10. Chapter 10

Chapter 10

O nly minutes had passed since we had deduced that Colton's assistance in everything would be akin to an oddly necessary third-party demon sent from hell. It goes without saying that the trust that I had in him—that the rest of the group had in him, for that matter—solely existed because we were operating with a mutual benefit. We needed him, and he needed me. Well, truthfully, he needed Cassie, but that was a fact that obviously hadn't been spoken aloud. As often as he would glance at her with a brief questioning eye that appeared to be judging her familiarity, I had started to wonder if the secrets that she kept from our friends and family were known by him. It was a thought that I didn't have the chance to fully process for, as a group, we were…rather busy.

With the knowledge that Mister Milkovich was returning to his apartment later in the day—assumedly in the afternoon with a locksmith per the short snippet of one-sided conversation that we had heard on Liam's security camera—we knew that we had to act quickly. How quickly, we didn't know…it was his apartment, after all, and he could legitimately return at any minute. The only advantage we had was that it was still what most would consider to be sleeping hours. As urgently as we needed to act, though, we still needed time to lay out a plan. Taking our seats back at the table with Colton remaining at the bar facing us, we did just that.

Colton rubbed at his eyes and then let his hands fall to his lap as he opened them wide. The whites were bloodshot, and it offset the cool iciness of his eyes in a manner that almost made him appear more spent than he was. There was no doubt that he was exhausted—we all were, as it was nearing three in the morning—but he was tired in the sense that he looked manic. I supposed that one would typically behave as such, considering the circumstances.

It was good that he was worried. If he didn't succeed in getting into apartment 2D, scour the place for anything that could lead back to our entire group, and then leave without being caught…he would most certainly be in prison for a very long time. On top of that, if Colton didn't manage to remove the potential evidence in 2D, both Liam and Zoey could be, as she had so eloquently worded earlier, fucked. Very fucked.

So… yeah. We, as a group, weren't calm in the least, but I supposed that how he was acting seemed…apt. Especially because we were now going over final details, ironing out our necessarily rushed plan, and searching for any possible wrinkles before springing into action.

"Okay, okay-okay," Colton spoke. "So, 2D—it's not occupied." We all shook our heads no. "The guy who lives there is presumably coming back at some point today." General nodding from all of us. "And I'm," he squinted as if he were confused, "…taking down cameras that are inside the place?" Nods, once again. "This is feeling like evidence erasure," he grumbled.

Claire said, "Colt."

"Not asking," he remarked rapidly. "Not asking. 'Kay—cameras and…"

"Anything that seems out of place," Zoey finished. "Or looks like it could have anything to do with us, specifically in a closet that we know is locked."

"And you…don't know what could be in this closet?" Zoey shot him a glare, and Colton spoke slowly, "Right… ah, phone call. Keep me on speaker on your end. I've got some headphones in my car that I can use to keep you in my ear…I'll relay everything back, you tell me where to go and what to grab or leave behind. Who's gonna look out? Are there multiple entries? "

"One staircase, second floor," Claire explained.

"We'll probably just watch through the surveillance cam feed, right?" I asked the room.

"Surveillance cam?" Colton inquired. "Where's that?"

"Hallway," I replied.

"Yeah," Liam mentioned, "it's on my side of the hall, same as 2D, but it's angled—"

Colton's dark eyebrows flew up. "The fuck do you mean your side of the hall?"

Liam's mouth hung open as if he were intending to say more, but his mind had drawn a blank.

Luke held his head in his hands and griped, "Liam," and Liam's jaw snapped shut.

Zoey sighed heavily. "Yeah, thought that one was gonna come out."

Colton noted, "So…you live there?"

The question was directed to Liam, and he did respond with a quick, succinct, "Uh, yes," but the way that the remainder of the group collectively squirmed made Colton cock his head to the side in curiosity.

"I'm…gonna pretend like I'm not assuming that you all live in the same apartment complex as this infamous 2D," Colton quipped. "Moving on… camera's in the hallway? "

Liam replied, "Mhm."

"'Kay," he stated hesitantly. "We need a second means of surveillance. That'll only give you enough time to say, ‘Colt, someone's coming,' before someone's walking through the door."

