North gave a jerky shake of his head. It took him two tries to start the GTO, and Tucker stepped back with a sigh.

  “You really don’t look good. Are you sure you should drive?”

  Another five seconds, and it might have worked. Instead, North turned too sharply as he pulled away from the curb, overcorrected, and barely avoided hitting a utility pole. When he got home, he called himself every bad name he could think of as he sat in the garage, head in his hands, and tried not to cry.

  He drank himself unconscious that night, spent the next day on the sofa, and got black-out drunk again. Monday, he woke to a hangover and his phone buzzing. Groaning, he rolled to reach for it. The puppy let out a startled squawk and squeezed out from under him, turning to offer a barking reprimand when he was clear.

  “Sorry,” North mumbled as he answered the phone.

  “You should be,” Haw said. “Why does it take me three tries to get you on the phone?”

  North sat up; the headache banged twice as hard, and he put a hand over his mouth to keep from being sick. After a moment, he said, “Shit went down. What do you want?”

  “I want my private investigator to get his ass over to the lab. That guy who impersonated a delivery driver? I think he’s going to try again. Today.”

  “What?” North scraped crusties from his eyes. “Why?”

  “Because Borer Logistics, that’s the delivery company he infiltrated last time, is making another delivery today.”

  Somehow, North managed to get to his feet, although his headache went nuclear, and he had to brace himself on the back of the sofa. He wondered, vaguely, what Haw would think of her private investigator puking down the front of his tank and boxers. When he wasn’t going to puke anymore, he asked, “You think he’s stupid enough to try the same scam again?”

  “I don’t know. But I know I’m not stupid enough to risk it. I need you here all day; put whatever you want on the invoice.”

  “Half an hour.”

  It was more like an hour: he drank water until his stomach sloshed every time he took a step, and he put down four ibuprofen; by the time he’d showered and picked up coffee, he felt quasi human again. He must not have looked it, though, because the guard at the security booth gave him a commiserating nod, and Haw snorted when she met him in the lobby.

  “Did you get hit by a truck?”

  “Rough night.”

  “I’ll say. Where’s Shaw?”

  “He’s working on something else.”

  “You’re kidding me, right? This is the family business; what could be more important than that?”

  “Call him,” North bit off, “and ask him yourself.”

  Footsteps echoed from somewhere down the hall, and then the sound of a door opening and closing. The kid at reception was typing frantically—probably hoping he could type himself into invisibility.

  All Haw said, though, was “What do you need to get started?”

  “When does the truck usually get here?”

  “Afternoon.”

  “Ok. I’ll start by looking around, checking for weak spots. If you’re right, they’ll probably change up the timing; the truck will get here early or late because they’ll be trying to throw off your routine, catch you while you’re busy with something else. Call me as soon as it gets here. Oh, shit. I’ll need another access card. Shaw took—Shaw has the one you gave him.”

  “We can do that,” Haw said. She didn’t look like a woman capable of much pity, but her gaze did suggest that she considered North pathetic. “You’re sure you should be here?”

  “I’ll be fine.” Then a wave of nausea broke over him, and North gritted out: “Just point me to the restroom.”

  After some enthusiastic puking, he wiped his face with wet paper towels, which were cool against his flushed skin and smelled like public school bathrooms. Haw was waiting for him with another access card, which he took, and then he began to make his rounds. Any real security operation had multiple levels, and some of those were beyond North’s paygrade, figuratively and literally. Electronic, operational, and information security weren’t in this job description, and even if he’d wanted to inspect them, he wasn’t equipped to do so. But the physical security, well, that was something he could handle.

