I followed Bridget to Tommy’s apartment. He wasn’t home. She left her car along with a note saying not to worry, she’d be back soon. Then she got in the car with me.
We drove to the adjacent grocery store and parked and waited. When we were the only people in the area, we made our move. On the drive over, Bridget explained the manager of the office changed the locks every time someone left or was fired, which seemed like a waste of time in my book since all of the interior offices exhibited their own individual door locks, but that was the way of the world. With any luck, they hadn’t changed them yet.
Bridget inserted her key into the front door and turned it to the right. It clicked.
“It still works,” she whispered.
Inside, the TV played the same looped video montage. The light from the screen offered enough of a glow for us to descend the stairs far enough to round the corner. Once we were safely on lower level, I clicked on my flashlight.
We reached the filing office, and Bridget put her second key in the door.
“Uh oh,” she said.
“What uh oh?”
“My key doesn’t work. Now what?”
“Let me take a look,” I said.
The troll was smart to change the locks, but she used a very cheap, very standard doorknob, and jimmying it open wasn’t rocket science. One flick from a standard paperclip in the right direction and we were in.
“Voila.”
“Not bad,” she said. “I’m impressed.”
I handed her the flashlight. “Your turn.”
The files were kept according to year and agent name. Bridget found Charlotte’s in less than a minute.
“Let me make some copies, and then we can go.”
“Copying files will take too long,” I said. “We can’t risk it.”
“There’s no other option though.”
I held my hand out, and Bridget handed over the files.
“I don’t feel good about this. What if they find out?”
She stood there for a moment like we were still deliberating the subject. I grabbed her jacket and tugged on it. “Let’s go.”
We climbed the first few stairs, and I heard a noise on the main level. It sounded like someone had dropped their keys. This was followed by a jingle and then the front door opened. I turned to Bridget whose jaw propped open like she was about to get a root canal. I placed my finger over my lips and motioned for her to ease back down the stairs. She nodded. The main-level door slammed with a loud thud, and a male voice sounded off in the distance.
“Like I said, I know these people personally. They lost everything when their business closed last year. One more month on the market without a good offer, and they’ll accept anything thrown their way. I’m sure I can convince them to short sale.”
“It’s Jack,” Bridget whispered. “What are we going to do?”
“Keep quiet,” I said.
“Sure, sure,” he said. “I understand. Let me just grab the file, and I’ll tell you what your counter should be.”
The light to the basement flickered and then came on, followed by the sound of hefty footprints. We crouched behind some empty boxes in the hallway, but they weren’t big enough to conceal both of us.
Jack reached the bottom of the stairs and halted. “Oh, wait a minute. You know what? I left the file in my office. Let me find it, and I’ll call you back.”
A minute later the light went off, and we relaxed in the darkness.
I looked at Bridget.
“Not a sound,” I whispered.
“But what if he comes down here again? What if he sees us? What are we going to do? We need to get out of here!”
I put a firm grip on her arm. “Get it together; it’s going to be fine.”
She flinched like she was preparing to haul ass. I applied more pressure.
“Ouch, that hurts.”
“Good,” I said. “Concentrate on that for a minute.”
Several minutes elapsed before I heard Jack’s voice again.
“I think $840,000 is a fair offer. I’ll write everything up and get it over to you tomorrow.”
The front door opened and closed, and a key bolted the lock. We remained still for the next five minutes until Jack’s car pulled out of the parking lot, and then we got the hell out of there.
“It’s late, and I could use another pair of eyes on these reports. Why don’t you stay the night at my place?” I said.
“Why did you do that back there?”
“Grab your arm?”
She nodded.
“I wanted to shift your focus.”
“It hurt, you know.”
“But it worked,” I said. “I’m sorry, but you didn’t leave me much choice. I could tell the idea of getting caught was more than you could handle.”
“Tommy must be worried. I’ve never gone this long without calling.”
“I take it you haven’t told him what’s going on?”
“I didn’t want to get anyone else involved.”
“You wanted to protect him, I understand. Why not talk to the police?”
“I don’t even want to be here––in this town, I mean. I tried to leave, and I told Tommy I wanted to move, but he didn’t understand, and then we got into a fight and now everything’s a mess.”
“Can I ask you a personal question?” I said.
“I guess so.”
“What attracted you to him in the first place? You two seem so different from each other.”
“I get that a lot,” she said. “I’ve known Tommy since we were kids. His life hasn’t been the easiest, and I think he’s still trying to figure it all out, but he knows me better than anyone. When all of this happened, I thought I should run, but then I realized my life is here, with him.”
“Why don’t you call him? Let him know where you are and talk to him for a little while,” I said. “You can stay the night at my house, and tomorrow I will drive you home. Let’s see what we can find in these files.”