Page 22 of Claiming Veronica

“Huh, ok … well, thanks for talking to me.” I sniffled and wiped my nose with the back of my hand. “I was just hoping maybe.” I trailed off as if I’d lost the plot, letting my eyes bounce around the room, waiting for him to say something.

“Well,” he looked over at me, finally giving in. “I know Marv in unit three is the backup supervisor, and he has a set of keys to the complex. He could probably let you in since you’re really family. Right? Maybe you could find something to give you an idea if he went somewhere else.” He gave me a skeptical look.

“Really?” I inject a little hope into my voice. “Thanks, I appreciate it.”

Marv turned out to be a distracted architect who wasn’t interested in questions or minding who looked at empty units. He handed the key over without any qualms and didn’t even look upfrom his draft table. Victor would have gutted him for even thinking about turning over the key to his unit, so Marv was lucky that Victor couldn’t come back from the dead.

“It’s just over on that hook over there,” he said, waving a hand towards the peg board where keys hung in neat rows beneath equally neat labels.

“Thanks. I’ll bring it back when I’m done.” Marv didn’t look up from his table, so I slipped the key off the hook and left him to his rulers and pencils.

The office was surprising—not the grimy and dirty warehouse I had expected, but weirdly clean. Victor had died over a month ago, and everything was still in its place. It looked too tidy. Even the air smelled sterile, a faint scent of cleaning chemicals lingering in the space. The stark contrast between what this place appeared to be and the man who leased it unsettled me. I don’t know what I expected. A rusty warehouse with old blood spatters? A drain in the floor? I scolded myself for being so dramatic.

The layout of thebuilding was an office in the front and a larger cavernous warehouse space in the back, similar to Marv’s architectural space. I’d seen the lease agreement, and that’s what it showed anyway. I hoped to find some other clues — although the trip had already yielded a juicy piece of information. Underground fighting was rolling around in my head. The gym membership had been when he was nineteen, and I’d run into a dead end on that, but I had never thought to look at the underground fight scene. That was its own niche that I could delve into.

I stepped inside, closed the door, and flicked on the light, my footsteps making a weird hollow sound against the polished floor. It just didn’t feel like the kind of place Victor would have kept. He was a psycho and a loner, but maybe he had been smarter than I gave him credit for—hiding in plain sight, running things from some random office that looked unsuspecting. That would be smart. I’d been expecting something grimy and full of cobwebs. This was the opposite of what I’d imagined. Of course, I needed to remember that the bodies were initially wiped of evidence. If Eli hadn’t tipped Pike off, the killer never would have been found. So maybe this all fit…

The furniture was modern, sleek even—a large desk in the center of the room, shelves lined with neatly organized binders, file folders, and fakeplants that seemed too carefully placed. It was a total front. I sighed as I ran my hand over the desk’s smooth surface, feeling the slight coating of dust beneath my fingertips.

I scanned the shelves, looking for anything that seemed out of place. My fingers grazed over the spines of the binders, labeled in precise handwriting: financial records, contracts, receipts. I flipped through a few, but they all looked like they could have belonged to any legitimate business—no apparent signs of any underground operations I was positive were tied to this place. I scanned the office again. No electronics anywhere. No computer or printer. Not even a copier or fax machine. I spun around as I looked again at the binder I’d laid out on the desk. Not even a telephone.

I moved toward a small filing cabinet in the corner, pulling open the drawers. More paperwork, but this time, I found something that made my pulse quicken—leases for the warehouse, signed by Victor himself. The dates matched what I had already suspected, but another signature was beneath his on several documents. An alias? I squinted at it, trying to make sense of the unfamiliar name. Maybe it was connected to Eli. It was a long shot, but I had to follow it.

Luther Booth.

My heart leapt at the knowledge that now I had two leads to track down regarding Victor, which might lead me toward my prey: underground fighting and now this person, Luther.

Then that feeling crept over me, the hairs on my neck standing up. It was subtle, like the air had shifted, letting me know I wasn’t as alone as I had thought. I paused, listening. There was no sound—just the hum of the air conditioning system—but the sensation of being watched didn’t fade. My stomach pitched with unease as I twisted this way and that.

I glanced behind me toward the large, floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the empty parking lot. The blinds were drawn, but the faint light from outside cast long shadows against the floor. For a moment, I thought I saw movement in the reflection—something quick, just out of the corner of my eye. I turned, heart racing, but there was nothing. The large space in the back beckoned, and I felt a shiver of fear.

Get a grip, Ronnie.

I forced myself to breathe, steadying my nerves. It was an empty building. No one knew I was here. No one cared about this place anymore, right? Marv may have decided to come to check up on me. Or that other guy … who never told me his name. I bit my lip.

Still, I couldn’t shake the feeling. I returned to the desk, my mind racing. There had to be something more here, something Victor left behind that could lead me to Eli. He was the key to all of this.

I rifled through more files, scanning for anything that mentioned fighters, payments, or event locations. The idea of Victor running fights in a place this clean seemed laughable, but he’d taken measures to keep things hidden.

As I worked, the sensation of being watched grew stronger, gnawing at the edges of my focus. My heartbeat thudded in my chest, and my breath came out in shallow, uneasy bursts. I still needed to check the other area in the back, but I didn’t dare look around again.

Instead, I packed up what I had found—the leases, a few notes with strange symbols and times listed, and the file with Luther Booth’s signature. I shoved it all into my bag, zipping it up quickly.

I still had the back to search, and I wouldn’t skip it even though I felt like I was running along a cliff at full speed. Taking a puff of my inhaler, I went through the doorway into the dark space beyond.

Chapter 13

Eli

Ileaned against the far wall of the back warehouse, hidden in the shadows, watching her through the open door. My eyes tracked every movement she made as she rummaged through the office Victor had leased months ago. I knew Veronica had found it a few weeks ago, and I couldn’t decide if I was more surprised that she hadn’t visited it sooner or had decided to visit it alone.

Victor had dug into Arizona like a fucking tick, and it was obvious it hadn’t been a rash decision on his part. I hadn’t been here yet but should have checked it before Veronica did. I just hadn’t been able to bring myself to do it. Call it nostalgia or avoidance, but I’d closed the door to that piece of my life, and I just hadn’t found the right time to see what he had been hiding here.Avoiding bad things never worked. I should know better by now.

Six months ago, Victor and I went to California to scout a fighter and set up a venue, and things blew up in my face. He had been erratic and angry, which wouldn’t have been an issue since that was his constant state anyway, but I had gotten to the point where, if I were being honest with myself, I preferred not to work with him.

The last straw had been a sunny Saturday. We’d had a successful afternoon with a new fighter and had recruited him for the next bout. Victor wanted to visit some new kink club down in L.A. but said he had some kind of present for me. This was my first clue that something was wrong. Presents? We didn’t do that sort of shit. We’d never had presents when we were little. Regular people had presents — not street kids. Families had those.

Victor laid a metal box on the table. It was worn around the edges, banged up, and still had dirt clinging to it. I watched the box with dread, knowing that whatever it held was terrible.

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