Read Lost City (An Eoin Miller Mystery Book 3) for Free Online

touched her foot with mine; it would have been sweet if we weren’t both flecked in blood. “What else would you have been doing that’s more interesting than this?”
    She shrugged, and turned to stare into the shower for a while, a distant look in her eyes. Once again I realized what an asshole I could be. Laura turned up dressed up nicely with an overnight bag, and I leapt to the assumption it was because she’d imagined I’d been calling her for a hookup. It hadn’t occurred to me that the city had probably thousands of other guys who, frankly, had better odds than her ex-husband.
    Had she dropped other plans to help me?
    “Come on.” She slapped my leg as she rose to her feet. “Let’s get it done before we get too settled.”
    Laura fetched her bag from the hall and dressed in jeans, a long-sleeved T-shirt, and old trainers. I had only the clothes I’d come in.
    “Now we need to get these out of here,” I said.
    I hadn’t had a chance to frame my next question before she said, “Your car. Definitely your car.”
    We started with Tony, who looked the lighter of the two. Taking an end each, we lifted his dead weight between us, and carried him out into the hallway. I kicked the fire escape door open, and we carried him into the stairwell. Laura was struggling under her end of the weight, and had to keep adjusting her grip, but she didn’t want to show it. Being on the third floor meant six short flights of stairs, and we dropped him three times, each time pausing and holding our breath, waiting for someone to come and see what the noise was.
    At the bottom of the stairwell, the exit door led to the rear parking lot. It was operated by a push bar and I knew that opening it would trigger the only alarm in the building that actually worked. Gaines had insisted on keeping it active, both because she wanted to stop people from getting in without us knowing, and because it looked good to health and safety officials. The small blinking light above the door reminded us what would happen if we tried to leave. The only other way out was to walk in the other direction, through a small lobby that led past the reception area and the bar, where a few people were drinking watered-down booze and eating microwave meals charged at restaurant prices. Below the ground level exit was one very last half flight of stairs. Next to it I spotted a closet door. Leaving Laura with the body, I walked down and forced it open, the small lock giving easily under my weight. The space stored an assortment of mops and buckets. We shoved them aside and put Tony in there and went back up for Jellyfish.
    He was heavier and took longer. This time I suggested something different to take pressure off Laura, and we stood him upright between us, like a drunk. With the majority of his weight on my shoulder, we made decent progress down the stairs. Everything went well until we were on the first floor, when my leg started to scream at me and my knee buckled. I fell into the wall beside me, and Jellyfish slipped from us, falling face-first down to the next landing in a loud and graceless belly flop.
    We heard a door open and close in the hallway above us, and footsteps begin padding toward the stairwell.
    Laura shot me a level look and moved quickly to drag Jelly to the top of the next flight of stairs. Then she shoved him roughly down the first couple of steps and left him face down. That position made him look as if he was reaching for the top step. I went up and reached the landing above just in time to see the door to the stairwell open.
    A man in a rumpled business suit stepped through the fire escape door, sleep in his eyes. Salesman, banker, insurance rep. Whatever life he lived, it was one that had led him to The Hound in Wolverhampton rather than the Radisson in Birmingham. He’d have a list of disappointments and defeats all of his own, but a modest life didn’t equate a dishonest one, and I still had to assume he’d dial 999 if things