“I’ll come with—”

“No.” Vernon pulled on his jacket. “You stay here. Someone has to monitor.”

Buddy was protesting the seniority factor as Vernon stepped out into the hall. As the door shut behind him, he closed his eyes and listened for the click.

Ah . . . heaven.

If he played this right, he could stretch the investigation out for an hour or more. The security office was on the first floor right next to the freight elevator, but he was no fool. He was taking the stairs. Slowly.

Down on the basement level, he whistled a tune that had no name, the same one he always fell into when the pressure was off. It was like a combination of Earth, Wind & Fire’s “September” and Smokey Robinson’s original version of “My Girl.” And chances were good he was going to be a-whistlin’ for as long as he was inclined to. Unlike the rest of the floors above, the basement didn’t have any office spaces in it, only storage areas, but more to the point, it was so damn late, all the suits were gone for the night, even the ones who liked to work the long hours on weekends.

And that was another reason he was sure the alarm was a malfunction. Down here, there were no coffeepots left on. No one sneaking cigarettes and ashing into a combustible bin in a men’s room. No gooseneck desk lamps angled too close to an out-box of memos or computer equipment sparking . . . or any of the thousand bizarre things that he’d heard about or seen personally in the building.

Being security for a property like this for thirty-seven years? You learned about all the different ways human beings screwed up. He’d busted people out of elevators they’d stopped on purpose after hours to have sex in. He’d rescued people off the roof, people who’d had it with their lives. He’d turned the other way when some arguments got loud in the stairwells—and interceded in others so no one got hurt. He’d tolerated everybody, no matter what their status, stats, or proverbial serial number.

The fact that Buddy was driving him nuts was probably the best indicator, other than that he turned sixty-five next month, that it was time to hang up the ol’ uniform and find a hobby. He’d never had a hobby. Maybe shipbuilding. He liked things with little parts, and God knew he was a natural when it came to making order out of messes.

Which was why he’d always liked this job—

The burning smell got his attention, even though he didn’t get understand the shadings inside the nasty aroma. It was like . . . leather burning?

Vernon picked up his pace. Like the rest of the building, he knew the basement by heart, and he hustled down to the storage space that was having what appeared to be a very non-malfunction.

Getting out his old-fashioned ring of keys, he also had his passcard ready. Each of the storage units was privately leased, and if he entered, he had to swipe to record his ID along with the date and time for security purposes. And in this case, the particular space was rented to one of the insurance companies, so there was a lot of sensitive information inside.

When he came up to the door, he put his palm on it—and frowned when the steel wasn’t hot. He put his key in the lock anyway, and as the dead bolt gave way, he pushed the heavy weight with his shoulder.

Immediately, he got a whiff of what had grabbed his attention. The smell was definitely coming from inside, but as the motion-activated light came on—

“What the hell?” Vernon muttered.

Stepping into the storage area, he swiped his ID card to quiet the beeping of the door alarm, and then he just walked around . . .

All the completely empty space.

The walls were as expected, painted dark gray, with the ceiling and the floor done in black. This made sense. Every time one of the units was leased, the maintenance crew slapped a new coat of cheap and glossy on every square foot, the layers so thick now that the contours of the concrete were buffed out completely. But this paint job was pristine, no scuffs where boots had traveled or boxes set down, no dings from where things had been pushed into corners.

So not only was there nothing currently inside, there never had been.

Not his problem, though. If some company want to pay for the privilege of not putting a damn thing down here, that was their stupid mistake. His concern was figuring out why in the hell he was smelling something that was burning and seeing . . . absolutely nothing. And yes, he was sure he had the right space. The alarm report told him so.

Maybe he was having a stroke.

No, wait. One of the sprinklers, way in the back, was double-blinking, indicating it was the one that had gone off.

Vernon went over to it and walked around a couple of times. But nothing changed: The fire alarm continued to blink, and his nose kept talking about some kind of smoky stuff, and the storage unit remained totally empty.

Okay, this was definitely going on his weird list.

Heading back to the door, he took one last check at that which he had already checked; then he stepped out—

Vernon froze, all of the blood draining from his face.

Down at the end of the corridor, walking in the kind of flanking formation he knew from his time in the Army, there were three men dressed in black leather. Well, one had camo pants on. And Vernon did not need a metal detector to inform him that the bulges under those jackets were weapons.

All of them had dark hair, deadly eyes, and were lock-focused on him.

With a sudden wave of nausea, he realized wasn’t going to make it to retirement.

Dear God . . . Rhonda. She was going to have to bury him.

Vernon closed his eyes. He had mace, but no gun.

He had no way of defending—

• • •

—opened the door to the security office. Over at the console, Buddy looked up.

“That didn’t take long,” the kid said. “So it was just a malfunction, huh.”

Vernon blinked and looked around. Buddy was the same, still bearded and long-haired, still young and bored. Likewise, the console was what it had always been, and so too the monitors. His chair was also exactly as he’d left it, swiveled around to face the door . . . yet he felt like he’d been gone twenty years. And as he went to sit down at his side of the control panel, he had some vague stomach upset and a headache that had moved in between his temples.

“You okay, Vern?”

He hated when the kid nicknamed him. Usually. Not right now.

“I’m fine.” After he cleared the alarm notification, he turned his chair toward Buddy. “Hey, can you do a favor for me?”

Buddy’s eyebrows popped. “Yeah, sure. You want a soda?”

“No, I want you to”—Vernon rubbed his forehead—“rerun the security tapes.”

“Sure, from where?”

“Down in the—” The pain between his temples got worse and he gritted his teeth. “In the basement. Where the alarm was.”

“Did you see anything?”

“No, I didn’t,” he said roughly. “I just want to review the tapes.”

“But if you didn’t see nothing—okay, yeah, sure. Whatever.”

As Buddy worked the monitors and the feed was set up, Vernon opened his drawer and took out his Motrin bottle. Shaking two—and then four—into his palm, he choked the pills back dry.

He was coughing as the image of the corridor in question came up on Buddy’s right-hand screen—