Page 15 of Sweet Animosity

Serg strolled into the room with “The Cleaner” right behind him, wheeling in two suitcases, undoubtedly filled with all sorts of caustic chemicals. “Yeah, win-win. Except for the bullshit cleanup. Did you see the size of that bastard?”

We all grimaced.

Ditching bodies was the worst, but it had to be done.

As Serg headed into the other room to deal with that, I circled the chaos of the main office. “They certainly searched every bit of this place.”

Mac surveyed the room as he kicked at a turned-over box of files. “No one can argue with how thorough they were in searching for that damn vault.”

Anton leaned against the brick wall. “But…”

I winked as I took a few steps toward the center of the room. “They always forget to check the floor.” I stamped my foot and what should have been solid cement made a hollow clang.

With the help of Anton and Mac, I rolled back the carpet to expose a massive wooden trap door.

Anton pulled out his gun and fired at the padlock. The metal splintered into three pieces.

Leaning down, Mac and I pulled the trap open to expose a narrow lower chamber filled with what looked like nine canvas-wrapped paintings, several black duffel bags filled with cash, and three leather-bound ledgers.

Anton spread his feet with his hands on his hips. “Gentlemen. I believe we’ve found Abakar’s treasure. Damn, we should have said ‘open sesame’ first.”

“It’s not open sesame. It’s ‘open says a me’.”

“What? That’s not right. It’s Arabic, not bad English with an Italian accent.”

“Sesame? It’s not a fucking everything bagel.”

Anton pulled out his phone. “I’m Googling it.”

I backed up a step. “I’ll let you two sort this out and load the trucks while I deal with the witness.”

As I turned and headed down the hall toward the side room where I’d left Vivian, Anton and Mac dealt with getting the paintings into the truck.

Which was how they were standing right behind me when I stopped short to take in the scene.

The duct tape was torn in half.

The cement dirt was disturbed.

And Vivian was gone.

Anton and Mac burst out laughing as Anton slapped me on the shoulder. “Tell me you didn’t just tie up one wrist?”

I ran a hand over my face. “I didn’t think she’d run.”

Mac chimed in, “This is the same woman who crawled through an air duct earlier, right?”

I raised my voice as I repeated, “I didn’t think she’d fucking run!”

Anton checked his pocket watch. “I’m late.” As he turned to leave, he added insult to injury. “And I was right. It’s sesame.”

Mac followed him out, calling over his shoulder with a wave, “Gotta go, too. Bebe is waiting for me. Good luck tracking our witness down.”

Their laughter didn’t fade until they were well out of earshot.

With a frustrated sigh, I threw my head back and stared up at the ceiling. I would never live this down.

Time to go on the hunt.

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