Mercy (The Night Man Chronicles Book 3), Brett Battles [best books to read in your 20s TXT] 📗

His side business is the reason for my call. He is one of the secret suppliers in my world, from whom I can get things that would be impossible to obtain elsewhere.

“You remember how to get here?” he asks.

“I think so.”

“Then get your ass over here.”

Before leaving, I call the phone number Davis gave me for Cheryl. I’ve been hoping the woman would pick up, but I’m not surprised to find the number has been disconnected. We can still try to find out who was using the number two years ago but that can wait.

I change out of my suit and take everything down to my truck, because I plan on leaving the city right after seeing Dave.

Rush-hour traffic on a Monday night usually means it would take me at least forty-five minutes to get from Cherry Creek to his warehouse, but with the majority of people working from home these days, I turn into his parking lot in just under thirty.

It’s a big, rectangular building, three stories high with a sloped roof. Along the side I park on are several loading docks. Two of the slots have big rigs backed into them. The roll-up doors associated with these slots are open.

I see several people loading boxes and pallets into the nearest truck and I head that way.

The room beyond the door is huge, stretching a good two-thirds the length of the building and going all the way up to the rafters. Rows of shelves are filled with boxes of varying sizes and other items that are shrink-wrapped or bagged or otherwise contained.

While Dave does have a paid staff of about twenty, most of them work on the administrative side. The majority of the warehouse workers are volunteers. There’s at least a dozen of them here tonight, all between sixteen and twenty-five years old.

The only old guy is Dave, who’s in his late fifties but looks younger. He’s right in the mix with the kids, moving boxes and singing along to the ever-present classic rock blaring through the warehouse (sixties and seventies stuff, nothing later). As I knew they would be, everyone is wearing masks and gloves.

When Dave sees me, he calls to one of the kids, hands him the box he’s been carrying, and jogs over.

“Well, well, well,” he says. “You’re looking good, my friend.” Dave, always with the compliments.

“Back atcha,” I say.

“What’s it been? Two? Three years now?”

“Something like that.” It’s been a while since a job last brought the team to this part of the country.

“You need to get out here more often. Next time, make a trip in the winter. We can go skiing.”

“I’ll put it on my to-do list.”

“Come on. Let’s get you taken care of.”

I look at all the activity around me. “If you’re busy, I can wait.”

He laughs. “Are you kidding? They’ll get things done at lot faster without me in the way.”

“He’s right,” a girl who can’t be more than twenty-one says as she walks by, carrying a box.

Dave shrugs. “What can I say? I’m an old man.”

He leads me through the massive room into another one that takes up most of the rest of the building. It, too, is filled with shelves and boxes and other types of packages. We walk to a door on the right side of the room. Dave unlocks it and motions for me to enter.

From all appearances, it’s an unoccupied office, with a desk and a chair and a phone. Dave has told me in the past it does get used when things get really busy, but most of the time it’s empty like this.

He locks the door behind us, then pushes sideways on a section of the wall paneling, low behind the desk. After a click, a palm-sized panel swings outward.

Dave looks over to see where I am and nods his approval. As I learned to do on a previous visit, I’m standing as close to the exit as I can get. After he pushes a button inside the recess, the floor under the desk rises upward several centimeters before sliding forward. In the space where it was is a set of stairs leading down.

We descend to his secret basement, where the inventory for his side business is kept.

Dave stocks a lot of fun stuff. What he doesn’t carry are guns, knives, and explosives. The only weapons he does sell are Tasers, expandable batons, cans of mace, and other less lethal devices.

That’s fine. I’m not here for anything lethal.

The room is completely dark when we enter. A flip of a switch and overhead fluorescents flicker to life. The space is a miniature version of the warehouse rooms above—products stuffed onto metal shelves, which down here go from floor to ceiling.

“What can I get you?” Dave asks.

“Bugs, both tracking and listening, to start with,” I say. “Cameras, too.” Jar and I have all but depleted the meager supply we brought with us.

“Right this way.”

Dave may have restrictions on the items he stocks, but those he does carry are all top of the line. I grab a box of thirty trackers, two boxes (forty each) of audio bugs, and two cartons of miniature cameras (one hundred total). The amount is way more than I think we’ll need but I don’t want to be caught short.

Next, Dave takes me to the directional microphones. They consist of a bowl that catches the sound, and a six-inch-long mic where the bowl sends the sound. Think of the bowl as a small satellite dish, made of clear plastic. They come in a variety of sizes. I choose two sets at the smaller end, as they’ll be easier to carry in a backpack. I’m still annoyed about not having one at the picnic, and I will never leave home for a lengthy amount of time without one again.

As we peruse the shelves, I pick up a few other items. Will we need them? Hopefully not. But I guess we’ll see.

“Anything else?” Dave asks as we near