Page 11 of Falling for the Bad Boy
“Hello? Trinity?” I glanced from left to right as I entered the main part of the building. Her space mirrored the layout of Tapped. It was like someone had drawn a line straight down the middle of the building and split it in two. The walls, the floors—it was all the same. No wonder Wyatt was so desperate to get the space. All he’d have to do was knock the wall out and he’d double his square footage.
The banging started up again. Seemed to be coming from the floor above. I looked for a staircase. As my gaze drifted around the room, I caught sight of an ancient freight elevator. Would be nice to have that on our side too. Even though the floor above Tapped only held my apartment and some storage space, it would be helpful to be able to use the elevator instead of the stairs.
I pressed the call button, but nothing happened. The banging came again. Three loud strikes of what sounded like metal on metal. I glanced up. Could it be coming from inside the elevator shaft?
“Trinity?” I yelled louder. A muffled noise reached me. I tried to pry the doors of the elevator shaft open. Managing to separate them by a few inches, I yelled into the space. “Trinity?”
“I’m stuck in the elevator,” she called down. “In between the second and third floor.”
“Hold on. I’ll figure out a way to get you out of there.” I let the doors snap closed. There had to be something I could do. I found the stairs and raced up to the second floor. The heavy doors should have been closed but they gapped with a few inches in between. I grabbed onto the thick leather straps and wrestled them together. Immediately, the whir of the elevator began.
She must have been going from the third floor to the second because while I stood there, the doors parted. Trinity raised the grate and leaped out of the elevator box, wrapping me in a tight hug.
“Are you okay?” I smoothed a hand over her hair, surprised at how she’d flung her arms around me.
Immediately, she backed off, letting her arms fall to her sides. “Yeah, I’m fine. Wow, what a morning. What are you doing here so early?”
I hooked a thumb to the wall behind me. “I live over the bar.”
Her eyebrows lifted. “Right next door?”
“Yeah. How long have you been in there?”
She pushed up a long sleeve and glanced at her watch. “About forty-five minutes.”
“Sorry I didn’t hear you sooner. Getting an early start today?”
“Yeah. I have an appointment later and wanted to drop some things off while I had use of Macy’s car. Thanks again for letting me out.”
“You need some help?” It was then I looked toward the elevator. Body pieces littered the floor. An arm here, a leg there. I cocked my head, trying to figure out what the hell was going on.
“They’re mannequins.” Trinity cautiously stepped back into the elevator. “For sizing and display.”
“Oh.” Now that she mentioned it, I noticed the body parts were made of molded plastic, something that wasn’t initially obvious due to the low lighting.
“Here.” She tossed me a mangled arm. “I tried to use Mindy’s arm to pry the door open.”
“Mindy?” I caught it with one hand. As I did, the wrist snapped, and the mannequin hand clattered along the wooden floorboards.
“They all have names. Mindy, Cindy and Wendy. Makes it easier to tell them apart.” She continued to gather body parts in her arms and scoot them off the elevator.
“Great.” I retrieved Mindy’s hand and added it to the stack. “How many friends do you have in there?”
She stepped out and prodded me with a plastic arm. “Stop looking at me like I’m some kind of psycho. It’s not like I eat dinner with them or take them out shopping with me.”
In the moment, I wasn’t sure if that made me feel any better. “So you were just moving the girls in and the elevator quit on you?”
“Yes.” She stopped in front of me, her arms full of legs.
A thick strand of hair had worked its way out of the bandana she’d tied over her hair. She tried to blow it off her forehead. It fluttered back, covering one eye.
“Can I help you with that?” I reached for the strand as she nodded. Tucking it into place, I let my finger trace the shell of her ear. At least a dozen holes pierced the cartilage. “Did that hurt?”
“What, you putting my hair behind my ear?” she teased.
“No, all those piercings.” Tiny hoops stacked one on top of the other.
“Those didn’t hurt at all compared to the tattoo.” She grinned before depositing the remaining body parts on the pile with the rest of them.
