Page 13 of Drunk In Love
“The building is shut down. There’s no one in there,” I turn around to tell Kamaya. “Looks as if this place has been abandoned for a while.”
There’s absolutely no activity around this end of the block, making me realize all residents were removed and this address was our last resort.
“Yeah,” she says, seemingly defeated about the fact that tracking down this employee was going to be a challenge.
“Back to the literal drawing board,” Kamaya states. “I texted Zach, but he hasn’t responded in a while with any info about Franco.”
I bet he didn’t.
“Hold on,” Kamaya says, looking at her phone.
While Kamaya consults her phone for a message from Zach, a car idling on the opposite corner gets my attention. A black town car is out of place in this neighborhood. The window tints are dark, and the driver’s side is facing us. Though it’s hard to see who is in the driver’s seat from this vantage point.
“Let’s get out of here,” I say, reaching for her arm and tugging us back to our vehicle.
“Max, what is the rush?” Kam asks, her shorter stride struggling to catch up to mine.
“I’ll explain in the car. Let’s move quickly.”
Once we reach the SUV, I open Kamaya’s door before rounding the front of the car and hopping into the driver’s side. My hands are steady as I move quickly to start the car and get us out of there.
“What is going on?” Kamaya asks again, panic in her voice.
I search in the rearview mirror, making sure we’re not being tailed before I answer. “I noticed that car when we were walking up, but I didn’t want to say anything at first. As we continued to move down the block, so did the car.”
“The whole time?” she asks, incredulous.
“Yes, and the longer we stood in front of Franco’s building, the car continued to stay put. Something told me that we needed to get out of there.”
“I can’t believe I missed that,” Kam says.
“Well, you were looking down at your phone most of the time. At least you have me to watch out for you,” I toss out, hoping to add levity to what could have been a tense situation.
Kamaya shakes her head at my quip, unable to hide her smile. “Okay, Superman. What happens next?”
I begin heading back downtown toward our office, peaking at the rearview mirror periodically to make sure we’re not being followed. “We get back to work. We just have to keep our wits about us, especially when in public. Never know who is watching.”
“What have you got for me?”
He slips into the backseat and hands them a manila envelope.
“What’s this?”
“What you asked me to get.”
They open the flaps and extricate the photographs. These were taken earlier today, just as they asked. It’s a zoomed photo of those agents from Tri-State sniffing around that abandoned building. A fool’s errand since the building had long since been evacuated.
“What else do you have for me?”
He looked on at them incredulously. “You asked for photos, and I just gave them to you. It wasn’t easy. The man…” He paused, pointing to Maxwell in the picture in their hand. “He kept looking over his shoulder. Almost spotted me several times.”
“You did good enough,” they finally answer. “Stay on them until I say otherwise.”
Taking back the photos, he starts to move out of the vehicle but turns back before easing the backdoor open.
“What exactly do you have planned?”
They only smile. “Wouldn’t you love to know.”