Chapter 10 - The Secret Behind the Glass
The office was in total ruin.
Files were scattered across the floor like fallen snow. The desk had been flipped onto its side. But Richard wasn't there.
In the back corner of the small office, behind where the filing cabinet had always stood, was a heavy steel door that Sam had never seen in his twelve years of working at the diner. The door was slightly ajar, revealing a flight of steep, damp concrete stairs leading down into the dark sub-basement beneath the building.
Shattered glass from a Framed framed diploma lay on the floor near the threshold.
Sam stepped over the broken glass, pulling a heavy brass flashlight from his belt. He pointed the beam down into the darkness of the stairwell.
"Richard?" he whispered.
The only answer was the cool, damp draft of air blowing up from the basement—an air that smelled not of old flour or diner grease, but of high-grade gun oil, ozone, and wet leather.
Sam took his first step down the concrete stairs.
As he descended, the light of his flashlight flickered, illuminating the damp brick walls. At the bottom of the stairs, a high-tech facility opened up—a room filled with glowing computer monitors, surveillance feeds showing every angle of the diner upstairs, and a long steel table.
Sitting on the steel table was a fresh, hot cup of double espresso in a white porcelain cup.
And standing next to the table, her back turned to him, was the blonde girl from the booth. She was no longer wearing the dirty grey t-shirt or the black baseball cap. She was dressed in a sleek, charcoal-black tactical suit, her damp blonde hair pulled back into a tight braid.
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She slowly turned around to face Sam. In her right hand, she held a silver silenced pistol pointed directly at his chest.
"I told you to be aware of the Cadillac, Sam," she said softly. Her voice was no longer raspy or weak. It was cold, precise, and lethal. "Because if you weren't looking at the car... you never would have seen where Richard went."
