Chapter Text
“You ladies wait right here.” The man in the suit ushered Jolene and Abernathy into a nondescript office and shut the door.
“Hey, wait!” Abernathy turned and grabbed for the door handle, but had barely cracked the door before it was closed with a slam and the scratchy thump of the lock sliding home.
“Well that's not good.” Jolene frowned at the door.
“No kidding.” Abernathy fidgeted with the wireless microphone Jensen had installed in the back of her dangling earring. “Aisha, do you have any idea what's going on?”
Aisha, voice distant but surprisingly clear through the wireless receivers hidden inside both of their ears, hummed. “They're not talking about you, than I can pick up, but it doesn't look good. Wait, someone's—shit. You're bait.”
“What?” Jolene's blood ran cold.
“They made you.”
“What?” Jolene repeated, at the same time that Abernathy turned away from the door and asked, “How?”
“You've got to get out of there. As soon as they've caught the boys they'll take you all out, no loose ends this time.”
“Wait, how did they make us?” Abby asked. “Do they know our names?”
“They ran a known-associates or something, I don't know.”
Abernathy snorted, incredulous and irate. “On what, IMDB? There's no record, Aisha, you promised us that.”
“I said I don't know, okay?” Aisha snapped. “I only know what they're saying through the internal communication system, and that's to keep you there because they know you're connected to the losers at the the pier and they're going to use you to make them cooperate. We can't afford to give up that leverage, so you have to move. Now.”
“Damnit Aisha, do they know where I live?” Abernathy fought to keep her voice down, on the good chance that someone else might be listening from outside the room.
“It's me,” Jolene whispered. “It's my fault, got to be. I never saw any of these goons before, but someone must have seen me and Pooch together, or—Jay did his best to clear our digital presence, but if there was anything that he missed . . . Abernathy, I'm so sorry.”
Abby shook her head and accepted the hand Jolene held out to her.
“Ssh,” Aisha hissed.
“What is it?” Abby asked.
“Shut up for a second. Fuck.”
“What?” Abby pressed.
“Max.”
Abby blinked. “Where, on the island?”
“In the fucking lobby. He just walked in.”
“What, here?” Jolene hissed.
“You've got to move,” Aisha said, and then there was a crunch in her ear that made Jolene flinch.
“What—where are you going?” Zoë's voice, faint and distorted, far away from the microphone, then sharper following the brief rustle of her pulling on the spare headset. “I think she's going after Max.”
“Max who is right now in this building?” Jolene repeated.
“He just walked in the front door about thirty seconds ago,” Zoë confirmed.
“But he's supposed to be on his way to the Embarcadero!”
“I know, I was at the meeting. Apparently someone forgot to give him that memo.” Zoë did not sound half as flippant as her word choice suggested.
“You think he's here to kill us himself?” Abernathy asked, looking at Jolene.
Jolene, who'd spent a lot more of her life learning to hate and fear Max, pictured the shipping flat, delivered premium rush, waiting for him in the parking garage. “I think he's here to gloat.”
“We've got to get out of here.” Abernathy rushed for the window. She took a deep breath before opening it, braced for the shriek of an alarm, but if any security system had been triggered there was no sign of it where they were. She quickly tossed the desk for a letter opener with which to pry the screen loose from the frame. “There,” she said. “We climb out onto this ledge, shimmy over towards the demolition site, then jump to the fire escape on the opposite side of the alley and Kim'll meet us on the street, right Kim? Piece of cake.”
Jolene couldn't make out much of the hushed and hurried conversation on the other end of the audio connection as she hurried to the window and stuck her head out next to Abby's. “Are you fucking nuts?”
“No, it's easy. Zoë does crazier stuff than this on her way to breakfast.”
“Zoë's a stunt woman.”
Zoë and Kim apparently agreed with the feasibility of the plan, or at least its necessity, because Zoë herself chimed in reassuringly, “Give us two shakes and I'll be right there to catch you.”
“Abby, please,” Jolene pulled back into the room and shook her head.
“Come on, Jo, we're losing time. It's our best way out.” Abby sighed and reached for Jolene's hands. “What would Foxy do?”
Jolene looked down at her dress and drew a stuttering breath. She gritted her teeth, hiked up her skirt and tucked it around her hips, and climbed up onto the inside ledge besides Abernathy, her eyes scrunched shut as she leaned out over the alley into the seven-storey drop. “Please Jesus,” she muttered under her breath, “let Pooch and me both live to see our baby again.”
“On three,” Abernathy said as she eased her weight out over the sill and found her footing on the outer rim. “One . . . two . . .”
“Wait,” Jolene cried, throwing out a hand to catch Abernathy's arm.
Abby gasped and ducked back inside, looking at Jolene with startled eyes.
“You asked me what Foxy Brown would do.” Abby nodded. “Foxy Brown would nail Max's ass to the fucking wall.”
Abby grinned and climbed the rest of the way back inside.