  After some help gearing up with PPE, he started at Lab 14, which he had begun to think of as a kind of vault—a vault that Ronnie wanted to crack. His access card granted him entrance. As far as North was concerned, the inside of any self-respecting vault should resemble Scrooge McDuck’s swimming pool full of gold coins. The lab, though, wasn’t a vault. It wasn’t even a single room, the way North had been imagining it, but rather a complex, with windows and sightlines that made it easy for North to move around the perimeter, once he was inside the controlled area, and examine the space without entering each individual room. Some of the lab was what he’d expected, with its fluorescent lighting, shelves of reagents, intimidatingly featureless machines, gaping fume hoods, and cream-colored linoleum. But there was also a separate office space, a cryostorage room (which had something in it that looked like a little R2D2), safety showers, eye-wash stations, decontamination kits mounted in high-visibility locations—on and on like that. Even though it didn’t look like a vault, North thought, if Wilson Aldrich was right, the information in this building was worth billions. North still would have taken the swimming pool and the gold coins.

  After a thorough search, he decided the only access point was the secured door through which he had entered. The lab had a self-contained HVAC system, according to Haw, and there was no way that Ronnie would be able to pull a John McClane-style crawl-through-the-ducts entrance, for the simple reason that the ducts were much too small. The door itself looked secure too; North couldn’t spot any signs of tampering with the electronic lock, the card reader, or the frame. If Ronnie was going to get in, he’d need something seriously destructive—or he’d need inside help.

  He worked his way through the building in a spiral pattern, checking doors and windows and locks, testing cameras, even elbowing aside acoustic tiles to hammer on the roof access hatch. It was solid and secure, just like everything else North had checked. Spitting foam particles, he lowered himself from the drop ceiling and headed outside.

  Aside from the main entrance, the Nonavie building had three points of access: fire doors on each side, and the docks at the back. He gave the fire doors a careful inspection, but like everything else at the facility, they seemed to be in good condition, with no obvious signs of tampering. They didn’t even have exterior locks fitted for keys; the only way in through the fire doors was with an access card. One area did give North pause; a few cigarette butts and webbed lawn chairs, folded now and leaning against the side of the building, told him this was the smoke-break zone. He’d worked on enough job sites to know how frequently those smoke breaks could come, and how quickly people became tired of keying in and out of secure locations. He eyed the base of the door, looking for chipped paint or scratches that would suggest a rock or paver had been used to prop it open, but he didn’t see anything of the sort. As far as he could tell, the Nonavie employees weren’t taking any shortcuts when it came to security. Well, aside from the security asshat who had sold out to Ronnie in the first place.

  He was working his way along the fence when his dad called. North ignored him the first two times and answered the third.

  “I’m working.”

  “That’d be a change. What’s this I hear about you bailing on a job for Ronnie?”

  “I don’t have time for this. I’ll talk to you later.”

  “Ronnie’s been coming around. He says you’re slacking. He says he gave you a cake job, one that’s right on the beam for the airy-fairy detective agency. He says you’re not doing shit, and somebody might be in trouble because of it.”

  North stopped and leaned against the cyclone fencing; it sagged under his weight, rattling and chiming, and he breathed in hints of rust. The day was bright, and the concertina wire held a glare along its razor edges. “What do you mean he’s been coming around? Did he hurt you? Did he try something?”

  Silence. And then, in a tone of pure shock, “Ronnie?”

  “Answer the question.”

  “He comes around to bitch about your lazy ass and about how ungrateful you are. Like usual. Just what a father likes to hear. You didn’t tell me the airy-fairy agency burned down.”

  The light on the wire sharpened, and North squeezed his eyes shut. The smell of wet earth. The smell of wild sage he’d trampled. “I’m not sure it matters. Shaw’s—he’s doing his own thing now. I think. I don’t know, it’s all messed up.”

  More of that silence. North forced himself to stand up straight, and the cyclone fence chittered in relief.

  “Well,” his father said, “it’s about fucking time.”

  “What?”

  “He’s a dead weight. He’s always been a dead weight. It’s about fucking time you cut him loose. Look, you’ve gotten your name out there. People know you. People know you do good work. What do you need him for, now? You get your butt to a bank today, fill out the small business loan papers, and get your own thing going. Drop the queer stuff.”