"What are we supposed to do," I chimed in, "have one of us posted up at the bottom of the stairs? There's a blizzard. It'd look mighty suspicious to have someone visibly on the lookout."

"Well, I need something," he argued, his tone sharp. " Someone. Your camera's not gonna cut it."

"That's all we have," Zoey retorted with narrowed eyes.

Colton bit back, "All you have is not enough. I'm not goin' in blind—I'd be asking to get caught without a more reliable lookout. Look, I'm down to help, but if that's all you have, I'm fuckin' out. I get that I have risks in this, but I'm not slitting my own throat here."

"Okay, okay," Cassie spoke. "Like Claire said—one entrance to the complex. Let's just all pile in a car or something and keep an eye from down the street. I've got the Jeep…we can all fit."

"Thank you. Jesus," Colton said as he let out a large breath. "That's much better…and you're right. One entrance is good. You only have one area to look out for, but that also means that I may only have one exit. If anything does happen and it looks like there are cops en route or some shit, I'm fuckin' bookin' it. I'm takin' a quick glance and grabbing what I can, I'm taking off, and I'm laying low."

Liam's brow pinched together. "Why do you have to take off? I live next door. I'll leave the door unlocked…if it looks like someone's coming, we could warn you, and you could be in my apartment before you're even seen."

Colton shook his head so hard that a few inky black strands of hair fell across his forehead. He pushed them back and countered, "No, no, no. That implicates you."

"Not if they don't see you," Zoey remarked.

"You have a security camera up," Colton reminded both of them. "If a cop's smart enough, they'll ask for footage. They catch me on tape going in and out of 2D? Whatever, I'll make sure my face is covered. They catch me going to your place… you're an accomplice."

"His camera can be easily taken down," I stated.

"And then none of whatever you have to grab out of 2D is just floating around wherever you have to run," Luke spoke up. "Take down Liam's camera, get in, get out, get back to Liam's apartment," he added in a bitter murmur, "get out of our lives."

"I'm not out of your lives until I'm chatting with you," Colton pointed at me with purpose. "That aside—any other tenant could have a security camera. So many people have them on their doorbells and shit now. It's too risky."

Barely loud enough for me to hear, Luke whispered down to Claire, "2C?"

She murmured a quiet, "Don't think so," back to him, and just as he was about to speak to her once again, Colton voiced:

"Secret-secrets are no fun, guys—you got somethin' to share with the class or what?"

Their nearly silent, two-sentence conversation didn't need to be explained to me—2C was the only other apartment on the second floor aside from mine, Liam's, and 2D, and it was obvious to me that Luke was questioning if our neighbor had a security camera.

Claire begrudgingly said, "I don't think they have a camera up, but I'm with Colt."

"Claire," Luke complained.

Claire shrugged, his bothered tone not outwardly concerning her in the least. "Too risky. Even if there aren't any other doorbell cams or whatnot, there are too many other factors. Walls are thin—downstairs neighbors could hear foot traffic if they're awake. 2C could literally watch through their peephole since they're right across the hall. Anyone in the entire complex could walk by and see him moving from 2D to Liam's. All more reason why we're not doing this shit." Colton nodded emphatically as she spoke, and Claire looked to him. "Liam's camera'll stay up so we can keep an eye on the hall, and we'll watch the entrance from down the road. We are in your ear and nothing else."

"I'm with ya," Colton replied quickly. "All goes as expected, we wanna just meet up here after?" All of our heads bounced in agreement, and Colton murmured, "'Kay…and for anything un expected…if I take off, don't try to distract whoever's coming. Don't try to intercept—that just points fingers back at you guys."

"Alright," Cassie murmured, "so…you run for it. We call you later?"

"Oh, no," he said. "If I take off, my phone's gone. I'm losing it however I can."

"Wait—what?" Zoey asked with high brows. "How are we supposed to get back in contact or know if, I dunno, you're on the run?!"

"Are you worried about me?" he cooed with a wry smile. "Zoey! I knew I'd grow on you."

Liam snapped, "You're not growing on anyone."

Zoey patted Liam on the forearm without taking her narrowed gaze off Colton.

"I'm not worried about you, you fucking butt plug! I'm worried that any shit that you grab from that closet will be in police custody or—like Luke said—just floatin' around wherever the hell you have to run off to!"

