someone to help her, or if there would be anyone there. Then she remembered—Rafe was around. No, she wasn’t going back inside.

She sat forward and pushed the button again. This time, loud static came over the speaker, then a voice. “Security.”

“I’m in the parking lot and I need to get out. The gate’s shut.”

“Name?”

If he had a list, she wasn’t on it. But she gave it a shot. “Megan Gallagher. I just started today and—”

“I know,” the voice said, and she realized it was Rafe.

The next instant the gate slowly rose. “Thank you,” she called into the speaker, but there was no response. He probably hadn’t heard her. She rolled up the window and eased out onto the street, then stopped by the curb, aware of the gate going down behind her as she reached for the paper with the directions. Mr. Lawrence had made them simple, even writing down the estimated distance between turns.

She started off, and as she got closer, recognized the area. It’s where she’d thought the loft would be, right in the middle of a redevelopment zone. It could be just fine. It might be nice now, and not dangerous. It could have upscale residences and elegant businesses. The loft might be like the ones she’d seen in New York when she’d visited Quint. She remembered him telling her some of the prices and they were outrageous. People actually had bidding wars, driving prices through the ceiling, all wanting to live in such places. Maybe that’s the way it was with the LynTech loft.

She spotted the street she was looking for, turned onto it and knew she was wrong. It was lined with warehouses, half of them boarded up, the others with stark security lights on them. Interspersed were other, smaller buildings, some abandoned, none remotely like the elegant renovated places she’d hoped for. She drove slowly, noticing that there were no people on the street, and just a scattering of cars parked by the curb. Streetlamps provided a little light, at least the ones with bulbs not broken, but there were no garages in sight, no driveways, and no parking stalls.

Megan spotted the number she was looking for halfway down the block on the right, and pulled her car to the curb in front of an old van that looked as if a hippie probably lived in it. Ahead, three motorcycles were parked, nose in, in front of the two-story warehouse, whose only ornamentation were two potted plants sitting on either side of a steel security door. At least there was light from a caged fixture over the entry.

She turned off the car, double-checked the address, then took several deep breaths. She could barely admit it to herself, but what Rafe Diaz had said had scared her more than a little. If he’d intended to do that, he’d succeeded.

She picked up the keys, gripping the one tagged for the front door, then pushed everything else into her briefcase and got out of the car, leaving the boxes for later. Locking the door, Megan set the alarm and practically ran around the vehicle and across the cement sidewalk to the warehouse entrance.

She pushed the key in the lock, turned it and heard a click, then opened the door. She went inside, closed it behind her and stood for a moment in the barren-looking foyer. Two doors, one to the right and one dead ahead, came off of it, and to her left was an old service elevator. The note had said the loft was on the second floor, straight across from the lift. She stepped forward and raised the chain gate on the elevator, then got in, relieved when it began to move.

Reaching the second level, she went to the door directly across the hallway and got out the second key. But before she could put it in the lock, another door off the hallway to her right opened and a mountain of a man stepped out. He had on a leather vest over a massive bare chest, plus faded Levi’s, heavy motor-cycle boots, and a skullcap over long gray hair, which was pulled back in a ponytail. There were tattoos on each of his massive biceps and one visible through the open front of the vest. She thought she could make out Die as one of the words.