HIS WIFE HIRED ME TO BE INVISIBLE

CHAPTER 3: THE GATE

I was driving to the storage unit address when my secret phone buzzed.

I had spent twenty minutes on the road with no real plan. Just the city streets and the GPS address that I had memorized before wiping the device. The odor from the storage unit two nights ago was still stuck in my nose. The rain was quite heavy, unfortunately I already told myself I had to go because I needed to know what I was getting myself into.

I had spent the past forty minutes telling myself the partly true version of events. I walked to my car and drove through the city without choosing the turns. The strong smell in my lungs had been deciding the turns for me. I just allowed that thought to sit there without really looking at it too hard.

Two nights earlier, I had stood in front of the storage unit for thirty seconds before getting back into my car. I had told myself that I was being careful. Someone had called me back, but I didn’t know the reason for that yet.

Tonight, I understood it. I still went there. Then the phone buzzed twice. I drove to the side of the road with the engine still running, and I looked at the screen.

One message. From B. Four words: I know you are driving.

My jaw tightened. The street outside was quiet, empty and wet from the earlier rain. There were no cars on the road, and I could not see people moving around.

My phone rang.

"Miss Chen," he said.

Not a question. Just a fact. The voice of a man who never introduces himself on such calls.

"Who are you?" I asked.

“Someone who has been stalking Alexander Vance for eleven months,” he said. “Someone who knows the Vance Holdings building in the financial district of town. The seventh floor. The long-term deal."

My hands stayed on the wheel.

Eleven months of watching from outside. I had been in the Vance building for eight months. For three months, he had done this alone before I came into the picture.

"What do you want?" I said.

“What you do,” he replied.

“I want to know what they are building in that company.”

"I drive a car; I do not build things." I replied.

“For eight months you have been driving something from the front seat,” he said. "You are very good at it."

I said nothing. I was waiting for him to say something that showed what he didn’t know.

"The storage unit," he said. "Go tonight. East side. Unit 4B. But be very careful."

My hands stayed still on the wheel.

I thought about his words again.

The storage unit. I had not told him anything about the storage unit. Or an address, or where I was going. He said it before I did. Which meant he already knew about it. He was not sending me there. He was just saying he knew I was already going. I remembered that.

“For how long have you been monitoring this phone?” I asked.

“Since before it was put in the glove box,” he said.

Four seconds of silence. I counted.

"The key," he said. "Think about what it opens."

The call ended.

One call tonight. It lasted two minutes, forty-three seconds.

My thumb was on the delete button before I decided to delete it.

The first thing I noticed was my thumb. I sat with it for a moment. The thumb had moved. It had decided something my mind did not know yet. The call was still there on the screen, my thumb resting on the button, waiting.

I allowed it to finish.

The call disappeared. Those eleven numbers stayed in my head until I had memorized them all. Then the contact’s name changed from B to Bola. A person. Someone I might actually know.

The Board could track this phone's location. But that call no longer existed for them to see since I had already cleared the cache.

Alex did not know the phone was tracked. He gave it to me, believing it was clean. Now it was cleaner. I had done that for him without meaning to.

The call was gone. The cache was empty. His number was in my head. In the contacts, he was Bola, someone who might be real.

The Board might check the phone. They would see a driver on a side street after eleven at night. Engine running, talking to no one.

I started the car engine and drove toward the address of the storage unit.

The facility was on the east side, in an industrial area. There were rows of metal doors under buzzing fluorescent lights, which were barely audible. I parked near the exit two streets away.

Eight months of professional habit.

I walked in slowly like a person who belonged there. Unit 4B was at the end of the row. The big roll-up door was halfway open. The edge was three steps away, and I froze.

My feet stopped first. Not my decision. It just happened. Then the rest of me froze too. The smell was Alex's. Not from the storage units. It was his smell. He had been here, and the air had retained it for me.

I stood at the door. I did not go in.

There was a sound that came from inside the unit. Not a person. Something mechanical.

The panel mounted on the wall by the door, and it had a little green light on it. I had not decided what to do. But I walked towards it anyway. Now the light was red.

I looked at it. The green light was on when I arrived; I was sure of this, the way one is sure of things without thinking hard about it. My eyes saw it. Someone had changed it for the person watching.

I knew what it meant.

The gate motor started, and the big roll-up door began to close.

I turned and fell to my knees before I could think.

Four feet away. Three. Two.

I slid across the concrete. The jacket pulled on the back of my neck. I pulled my arm through and out. I went down before I could stand up on my feet.

The car was exactly where I had left it, facing the exit. Eight months of being professional with what I do. Engine running. Lights off. Two miles in every direction, I knew where the roads bent and where they ended.

Then the silence came in.

It was not the same silence as 20 minutes ago in the dark alley. I sat in the driver’s seat with my hands on the wheel, and I felt the change. I was driving toward something new 20 minutes ago. Now I was still after something that wanted to trap me.

I breathed out, then in. I kept repeating this until my hands stopped shaking.

Someone had switched that panel light from green to red just as I stood at the door. I was meant to go inside when the door opened.

I could not say whether it was the Board or Camilla. I knew that the light was green when I got close. It turned red when the gate started to move, even when I had not touched the panel.

The Board contact already knew about the storage unit before I said anything. He had advised me to take care. Then he sent me into a building with a panel that someone else could turn on remotely. The word ‘careful’ meant more than I thought.

There was a tear in the back of my jacket where the gate had caught it. I would not be able to wear it to the building tomorrow. I added it to my list of problems to fix.

He had been good at handling things from the front seat in the past eight months. Before I saw the door closing tonight, someone had shut it.

I noted that too. Not as a mistake, but as information. Someone had been watching the storage unit. They had access to the panel. They were ready to push the button the moment I got close to the door.

That was patience. Not some accident. Whoever had flipped that light must have known I was coming. They let me walk most of the way in. Then they closed the trap.

There were no new messages from Bola.

I had deleted the call history. A record that would have protected me had been erased. I did it for a man who had not asked me to.

I had no regrets anyway.

I held onto that one truth. Not the gate nor the panel. Not the scent that had brought me here before. Not even the fact that someone had been keeping an eye on the phone long before it was hidden in the glove box.

It meant something by chance, though it wasn't for an inquiry I had to pay for; the payment didn’t feel like a payment. No word for what that meant. The car was quiet. The loading dock was black and empty. It was the silent thing sitting next to me in the car.

Then the engine started.

Home was the first place they might check. Next was the Vance building. The other GPS address was still in my head. I wrote it down. Then I deleted it from all devices. A new place. A new name. I had kept it secret for three days without going.

Now I drove into the road. Toward the second address and whatever was waiting thereafter.

END