"See, it's shit like that that makes me want to question this situation more," Colton remarked. Zoey's nostrils flared in silent response, and he held up his hands in defense. "I'm not gonna! Building trust," he waved at himself and then the remainder of the group, "we're building trust here. Anyway…you're not gonna want me to keep my phone if the cops are after me. If I have that on me and the police see that you were the last point of contact and realize the call aligned to the time of the break-in…" He allowed his sentence to trail off without completing it because the insinuation was clear.

"Can't you just delete your call history?" Luke questioned.

Colton returned, "From displaying on my phone? Yeah, but I'm gonna be a little preoccupied with getting the hell out of there—and that wouldn't permanently remove it from my cell, either. If the cops want to plug it into a computer and do a deeper dive, it's still gonna be there. All that data just gets hidden somewhere else unless you nuke it…like, wipe it clean, give it a factory reset as if you're trying to sell the damn thing. I can't exactly do that in a rush, so I'll just ditch it somehow. Chuck it out a window, stab the screen with my keys a few times, try to flush it down the toilet—I've got options there. Anyway," he continued without skipping a beat, "I'll plan to come back here—right away if all goes to plan. After the dust settles, if shit goes sideways…probably a few days, maybe a week. I dunno. I'll feel it out."

"So, what," Cassie asked him, "we just have to wait? You may just… disappear?"

"That's the name of the game sometimes," Colton told her with a shrug.

Everyone else remained silent, and I glanced to see Cassie shaking her head. It was the slightest movement, but I caught it nonetheless, and I assumed it was because she intended to speak privately with Colton afterward. The tone she had questioned him with was casual enough—well, it most likely sounded like a casual tone to the others who weren't privy to the threat that Colton had presented earlier. It wasn't casual in the least to me, though. I could hear anxiety laced in her voice…and though we had shared several moments in the past that were far more than tense, I had truthfully never heard that from her. Fear, I had heard—downright, to-the-bones terrified, I had heard. But anxiety—a hidden worry over what was to come—a nervousness over a loss of control—I had never heard that from her in the least. It was a fact that used to be astonishing to me .

I mean, she was beautiful, sarcastically witty, and stoic in the face of all things traumatic—what wasn't there to be astonished about?

Now, however, as I heard the nervousness that she attempted to hide beneath the surface, I could feel her anxiety. Somehow, it surpassed all reason of biology, coursing through her skin and under mine.

Cassie and I had slightly adjusted our seats so we weren't constantly craning our necks backward at Colton, but our legs were still under the cover of the table. I reached out with my fingertips to brush her knee, intending it to be a brief nudge that simply told her that I understood. That I knew that she held a silent fear of the unknown regarding Colton's reason for being here and the missing women that could be closely linked to her life. The moment that I touched her, though, I heard the quick breath she pulled through her nose. I was the only one that was listening—thank God, I was the only one that was listening—and, just like that, the gesture that I had meant to be one of solidarity morphed into something that was so much more. Electricity pulsed in my veins. I squeezed the grip I had on her lower thigh, and the current coursed through me.

"'Kay," Colton muttered, looking to Claire. "Last thing…what kind of lock are we dealing with here? "

"Round knob," she replied. "Just a jagged key."

"Deadbolt locked?"

Claire's shoulder bobbed up. "Don't know for sure."

"So, you're saying I may be able to get away with just shimming it?" Colton laughed. "Give me a challenge, come on."

I released my grasp on Cassie's knee. She let out the breath she had dragged into her lungs as quietly as she could manage, and as my hand returned to my lap, it was as if a string were tied between us. I moved, and so did she—slightly. Ever so slightly, but enough for me to sense exactly where her leg was placed as her body angled toward mine.

I shook my head quickly, looking to Colton and asking, "You wanna speak English?"

Colton tilted his head to the side. "What about that wasn't English?"

"Shimming," Claire repeated the word, and I turned to see her. Her blue eyes were tired, and Luke was watching her with a clenched jaw as she said, "It's basically forcing something against what works as a lock…like, it'll push the mechanism aside." She mumbled to Luke, "I've never broken into someone's home, baby—only locks on protected merch we took out of stores. Take a breath."