  “Yeah, well, if that was an option, we wouldn’t be here, would we?”

  “You know what I mean. You are who you are. I’m talking about the business. Drop the homo angle, and just run a damn good agency. But first, you do what Ronnie asked you to do.”

  North kicked the fence; the impact rippled along the chain links with more of those rattling chimes. “Do you know what Ronnie wants me to do?”

  David McKinney huffed.

  “Fuck, Dad. And you’re still on his side?”

  “He’s asking you for a favor. The same way he did us a favor—he’s done you plenty, you know. We owe him. We gave our word. David McKinney’s word means something.”

  “And mine doesn’t?”

  “Not if you’re going to leave Ronnie hanging.”

  “He’s asking me to help him steal something. He wanted me to help him blackmail a guy.”

  “He’s asking you to help him take a tiny bit from somebody who already has too much. He’s asking you to give that money to somebody who could use it.”

  “Holy shit.” North laughed, and his stomach gave a queasy lurch. “He’s giving you a cut?”

  “Listen to me, North—”

  “What about all that ‘earn your own way’ bullshit? What about putting me on a job when I was sixteen and making me pay for my own car and my own gas and my own insurance? What about all the shit I had to eat so I could pay for college and a place to stay?”

  “You could have stayed here. You know you always—”

  “You know what? Dr. Farr would have a fucking field day with this. No wonder I can’t have a healthy relationship.”

  “Who’s Dr. Farr? What are you talking about?”

  “Doesn’t matter. I’ve got to go.”

  “You think you’re better than me, but I’ve got news for you: you’re cut from the same cloth, kiddo. Take a look in the mirror sometime. You can ride your high horse now, but when you’re not even sixty but you feel eighty, when the cancer’s eating you from the inside out, come back and talk to me again about earning your own way. Life’s short; you’ve got to get yours while you can. I wish I had.”

  An incoming call buzzed. Haw’s name showed on the screen.

  In a slightly gentler voice, North said, “I’ve got to go.”

  “Sure you do,” his father said and disconnected.

  “The truck’s at the gate,” Haw said. “Early, like you said.”

  The fire dancing along the concertina wire made his head throb and his eyes water. He wiped his face. “On my way.”

  When he got to the dock, the Borer truck was backing up, a steady beep-beep-beep warning off anyone standing behind it. North eyed the driver in the cab. It wasn’t Ronnie; this guy was lanky, with a narrow face, and he had thin, stringy hair that North guessed was an attempt to hide baldness.

  “That doesn’t look like the guy in the photographs.” Haw stood at his elbow; judging by the bulge under her jacket, North figured she was carrying.

  “It’s not him,” North said. “He might have abandoned this approach. Hell, he might have called off the whole thing; I was sure he was going to try when I went out of town, but nothing happened.”

  “Wishful thinking. I put extra guys in the warehouse; we’re going to watch every move this guy makes until he’s back on the truck and getting the hell out of here.”

  North nodded. The truck rocked up against the dock bumpers, and then the brakes engaged, and the driver killed the engine. He got down from the cab slowly, an aluminum storage clipboard under one arm, and gave North a glance. Then he took a second look, obviously sensing North’s interest. He made a tough guy face and strutted to meet the dock manager. Haw moved to follow.

  “Check everything they unload,” North said.

  Haw frowned and then nodded. “You’re thinking a Trojan-horse kind of situation.”

  The urge to make a crack about that, the certainty that Shaw wouldn’t miss the opportunity, was so engrained that it hurt when North remembered Shaw wasn’t with him. He just nodded and followed Haw into the warehouse.

  Everyone tried to pretend the delivery was normal, but nobody bought it. The guys who worked the dock threw uncertain glances at each other and at the stern-faced security guards who drifted among them. The driver was babbling, telling joke after joke, as though he could laugh his way out of there. The dock manager was a woman with buzzed hair and carpenter jeans, and after the fourteenth or fifteenth joke, she snapped at the driver to shut up while she checked the paperwork. Haw spoke quietly with several of the guards, and they moved to follow the men who were unloading the truck. North went with them to inspect each box and crate, in case Ronnie had managed to buy someone else off.

