Page 55 of Intangible
Knox saw him swing over the far wall before disappearing.
He noticed that this roof didn’t have one of the monstrous air conditioners, like the others. Instead, there was a large hole in the roof covered by a tarp to try and keep out the rain. Easing off of the wall, he sent up a quick prayer that the roof would hold him. What he didn’t need was to break both legs falling to the floor below.
Trying to stay on the far edge, he picked his way over to the next roof, or what he thought would be another roof. When he reached that wall, he found the building was separated from the next one by a small side alley. He guessed it was maybe seven feet across. It resembled a pedestrian walkway to more shops located at the back of the buildings.
Looking back up, he saw the man jogging across the next roof with the confidence of a younger person, knowing the old guy chasing him wouldn’t even attempt the jump. Screw that.
Knox backed up, judging how much momentum he would need to make it across. Five feet wasn’t really that far in the scheme of things.
With a roar, he sprinted at the wall, leaping up to use his right leg to push off with. Even with every ounce of strength he could muster, he still just barely managed to grab the wall on the far side. His legs and torso banged into the brick side while he clung onto the top.
Looking down, he chuckled. Where on the job description for watching after Thayer had it said that he must be willing to jump from one building to another?
He wasn’t a superhero. He could produce a fireball with his hands, that was it, that was all he had to work with. He definitely didn’t have the power to fly. The shit he did for his family even made him wonder sometimes about his sanity.
With a roar that matched the one he used when he jumped, he swung his legs, hooking the edge of the wall with his foot. Leveraging himself up, he rolled over the edge, landing with a thud on the roof. Yep, that radio was still back there, digging painfully into his ass.
Knox took a moment to catch his breath before standing up. The man was staring at him in surprise from the other side of the roof. At least he knew it was a man now. Really, he didn’t look any older than Thayer. How did someone that young get mixed up in this? Surely this wasn’t just some sort of unrequited love crap? No, he refused to believe that was it.
“I changed my mind. I am snapping you in half when I get my hands on you,” he shouted. It had to be said. He was too angry now not to. He was also pretty sure that last stunt had left a couple of impressive bruises.
Like a deer, the kid shot off toward the other side with Knox after him. He climbed up on the far retaining wall and, with one more look at Knox, dropped over the side. Knox was only a half of a roof behind now and it only took him a moment to reach where the kid had disappeared.
Looking over the side, he found not another roof, but a twenty-foot drop onto some scaffolding. Knox stared at it for any sign of the kid exiting the labyrinth of pipe and wood at the bottom. Nothing. He didn’t emerge at the bottom or appear running off down the alley.
Knox spotted his two men rounding the corner, sliding to a stop next to it. Fisher pushed under a piece of heavy sheeting surrounding the scaffolding, but quickly emerged to jog down the alley. Knox moved across the roof, looking back out onto the main street, then around the back for any sign of him. The kid was simply gone.
“Anything?” he yelled down. Fisher shook his head, gazing back up at him. “Sonofabitch,” he mumbled under his breath. “Okay, give me a minute to find my way down. We’ll regroup and see if we can pick up his trail.”
After a confirmation from his men, Knox turned around, looking for a door. He wasn’t about to jump that far onto a questionable looking set of scaffolding just to roll off the top onto the road below it. He might be crazy, but he wasn’t stupid. Spotting the roof access door, he let out another line of expletives, finding it locked.
Looking back over the retaining wall, he yelled at the first one of his men he saw. “Jones, go get someone to open the damn roof access door.” He watched Jones quickly enter the store below. It was another ten minutes before the door was opened by a very angry-looking woman, Jones, standing off to one side.
“How did you get up here?” she demanded, blocking Knox’s way. “No one is allowed on the roof.”
“Ma’am, if you’ll move aside, I’ll get off your roof,” he answered. She glared at him, her arms crossed in front of her, for a few more minutes before letting out an exaggerated sigh. Stepping aside, she motioned with her arm for him to proceed her down the stairs.
“Thank you.” Rolling his eyes at Jones, he quickly left to regroup outside in the alley. He found Fisher by the bottom of the scaffolding, trying to find any hint of where the kid could have gone.
“Anything?” Knox asked.
“The best I can figure, he slipped into one of the windows next to the scaffolding. My guess is he’s from the area and knows these buildings and alleys much better than we do. We managed to keep him in our sights for a while, but we stopped when you didn’t make it across that pedestrian walkway,” Fisher answered. Knox snorted. He had made it technically; it just took a little extra effort.
“Jones, you head down the alley and check the next street over. Fisher, you continue down this street and I’ll head back the way we came. If we don’t find any trace of him in half an hour, we’ll head out,” he said, pushing the earpiece back in. Knox’s men immediately headed out to follow his instructions.
Knox looked around the scaffolding a few more minutes before walking back to the front of the building. There was a very good chance the kid was holed up inside somewhere, but he wasn’t about to ask the saleswoman if he could search it. He had barely come out of there with his ass intact as it was.
After half an hour, Knox had found nothing. He met the other two men in the parking lot by the dark SUV he had rented. They had been unable to find anything more than he had.
Climbing in the passenger seat, he laid his head back on the seat as Fisher pulled out of the lot. They would drop him back at the loft before heading back to their hotel for the night. He knew Memphis would be waiting for answers when he got back, but first he could use a shower. Trying to play an action star on a rooftop was sweaty work.
Chapter 22
Thayer learnedwhen they pulled up to the loft that not all of the kids Memphis had been in foster care with grew up to be veterinarians or doctors or even firemen. Some, like Shaun, grew up to be the head of a very successful car theft ring.
Memphis told her quietly when they walked into the loft that the men outside guarding them were members of Shaun’s car-jacking team. He refused to pull his guys from his various chop shops off their jobs to help.
“Does Miss Beulah know about it?” she asked as she followed Memphis to the kitchen. He pulled out two cold bottles of water from the refrigerator, offering her one. Shaun had told them he would be upstairs as soon as he was done organizing his men.
