CHAPTER 2 CONTINUED
He didn't know I used to work for the agency that mapped his building.
Six months ago, before my graphic design firm lost its anchor clients and laid off half the staff, we won the contract to overhaul Sunlake Plaza’s internal directories. I didn’t just design the glossy kiosk maps for the shoppers. I spent three weeks rendering the employee-only service corridors, the evacuation routes, the camera blind spots, and the restricted utility zones. I knew the exact layout of the sub-basement infrastructure. I knew exactly where the maintenance hub was, and I knew how to get there without crossing a single security checkpoint.
I turned away from the parking lot and walked down the narrow, shaded alley behind the loading bays. A heavy steel utility door sat flush against the concrete, marked with a faded yellow stencil. I gripped the handle, punched the standard five-digit vendor access code I still had memorized from the design contract, and pulled.
The door unsealed with a heavy mechanical click.
I slipped inside, letting the door close behind me. The stifling heat of the alley vanished, replaced by the freezing, ozone-scented air of the sub-level utility corridors. The thick hum of the plaza’s massive HVAC chillers vibrated through the soles of my shoes. I moved quickly down the painted concrete hallway, keeping my head down, listening for the heavy footsteps of security guards.
The maintenance supervisor’s office was located at the end of the corridor, walled in thick, wire-mesh glass that looked out over a sprawling indoor parts bay. The lights were on, but the desk was empty. It was one-thirty on a Saturday afternoon. The entire maintenance crew was out in the plaza, answering calls for broken escalators, overflowing fountain pumps, and jammed registers.
I pushed the office door open and stepped inside. The air in the room smelled of machine oil and stale coffee.
I didn't have time to dig blindly. OSHA regulations required strict, accessible logging for every piece of safety equipment, especially lockout-tagout gear. It couldn't be locked in a private drawer. I scanned the supervisor’s cluttered desk, moving past work orders and vendor invoices, until I saw a heavy red binder sitting on a metal filing cabinet against the far wall. The spine was stamped in bold white lettering: LOTO REGISTRY & COMPLIANCE.
I stepped over to the cabinet and pulled the heavy binder open.
The thick plastic sleeves cracked as I turned the pages, scanning the serial number blocks. The registry was meticulously organized, listing the exact padlock number, the date of issue, and the authorized employee assigned to hold the solitary key. I flipped past the 600s, then the 700s, tracking the columns with my bruised thumb.
I hit the 800-series block.
MNT-812: Paul Miller, Chief Engineer. MNT-813: David Hodges, Systems Tech.
My finger stopped.
MNT-814: Tyler Vance, Apprentice Electrician.
I stared at the name. It wasn't a disgruntled technician or a cruel prankster from a rival agency. It was Richard Vance’s son.
I reached into my pocket, pulled out the red padlock, and held it directly next to the page. The scuffed vinyl sticker on the back of the lock perfectly matched the registry entry. MNT-814. The property director’s son had intentionally locked a heavy steel collar around my spine, trapping me inside a suffocating, unventilated foam shell, and walked away. Richard Vance hadn’t offered me fifteen hundred dollars out of corporate liability. He had done it to keep his son out of prison.
I needed to tie Tyler to the exact location. I dropped the lock back into my pocket, reached across the desk, and grabbed the daily dispatch clipboard. I ran my finger down Saturday’s work orders. At 12:15 PM, Tyler Vance had been assigned to inspect a tripped breaker panel in Sub-Basement Room 4.
Room 4 was the vendor locker room. It was the exact room where I had been putting on the suit.
I pulled my phone from my pocket. My hands were shaking, the adrenaline spiking through my exhausted muscles. I opened the camera app, making sure the location and timestamp settings were active. I framed the heavy red binder in the lens, ensuring the column for MNT-814 and Tyler Vance’s signature were perfectly legible. I snapped three photos of the registry. I moved the phone, framed the daily dispatch clipboard showing Tyler’s assignment to the vendor locker room, and snapped two more.
The digital shutter had just clicked for the final time when I heard the heavy access doors at the far end of the parts bay slam open.
"I don't care what he was assigned to do, Paul! You pull him off the floor right now!"
Richard Vance’s voice echoed sharply across the concrete, frantic and stripped of all its polished corporate control.
I froze. The footsteps were moving fast, heading directly for the supervisor's office.
I looked around the small glass-walled room. There was no secondary exit, only a narrow gap between the tall metal filing cabinets and the back wall. I shoved the dispatch clipboard back onto the desk, closed the red compliance binder, and threw myself into the dark gap, pressing my spine flat against the cinderblock wall just as the office door swung open.