Chapter 35

Finn reached for the door to the basement, twisted the knob slowly and nudged it open. When nothing happened, he moved forward cautiously.

Without warning, Finn found himself flat on the floor. Liv had grabbed his heel and yanked him backward. He turned and gave her a, What the fuck? look. She responded by pinching her nose.

Finn realized that she had smelled the sickly sweet smell of pot when he opened the basement door. Finn knew from his experience in high school that the smell was fresh. "Shit," he whispered. "Almost walked into that one. Thanks for saving my ass."

"You owe me," she whispered back.

What were they waiting for? Rodrigo wondered. The stairway door had opened, and he heard a thump, like someone falling to the floor, but now, there was only tense silence. Rodrigo realized that he was becoming paranoid and it was getting worse by the second. His normal instincts were dull, and he was feeling something unusual, panic. As sweat broke out on his face, he contemplated ways to kill that punk-ass pot dealer next time he saw him. It had to be the weed making him feel this way.

Liv kept the P-90 pointed at the door while using her left hand to reach into her Go Bag. After a second, she retrieved the bunny slipper that was missing an eye. She motioned for Finn to stand to the left side of the open door, and held the slipper like a football. She cocked her arm and spiraled the slipper through the door.

Rodrigo knew he fucked up the minute he pulled the trigger. The object sailing through the door was pink and fluffy, definitely not one of the intruders. But he fired anyway. Stuffing flew from the slipper as 9mm rounds ripped through it. He desperately tried to refocus his MP-5 at the man in the doorway, but the pot and alcohol dulled his reflexes.

Before the ill-fated slipper landed, Rodrigo was dead. Finn had emptied half a flip into the man crouched at the bottom of the stairs and three of the rounds had hit him in the head. The moment Finn stopped firing, Liv got up, sprinted to the door and stared at the corpse.

Finn covered Liv as she inched down the stairs. They soon reached the bottom and waited outside the open door of the control room, next to the dead body, listening for movement.

Finn took a deep breath and rolled into the room while Liv jumped into the doorway to provide cover. Fortunately, the room was empty. "Holy shit!" Finn exclaimed as he examined the metal desk. "This computer screen shows all the calls being made in town! And this one shows the security system. I guess they saw us coming." He noted the image of him and Liz frozen on the screen. "I look awesome with an MP-5!" Finn admired the image. "I'm gonna cover our tracks and keep this picture forever by taking the security system hard drive," he said as he tore into a nearby server rack.

Liv walked over to the burning joint and picked it up. "Remember kids." She held it between her fingers. "Smoking kills; it gives away your position! But it smells so good." She took a drag without even thinking about it. As Liv exhaled, she examined the rolled paper resting between her fingers. "Is it wrong to smoke a dead guy's weed ... especially if I helped make him dead?"

"I don't know. We'll have to ask Dear Abbie about that one. If I had to take a stab in the dark, I would guess it's bad manners. But drinking his Whiskey is cool, right?" Finn downed a shot from the bottle.

"I wonder what that red phone is for?" Liv exhaled and pointed at the bank of phones on one side of the room.

"I don't know," Finn said as he examined the phone. "It only has one button, so it must be some kind of dedicated line."

"Want to find out what it does?" She tapped off the joint's cherry and dropped the roach in a glass ash tray.

"Sure, what could possibly go wrong?" Finn responded. "We already killed a guy. We may as well see who he liked talking dirty to. You wanna do the honors?"

Liv walked to the red phone, took a deep breath, put the receiver to her ear and pressed the button.

"Look, this better be important. I'm in the middle of mourning the loss of my goddaughter ... thanks to you guys!" The man on the other end of the line laughed heartily.

"Fuck." Liv immediately recognized the voice and the color drained from her face.

"You know better than to use that language around me," Mitch Conroe said coldly. "Now, you better have something important to say? This line is for important business only!"