Luke sighed. "I'm fine, Claire. "

"I'll explain—door knob," Colton spoke over them, "meet the trusty credit card that I haven't used in years." He held up an index finger and shifted onto his left side to reach into his back pocket. Retrieving a worn, brown wallet, Colton flipped it open and dug out a plastic, blue card that was marred with scratches. He held it between his fingertips in his right hand and noted, "Like this," as he moved the card forward and back.

Luke squinted at him. "I don't get it."

"Of course, you wouldn't," Colton said with a loud exhale as he looked at him with a pointed gaze. He gestured with his left hand up and down. "There's a slight crack between a door and its jamb, yeah?"

I looked back to Luke, saw him grimacing in Colton's direction, and he grumbled, "Yeah."

"Card." Colton held it up with purpose and then smacked it flush against his other hand, which represented where the door met the jamb. "Opening." He repeated his motion from seconds ago, rubbing the card against his hand in such a fashion that he would have been able to feel the grooves from the numbers tickle his palm. "Shimmy. Right where the latch is to push it aside."

"Oh… kay," Luke's eyes went wide as he began to understand the act itself. "It…can't be that easy to break into an apartment." His nervous face whipped down to Claire. "Right?"

Claire shrugged, and Colton remarked, "Pretty damn easy if the deadbolt isn't locked."

"And if it is deadbolted?" Zoey inquired.

He told her confidently, "Get me something thin and blunt that can fit in a keyhole. I'll get in there, no problem." Colton added offhandedly, "The lesson here is to always lock your place with something that's only on the inside of your home—sliding chain, flip lock, what have you. Safety first, kids." He then glanced at both Cassie and Claire, "Either of you ladies have bobby pins in your hair?"

"You're planning to unlock a deadbolt with a bobby pin?!" Luke's light eyes were now bulging from his head. "That—that doesn't seem very failsafe."

"Ah, two bobby pins," he clarified, holding up two fingers. "And it's not ideal, but y'all are low on time, and it works in a quick pinch." Colton patted the outside of his hoodie down to his jeans as if he were searching for something in his pockets. He comically noted, "I don't have lock-picking necessities on me at the moment."

I could practically hear Luke grind his teeth together, and Claire reached to comfortingly touch his shoulder.

She waved to her ponytail, mumbling, "I'm not using any," and eyed Cassie's messy bun. "Pins? "

Cassie quickly snagged two pins from the base of her bun, releasing a few strands of hair to fall and frame her face. As she held them up for Colton's examination, he leaned forward to stretch a hand out her way. She placed them in his palm, and he narrowed his eyes at them as he slinked back into his seat. He gave them what appeared to be a quick stress test, taking the time to pinch one pin between his thumb and forefinger and gently flex the material before moving on to the second.

Colton nodded, smiling wide. "That'll do."

It was only a handful of minutes later that Colton had connected his headphones via Bluetooth to his phone, the buds were secured in his ears, and the call between his cell and Claire's was connected. Without so much as a goodbye, he walked down the road. Liam rapidly pulled up the live feed footage from his security camera as we all raced to Cassie's Jeep, and we piled in.

Cassie had conveniently parked approximately a block away from the complex—nearly a halfway point between the apartment and Henry's. Keys in the ignition to turn on the battery but engine and headlights off, our collective breath was clouding before us as we watched and waited. Cassie twisted the knob at the end of the lever on the right side of the wheel, the windshield wipers swiped once, the snow was whisked away and drifted off into the wind, and she turned the knob back to its original location.

Colton was visible from where we were parked, walking directly away from us with his hood over his head and the neck of the shirt beneath his jacket pulled over his nose. Strolling through the snowstorm that was seemingly progressing into a whiteout, I supposed that the full coverage of his face wasn't one that would be questioned by any random passersby. There were none to speak of due to the time of morning, but I considered it, anyway.

Liam was seated directly behind me, the light from his phone illuminating his face, and he spoke, "Camera feed's finally up—hallway's clear."

Colton's voice rang out from Claire's phone, which rested in her lap in the back seat. "As it should be. What is it, almost four in the morning? Place is ghosty." He narrated his anticipated movements in a murmur, "Up the stairs, right side of the hall, 2D."

