Page 59 of Call Back

Chapter 12

I headedtoward the industrial park. While I knew where it was, I wasn’t familiar with the area, and I needed to park my car far enough away that Colt wouldn’t see me.

When I got to Cool Springs Boulevard, I turned off and parked in the Starbucks parking lot to make a plan. I found a map of the industrial park on my phone. It consisted of four buildings—three were in a row, and the fourth was perpendicular to them. There was a street on the east side of the complex, and there was an apartment building to the south. A strip mall lay to the north and a residential neighborhood to the west—the back side. I’d seen bigger, but I had no idea where space #145 was located, and most industrial parks were wide open with few places to hide.

Dammit.

First things first—I had to figure out where to park. After studying the map, I decided to leave my car in the lot of the apartment building next to the industrial park. Then I’d walk over and slink into the shadows.

Finding a parking spot was harder than I’d expected, but I finally parked on the side of the building, away from the main street, and looked at the time. 10:45. I was cutting it close.

I got out, leaving my purse on the floorboard of the car, and shoved my keys into my pants pocket. According to the satellite map on my phone, the buildings were accessible through a thin line of trees that bordered the apartment parking lot. Thankfully, it was late enough on a weeknight that there’d be no one around to question why I was slinking off through the woods. Unfortunately, it also meant that there was no way of seeing the spiderwebs until I stepped into them. The slow drizzle that began to fall from the sky didn’t help matters.

When I broke through the other side, I was at the south end of the industrial park, facing the corner of the first of the three buildings in a row. A semitruck was parked next to the first building and a Dumpster was against the wall of the second. There were no vehicles or anything flush to the side of the third building. The industrial park was wide open, so at least that direction provided places to hide. Torn over which way to go, I decided to walk the length of the building before deciding.

I stayed in the shadows and began to inch my way down the length of the building, trying not to slip on the damp grass as I searched for Colt’s truck, not finding it. If he was here, he was in the back. I could march in bold as I pleased, but that seemed like a bad idea. Better to hang back in the shadows and slink my way in.

Since time was getting away from me, I took off running along the tree line, moving back the way I’d come—toward the south end of the park. I bolted for the semitruck, slipping between it and the building, and then inched along until I could peer into the alley between the first and second buildings. Nothing.

Colt had said he was putting the gold behind a barrel at space #145. I needed to get my bearings. The building next to me had multiple garage doors along the building—like a storage unit—with numbers in the three hundreds, starting with #331. The building across from me had a mixture of the garage doors as well as metal, regular entry doors. The first space was marked #230. A quick calculation told me I needed to go to the back alley.

Glancing in all directions, I made sure no one else was in view before I ran across the alley to the second building. There was no room to slide between the Dumpster and the building, so I skirted it, ducking into the shadows on the other side as the rain began to fall in earnest. The alley sloped down, making the back side of the building a good three feet taller than the front.

I took a deep breath and peeked around the corner. There was another semitruck parked in front of a loading dock, its back end to the industrial garage door. A wrought iron fence ran along the edge of the alley, which was wider than the other alleys I’d seen. The sound of an approaching car on the other side of the industrial park kicked up my adrenaline. If it came my way, I’d be discovered, but if it went the other direction, it would be completely out of my field of vision. Which meant I’d miss seeing the cameraman if it was him. Or her.

I ran for the semi.

When I reached the truck, I got down on my hands and knees and crawled under the trailer, then hid behind the side-by-side set of giant tires on the back end, molding myself around the axle. At least I was out of the rain, but enough rain had seeped into my shirt to plaster it to my arms and shoulders. My ponytail dripped a line of water down my neck.

Light showered down from a street light at the end of the building, illuminating the figure of a man who was glancing in my direction. It was Colt.

As the roar of the approaching car grew louder, I realized my mistake. If each building had thirty spaces on every side, #145 would be right around the middle—where I was currently hiding.

Torn between locating the metal drum where Colt had supposedly hidden the gold, and hiding from the headlights of the approaching car, I chose self-preservation.

I plastered my back to the wheels closest to the building, hoping the wheel and the shadows would hide me from view. I dug my phone from my pocket and read the time—10:55. Five minutes before Colt had told the (almost certainly fake) person on the other line to pick up the gold.

A dark sedan slowed to a crawl as it reached the semi, then inched around the cab of the truck at a snail’s pace. When it reached the other side, it stopped with the engine idling. The slow thump of its windshield wipers set me on edge.

My heart beat against my chest and fear crawled up my spine as I heard the dull clunk of footsteps on the concrete.

Where was Colt? Had he snuck around the corner and out of sight?

As the footsteps moved closer, I realized that if the person looked under the truck, I’d be in plain sight. I scrambled toward the wheels directly in front of me. Pain pulsed through my left hand, and I looked down to see I’d rested my palm on a piece of jagged wire jammed beneath the wheel. I bit my lip to keep from crying out. After a beat, I held my breath, listening for the sound of footsteps over my heartbeat pounding in my ears, but the rain was falling hard enough to drown out the sound.

After several seconds, curiosity got the better of me, and I peered between the two sets of tires to see what was going on, hoping the shadows would hide me since the sedan’s headlights were pointed in the opposite direction. A man in dark pants and a dark, hooded jacket was bent over what I’d bet a dog full of gold was space #145. After several seconds, he emerged with a packet in his hand. His back ramrod stiff, he stared at the end of the alley before turning to face the truck. The shadows covered his face.

I held my breath again, but he got back into his sedan and drove to the end of the block. I had a minor freak-out, worried he might see Colt, but he turned right, and the sound of the car’s engine grew softer as it drove away.

I waited a good thirty seconds after the sound of the car disappeared before I started to crawl out from under the truck. “Colt!” I shouted over the rain. “Where are you?”

A solid metal door ten feet from the barrel opened and Colt stepped out of it. “Magnolia? What the fuck? What are you doing here?”

“I knew you were coming. I heard your phone call in the apartment.” My hands hit the wet pavement, and I was halfway out when I was jerked to a halt. My pant leg had snagged on the piece of wire.

“You could have gotten yourself killed!” he said, sounding pissed. “Get out from under there now.”

“I’m trying,” I grunted as I reached behind me and tugged on my pant leg.

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