Desperate Souls Read Free Page B

on the Tower. So far, he had observed nothing suspicious.
    Other unforeseen complications had arisen, though. Jake had underestimated Tower’s importance to the global economy. The company’s tentacles reached out to every industrialized nation on Earth, and when the government stepped in, their intervention helped cause the collapse of the global economy. Banks, manufacturing, medical advances, airlines, investments—virtually any institution in which Tower owned a stake—self-destructed. Jake had succeeded in bringing the old man’s company to its figurative knees but in so doing had wreaked untold damage on the entire world.
    He passed the Cajun restaurant, where he often ate and sometimes met clients, next to the building where he lived and worked and the storefront where a psychic worked. He had glimpsed the attractive woman who worked there through her front window but had not introduced himself because he never saw her outside. Inside the building’s vestibule, he punched his personal security code into a keypad and entered the building’s sparse lobby. No doorman, just several security cameras and alarms that Jake had installed as “security consultant” in exchange for reduced rent on his office. He had never met the landlord and made his monthly check out to Eden, Inc.
    Jake chose to take the building’s wide stairs over its confined elevator whenever possible. Although he had played basketball with Edgar and Martin for an hour, he liked any exercise he could incorporate into his daily routine. The stairs opened up onto each floor, allowing him to see the closed doors of his neighbors. On the fourth floor, next to a plain steel door, a simple nameplate off to one side read Helman Investigations and Security.
    He unlocked the door, entered the office, and pressed the keys on another security pad. The front room served as a receptionist area, even though he had no real receptionist. The suite had an old-fashioned railroad apartment layout, with each room directly behind the other. He passed through a kitchenette with a narrow bathroom, then his own office, which overlooked Twenty-third Street and afforded him a view of the Flatiron Building, the Woolworth Building, and the Tower. It was illegal for individuals to maintain residences in office buildings, of course, but he had the run of the place after hours and an understanding with the building’s agent.
    Entering his bedroom behind the office, he stripped off his damp T-shirt, shorts, and underwear and stepped inside the shower stall, a narrow construct with an opaque glass door facing his bed. He missed having an actual bathtub, not to mention a toilet in the same room as his shower, but he could not argue with the rent he paid.
    His signing bonus from Tower and Sheryl’s life insurance policy had enabled him to set up shop here. Contrary to what Edgar thought, Jake’s business did not thrive on divorce cases. He took his share of them but only when they met the same criteria as his other cases: he had to know that in some small way, his efforts helped someone. Although he had killed Kira in self-defense, he had executed the Cipher and Old Nick in cold blood and felt compelled to atone for his actions.

    Showered and shaved, Jake dressed in comfortable slacks, a blue shirt, and a tie. He typically worked in jeans and casual shirts, but since he had made plans to meet Edgar and his girlfriend for dinner, he decided to dress up a little.
    When the front door buzzed, he looked up at the security monitors above his office sofa and saw a thick Hispanic woman and a boy standing in the building’s vestibule. He buzzed them in, then waited in the suite’s doorway. As they got off the elevator, he saw that the woman was in her early fifties. Her footsteps echoed in the corridor, her weight shifting with each slow step.
    “Mrs. Rodriguez? I’m Jake Helman.”
    “Hello.” Dressed head to toe in black, the woman gestured at the boy standing beside her. “My