I watched Colton's body disappear from view as he trudged his way up the stairs. We all waited for what felt like an excruciatingly long silence, and Zoey voiced:

"Are you sure that feed's live? "

I kept my eyes glued on the entrance while the rest of the crew in the back seat shifted to the right. Zoey was already practically in Liam's lap due to lack of space, and she was peering down at his palm. Claire looked over Zoey, Luke looked over Claire, and Cassie spun around from the driver's seat to glance behind her, stretching her neck in an attempt to see Liam's phone. Unlike the remainder of the group, it wasn't visible without her crawling over the center console, and she huffed out a quiet breath through her nostrils as she righted herself back in her seat instead.

"Yeah," Liam muttered. "'Course."

"There's probably a second or two delay on that, big guy," Colton spoke. "I'm up the stairs."

I counted out the seconds, and by the time I made it to three, Claire was speaking once more.

"There you are—see you on the feed."

"Three second delay," I noted in what came out as a grim tone.

"That was really more like one second," Cassie remarked. "You must have counted fast."

"I one Mississippi'd it," I countered. "It's three seconds. Three seconds is long."

"Because counting one Mississippi, two Mississippi is the most reliable way to track time," Cassie argued .

Luke stated, "Even if there's a one second delay, it's fine—"

"Three seconds," I corrected anxiously. "That's way longer than you think."

Cassie griped, "Not a chance in hell that it was three—"

"Christ, you two bicker like a fuckin' married couple," Colton complained. "It's super short. It's fine. Just keep an eye."

He could barely finish his last sentence before Zoey exclaimed, "Holy shit, are you…"

"In," Colton finished for her.

Cassie's head whipped to the back seat. "Already? How?"

Colton replied, "Shim."

"It's like you just swiped your card after buying groceries," Zoey noted. "That was fast."

"Quick fingers and muscle memory," Colton told her with a hint of pride.

"No deadbolt," Claire whispered in disbelief. "I can't believe—"

The following sound cut off all of our voices in their tracks.

The wind blew. A wave of snow washed over the windshield. I listened intently, anticipating the noise to stop, but it didn't. An odd beeping—one that was repetitive in nature, holding a tone for a beat before falling silent only to sound once more—was playing from where Claire sat. The low pitch didn't seem to be loud nor grating as it emitted from her phone and into our ears. In fact, it was an altogether friendly noise. It felt anything but, though, because the sound insinuated that something was, for lack of a better word, wrong.

"What's that noise?" Zoey muttered shakily.

I whispered, "Is that an—"

"Alarm," Colton replied back in a haste. "Fucking motion-sensored bullshit in the entryway."

"What does an alarm mean?" Cassie asked nervously. "No—no one's home, so the neighbors may hear some beeping, so what?"

"They could wake up," Luke said. "Come out to see what's going on. Could call the cops—"

Claire stated rapidly, "The alarm probably already called the police—"

Each subsequent response was nearly spoken over the last until we heard the door to 2D shutting through the speaker.

Colton's words flew out in a rush. "If it sends out an alert, it goes to whoever put it up, and then they're asked if they think it's a threat, and then they call the cops. Or the alert to whoever put it up goes unanswered, and the cops fucking show up anyway. " He exhaled heavily. "Small ass town like this, I've got five minutes— tops."

Liam blurted out, "Okay, fuck the cameras—closet, Colton! Get to the closet."

No doubt tearing his way throughout the apartment as rapidly as his legs could move him, he returned quickly, "Yeah, yeah. Looks like two bedrooms. Which one?"

"The one with the locked closet in it!" Zoey yelled. "It'll be pretty obvious once you see—"

"What in the ever-loving FUCK is this room?!" Colton's exclamation was kept to a hushed level, but the shock was still evident in his voice.

"Ya found it," Zoey murmured grimly.

"Uh … handcuffs?" Colton questioned hesitantly, mentioning what we had heard Mister Milkovich speak of. He audibly grimaced, "Ugh— ball gag? Am I grabbing kinky shit?"

Liam snapped, "No!"

Colton quipped, "Thank fuck, I'm only comfortable with my own shit like that—"

Luke hissed, "I'm gonna kill him," while Claire spat out:

"Colton—closet!"

