Page 148 of Hell and High Water

Devonde’s secretary is huddled under her desk, sprawled out.

The poor woman looks unscathed, other than black soot and dust on her.

Turning her over, I pause to stare at the single bullet wound through her chest.

Regardless of whether she worked for a madman, a criminal, she was just a person. Silently, I rest her hand across her chest. The last kind gesture anyone will ever show her.

Rising, I look around the room, looking for Gavin.

“Hell. You should come see this.”

I follow the sound of his voice around the bookcase tipped against the wall, revealing a doorway leading back into the wall, bathed in emergency lighting.

He nods, inviting me into the space inside, his gun still out and pointing down.

The hallway turns, ending in a reinforced steel door. Dents pepper the surface, indicating that they tried to shoot their way in, most of the damage focused on the single, tiny porthole window around head-height.

The glass is cracked, fractured in a dozen places, but still intact. They must have given up at some point.

Peering through a still visible corner of the wrecked glass, I gasp.

“Devonde,” I whisper.

The man is sitting inside, his back to the far wall of the panic room.

Red contrasts against the green of his suit under the shaking hand pressed against the wound. His sallow, snake-like skin glistens with sweat. His thin-lipped mouth hangs open within his silver goatee, his breathing ragged.

I can’t hear him and I’m certain he can’t hear me as I knock once, twice on the glass.

He looks up at the hollow thunk, his eyes glassy but still cunning. Reaching over, he presses a button. A wheezing breath scratches over the intercom before he speaks.

“Who’s there?”

“Devonde. Open the door.”

His shoulders slump to the sound of my voice, and I see him shake his head, his eyes drooping closed again.

“Hey! I need to talk to you. And I think you’ll want to hear what I have to say.”

“What could you possibly have to tell me that I would want to know?”

Good, I piqued his curiosity.

“I’m Rachelle Tyson’s niece.”

Immediately, his eyes snap open again and he slowly rises, stumbling to the door. “You’re the woman from the Ball…”

His voice through the speaker is weak after exerting himself.

“Yes.”

“You owed me money once upon a time, didn’t you?”

I swallow, remembering the foolish deal I made so many months ago with one of his drug dealers, unaware of the chaos it would ignite in my life.

“I did. And I paid it back.” I don’t know why it’s important for me to point that out.

“At a great cost to my men,” Devonde sneers, looking past me at Gavin. “Ah. I see you still have your attack dog. Eraser.”

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