THE ENGAGEMENT CHARADE

The garage smelled heavily of gasoline.

Adrian, Tom, and I sprinted down the concrete ramp. Two of Adrian’s guards were standing by the fleet of black SUVs, shining flashlights underneath the chassis of the lead car.

“What is it?” Adrian demanded.

“C-4, boss,” the guard said, his voice tight with panic. “Wired to the ignition. If you had tried to evacuate Vivienne or the kid tonight, it would have taken out the whole convoy.”

Answer One: Marcus wasn’t just planning to poison Vivienne. He had rigged the cars to wipe out anyone trying to escape with the boy. Open Two: Marcus was in custody upstairs. Who actually planted the bombs?

I looked around the sprawling garage. My eyes landed on a heavy steel workbench in the corner. Sitting on top of it was a thick, black canvas duffel bag.

I walked over to it. The zipper was half open.

Inside were coils of wire, wire cutters, and a heavy brass keyring holding a single, tarnished key.

I recognized the keyring.

“Tom,” I called out.

He jogged over, Adrian right behind him.

I held up the keyring. “This belongs to Paulie. The stage manager from the theater.”

Tom’s face drained of color. “No. Paulie’s just a kid.”

A reversal. The community theater wasn’t just a random place Tom hid. It was a staging ground. And the sweet, stuttering kid who built the sets was a bomb maker for the cartel.

“He’s not a kid,” Adrian said grimly. “Paulie is Marcus’s younger brother. He’s the one who’s been funding Marcus from the outside.”

Suddenly, the heavy metal garage doors began to rattle. They were sliding shut, the automated system locking us in.

A voice echoed over the garage PA system. It was Paulie. His stutter was completely gone.

“Sorry, Mr. Falcone. Marcus warned me this might go sideways. You’re not leaving this garage.”

The digital clock on the wall switched from the time to a countdown timer.

03:00.

Three minutes until the C-4 detonated.

“Shoot the doors!” Adrian yelled.

The guards opened fire, but the bullets sparked harmlessly off the reinforced steel.

“It won’t work,” Tom said, looking around frantically. “We need to cut the power to the detonator.”

I stared at the black duffel bag. I pulled out a set of blueprints hidden at the bottom. They were schematics of the SUVs.

“I know how he wires things,” I said, my theater wardrobe experience suddenly kicking in. “Paulie used to wire the stage pyrotechnics. He always uses a dummy wire to trick people. Red is the dummy. Green is the live wire.”

Adrian looked at me, his eyes wide. “Are you sure, Maggie?”

“I’m sure.”

We dropped to the ground, sliding beneath the lead SUV. The brick of C-4 was taped to the axle, a tangle of red, blue, and green wires pulsing with a tiny LED light.

01:45.

Adrian pulled a tactical knife from his boot. “Okay, Maggie. Which one?”

“Cut the blue one first to kill the battery,” I said, praying my memory of Paulie’s stage tricks was right.

Adrian sliced the blue wire. The LED light flickered, but the timer kept counting down.

01:12.

“Now the green,” I said, my heart hammering in my throat.

Adrian hesitated. “If you’re wrong, we’re dead.”

“I’m not wrong,” I said. “He always hides the real danger in plain sight.”

Adrian gritted his teeth and pressed the blade against the green wire.