"I'm already on it," he spoke quickly. "I— ah, you've gotta be fuckin' kidding me."

He said it with a level of defeat, and I groaned, "God, what?"

"It's a keypad lock on the closet. Nothing to pick, just a knob with numbers, and…maybe a fingerprint scanner?"

Claire let out an exasperated, breathy, "Fuck," just as Colton told us:

"Okay— one sec."

It was literally one sec later that we all heard a loud, speaker-grinding crash! Our collective flinch at the noise shook the car on its shocks, and Cassie shouted:

"The fuck did he just do?!"

I glanced at her with eyes so wide that I felt the cold air stinging them, and she returned the same expression back to me as the rest of the group waited with bated breath for any further sound.

Colton whined, "I hope y'all are fuckin' happy. My shoulder's gonna be bruised to hell after that."

"Colt, did you just bust the door down?!" Claire exclaimed. "The neighbors are gonna hear!"

"Y'know the phrase in for a penny, in for a pound?" Colton rhetorically asked with grit. "That. I'm bookin' it in less than two minutes at this rate, anyway." The last word faltered, twisting into a tone that turned…nervous. The insinuation made my stomach coil, the sound of Colton's breath straining as he whispered, "Oh, God," made nausea rise to the base of my throat, and he asked, "Who lives here?"

If we weren't all sitting at attention before, we most certainly were now. I turned in my seat to look directly at Zoey, who was sandwiched between Claire and Liam, and she looked as though her mouth had gone dry. Jaw agape and a thousand-yard stare, she shook her head vigorously as I caught her eye. Her gaze shifted to Cassie, who had also turned to silently peek just as I did, then around the seating to Luke and Claire. Liam had placed his left hand on the back of her neck in a sympathetic gesture, and when she finally looked to him, I saw the muscles work in his jaw.

"Why?" he asked for us all, though his eyes stayed on her.

"Feelin' like I shouldn't be here," Colton muttered. "What—what did you guys do?"

Zoey's head whipped to Claire's lap as she snapped, "What's in the fucking closet, Colt?!"

Colton's swallow was audible. "Vials of meds, syringes, and a laptop." I tried not to picture it or assume whatever purpose they all served, but I failed. I failed miserably, and the thought made my head swim. "No clothes," Colton clarified. "Nothing else. It's… very neat."

A light caught my eye—not bright because it was from afar, but still present enough to draw my attention—and the red and blue hues made me gasp with a dramatic wheeze. Several others in the vehicle replicated the noise, though I couldn't have been sure of who.

"Laptop!" Zoey shrieked. "Leave the other shit."

"Grab and go, Colt. You have to leave," I called out. "Cops. Pulling up. Now."

Luke spoke to the ceiling, "That was not five minutes."

"Fuck," Colton cursed. "Grabbing. Going."

There was a general rustling over the speaker as I assumed that Colton rapidly moved. The air in the car felt as though it had turned even icier than the blizzard had already made it, and we all watched as the single police car leisurely stopped. A man exited the vehicle, beginning a slow descent for the stairs.

Claire yelled, "Where the fuck are you, Colt?!"

"It's been four fucking seconds," he retorted. "I'm passing the kitchen."

"Cop's on the stairs," she warned him, her tone deep. "Make a call."

"God fucking dammi—"

With an odd, static noise that was akin to a vicious crunch, Colton's voice was cut off.

The wind blew once again—this time, with a gnarly howl—and then, for a moment that I would likely revisit in a future nightmare, all was silent .

With the feel of everyone's rapid heartbeats thrumming in the air, we stared at the entrance of the complex with an anxious anticipation. Snow continued to fall. The windshield was occasionally needed to wipe the accumulated flakes away.

Per Liam's surveillance, the hallway remained empty. The policeman had entered 2D, the only sounds to be heard on the camera from him were indeterminable murmurs of code numbers into his radio, and then, after what felt like a mind-numbingly long amount of time, Mister Milkovich made an appearance. We saw him slowly begin to hobble up the stairs—heard him on the camera feed grumbling about the cold, the break-in, and the general time of day—and he wandered inside. Not a word was said between us all as we just…waited.

And waited.

And waited.

And then, Mister Milkovich left along with the police officer.

Colton, however, was nowhere to be seen.