  He was digging through a box of toilet paper when he heard Haw say, “No, I said that area was closed off. I know what you’re saying. What I’m saying is, why the fuck is it happening?”

  And then North knew. It was happening right now. Right under their noses.

  “He’s not even supposed to be in the building.” Her head whipped toward North. “Why is your partner inside Lab 14?”

  North pulled out his phone, grabbed his temporary access card, and placed the call as he ran.

  “Pick up, pick up, pick up,” he whispered. “Shaw put down the blunt or the yoga mat or the rayon lederhosen and pick up the goddamn phone.”

  “North?” Shaw’s voice was tentative and achingly full of hope. “God, you have no idea how happy—”

  “Do you have your access card?”

  “What?”

  “The access card your dad had them make for you. Do you have it?”

  “I don’t—”

  “Shaw, for fuck’s sake, do you have it?”

  “No, it’s not in my wallet. I left it at your house. Why? Are you at the lab?”

  And then North remembered coming home from the trip to Sikeston, the hours they’d spent getting Danny on a bus, and then coming home to find the back door ajar and Shaw’s computer powered on. He’d thought Truck or Pari had watched some porn and forgotten to pull the door shut all the way when they’d left. The door had to be slammed; it swung open if you didn’t slam it. But now it all made sense: Danny had been a distraction, just like North had suspected. Only Ronnie hadn’t been planning on breaking into the lab by himself. That’s why he hadn’t had a cryoflask on that initial try. The whole thing, from Ronnie’s first, seemingly botched attempt, had been a setup. He’d wanted to fail, wanted to be seen. He’d known they’d be pulled in to help with security. He’d known they’d be given access. And then he’d sent them chasing their own tails while he lifted the card from the duplex.

  He’d been able to walk right into the Nonavie lab.

  When North got to Lab 14, it took him two tries with the access card to get the door open. He stepped inside and knew he was too late: the cryostorage door propped open; the smell of gunpowder; the bullet hole in the fume hood on the other side of the room; the blood trickling around a lab bench. North went to find the first body, squatted to check for vitals. Her nametag said Dr. Lishi; she looked tiny in death, bird bones bundled in a lab coat now stained crimson.

  Behind him, Haw was shouting into a walkie.

  North shook his head, so tired that for a moment, he didn’t think he could stand up. “He’s already gone.”

  Chapter 32

  THE CALL FROM NORTH sent Shaw into a spiral. He lay in his childhood bed in his childhood bedroom, the walls still decorated with his teenage preoccupations: a planar map of the Forgotten Realms spiderwebbed across one wall, with Cthulhu fanfiction stapled between the lengths of yarn that knit the whole thing together; on another wall, he’d used a projector to trace Whitman’s Catullus poems, and he’d used paint pens and lots of glitter to create his own kind of blackout poems from the text; on another, larger-than-life posters of Paul Wesley and Ian Somerhalder stared down at him from where a teenage Shaw had tried to make them kiss. The curtains were drawn. His joint had burned itself out in the saucer that served as an improvised ashtray. Outside, someone was running a rototiller.

  North had hung up on him.

  North hadn’t wanted to talk to him.

  North had needed information, that was all. That was the only reason he had called.

  Shaw thought about dragging himself across the bed and lighting the joint, but in the end, it seemed like too much effort.

  The knock at the door sent a treacherous spike of hope through Shaw: North. He raised himself on one elbow, opened his mouth, and hesitated.

  What if it wasn’t North?

  The answer came a moment later when the door opened and Shaw’s mom called, “Sweetheart? Are you masturbating?”

  Shaw flopped back onto the bed and closed his eyes. “No.”