The corporate hack in me immediately ran through a series of excuses why it wasn’t my fault that I lost her. I was ashamed at how easily this instinct came. And I was amazed at how good the excuses were in such a brief gesticulation period. All began with “we,” the classic maneuver to position failure as a shared responsibility.

There were a lot of things we could have done differently…

A lot of things we couldn’t anticipate…

The excuse diatribe would end on a positive note, a look-forward at the next steps to get us back on track. Unfortunately that was where I came up blank. There was nothing I could think of to do. This was the last step.

I pulled over and let the weight of that conclusion settle in. Hector couldn’t be far from me at that point. It was only a matter of minutes and I put my phone onto my lap as I waited for the expected call. The street was refreshingly quiet. Sometimes you have to go to the heart of the industrial complex to find true peace. I sat there and marveled at the lack of sound and thought of nothing. It was incredibly peaceful.

I saw movement in the darkness. Or, at least I thought I saw something. It came from the cross street off to my right. I used the old trick of looking out of the corner of my eye, which somehow made it easier to see things in the dark. I sat there, head tilted towards the steering wheel, hopeful that a flicker of movement would appear in my peripheral vision. None came, but I felt driven to search further and put the car into gear and turned onto the street.

This road had no parking limitations and therefore was lined with vehicles serving as makeshift homes for unseen occupants. Back windows were shaded out with towels and newspaper to provide a sliver of privacy to the sleeping souls behind them. Most of the cars didn’t look like they were in shape to drive more than a mile but in truth all they had to muster was a thirty foot hop to the other side of the road on street cleaning days.

One car, though, stood out.

Tucked between a van and a grime-covered station wagon was the compact I had been searching for. I cruised past it towards the end of the block and shut off my lights. I glided into an open slot at the end and parked in a fire zone as a cool wash of relief spread over me — there would be no need for collective excuses tonight.

I texted Hector and Badger my location and then took a moment to scan the area. When I had passed the compact it didn’t look like Tala was inside. She had to have slipped into one of the industrial buildings, but which one I couldn’t be sure because the few windows on this near-windowless block were all dark. I got out to investigate.

Any movement would easily be noticed on this quiet street. I couldn’t risk spooking Tala into flight so I looped around to the back of the buildings which sat on a wider block because of the loading docks that drove the activity during the daytime. I made my way down the alley, hugging the sides of the building to avoid the light cast by the occasional lamp. At about the spot where the compact was parked on the opposite street, I noticed a solitary window on the second floor with a dim, orange light emanating from inside. I drifted towards it like an insect towards a porch light.

I clambered up the loading dock. Two large, rolling, steel doors and a regular-sized one formed an impenetrable entrance. Shading the entire area from the relentless southern exposure and from the occasional thunderstorm was a roof jutting ten feet out from the building. It was also a good ten feet above me. Having humiliated myself before in attempts to touch the rim of a basketball hoop, I searched for another means of reaching the roof.

Back in the alley I found a rusted length of pipe and dragged it back to the dock. I leaned the pipe into the corner where the roof met the building and then wedged the bottom end against a pillar. I monkey-crawled up the pipe but was winded a third of the way and had to rest. I pressed on until the back of my head touched the edge of the roof. Unfortunately I hadn’t thought ahead to figure how I was to move my grip from the pipe onto the edge of the roof without falling to a very painful landing below. With my forearms growing numb, I knew I had to stop deliberating and just try. I uncrossed my legs and let them dangle below, nearly dangling myself off the pipe. With one hand on the pipe, I twisted around and threw my other hand towards the roof and grabbed hold of the edge. A sharp pain greeted my palm which soon grew damp with blood. I donkey-kicked my leg up to the edge and pulled myself on top.

I was gassed. I sat on the roof in a dazed stupor, my head swirling in oxygen-deprived blood. I glanced up and made out the view to the north with a clear shot of the park and then understood the importance of this building’s location relative to the drop zone. That seemed to give me a jolt of energy and I got to my feet to face the next hurdle, a far less challenging one which was to get up to the window above me. The light coming through the one window illuminated the chicken wire embedded in the glass and didn’t look like it had been opened in thirty years. Next to it was a second window, black as the night but its blackness was from the unlit room behind it. It was my only way inside.

I positioned myself below it and made the very do-able, bottom-of-the-net leap to reach its sill. I gritted my teeth and pulled myself into the room. On the floor was a pair of binoculars a third of the size Badger used for a similar purpose earlier that night. The presence of the binoculars led me to wonder if more than just Tala was involved in the ransom. My mind leapt to Jeanette but I dispelled that notion, for now, anyway.

With the filing cabinet and desks and papers piled on top, it appeared to be an office to a still-operating business. I remained at the foot of the window and strained my ears for any sounds coming from the other rooms. It was as quiet as the street outside. The only sound in my ears was from my own heartbeat thumping away. I made my way to the door, careful not to trip on anything and call attention to my presence.

The hallway was empty. The only light came from the room to my left. I stood for what felt like twenty minutes but was just a single minute. I took out my cell and texted to Hector and Badger.

“I’M INSIDE”

The reply was immediate. From whom, I wasn’t sure, but the phone buzzed in my hand and broke the silence in the hallway.

I thought I heard a click. I waited, my eyes fixed on the door a few feet from me, but nothing came out. I detected movement inside, or rather, the faintest shift in the half-light as something, or someone, passed in front of the light’s source. I concentrated on my breathing but nothing could suppress the sounds emanating from my chest. It felt like anyone outside on the street could hear my panicked attempts at air.

The barrel of a gun slowly emerged from behind the door jam, then the pudgy hand that held onto it. Tala fully stepped out of the room. She seemed focused in the opposite direction at the stairwell that led below. It hadn’t occurred to her that someone might be behind her.

I could have done several things — rush her while my position was still unknown, turn back into the darkened room and leap to safety onto the loading dock roof below — but I did nothing. These were options somewhere in the recesses of my mind but they never fully emerged.

As if sensing something behind her, she slowly turned and faced me. She looked around with a slightly perplexed look. I watched her go through the thought process as she put the pieces together — someone found me, it isn’t the police, he is alone. The gun raised ever so slightly, the grip firmed up on the butt.

There was a whirr of black behind her as a figure moved forward with mechanical, almost robotic efficiency. A face was illuminated in the light from the room — Hector’s impassive stare — and then disappeared as he slid in behind her. There was a glint of silver metal, then an arm came over the one holding the gun, and I heard something that I thought sounded like a woman’s laugh, but wasn’t. I watched how effortlessly the arm with the gun came down. The hallway flashed bright, followed by a roar as the gun discharged a bullet into the floorboards. I covered one of my ears, trying desperately to get at the dull tone drilling inside my head.