The Venom Records building was constructed around 1912.

No one knows for certain, but that is the quasi-agreed-upon year it went up. Originally, it housed offices upstairs and a manufacturing plant that occupied the entire basement, filled with printing presses and heavy machinery.

That layout made it the perfect place to install the vinyl manufacturing and distribution center when Venom Records purchased the building in 1957.

No walls had been built, and the open floor plan allowed equipment to be moved in and rearranged as needed. Eventually, they added a small office for the head of Production. That would be Jenkins at present. There was also an inventory room, a tape room, and a tape library that resembled a bank vault—except it was climate-controlled specifically for tape.

It may have seemed like excessive security for a record label, but it wasn’t about protecting the contents from intruders as much as it was about preserving the masters. There was well over ten million dollars’ worth of master tapes locked away in that vault.

Manufacturing meant blue-collar labor, so you didn’t have college graduates working in the basement. You’d be lucky if most of them had a high school diploma. They weren’t bad people—they just weren’t extraordinarily observant.

That was how a weasel like Jenkins could get away with some of the things he was known for doing without anyone fully understanding how it affected them.

He was a schemer. In fact, his first demotion had actually been deserved. Jenkins had fudged the books on tape distribution and had been caught with five thousand dollars’ worth of master tape in his car. Roth knew nothing about it. The president of the label had demoted Jenkins before putting Roth in charge and stepping down.

Which was exactly why Jenkins was so willing to spy for Roth on Tammy and her requisition for another roll of tape. He was always trying to stay on Roth’s good side for as long as he needed him. Loyalty would get him so far—but he wanted to go further.

It was early, before the plant opened, so Jenkins was the only one there when he heard the outside door open and the sharp click of Tammy’s heels on the same dirty linoleum they had upstairs. It was still better than the plant floor itself, which was unfinished concrete—hard on every part of your body and soul if you worked down there all day.

“I hate this place,” Tammy muttered to herself as she strutted down the hallway, unaware she wasn’t alone. “Roth would never let me down here, and now I know why. It’s probably filled with spiders.”

That thought terrified her in a way Jenkins never could.

She rang the buzzer outside the pickup door, and Jenkins opened it.

“Hi, Miss Powell. What can I do for you?” he said, attempting friendliness—something that only made him sound more snake-like than if he hadn’t tried at all.

“I’m here to pick up a new roll of tape, please,” she replied, her voice making it clear she wanted to get out of there as quickly as possible.

“We can get you that. Do you have your requisition form?” Jenkins asked.

“I called it in from the studio yesterday, Jenkins. Let’s stop playing games. Normally you just run the tape out to the studio. I know—I used to schedule the tape deliveries. What’s going on? Did Roth put you up to this?”

Jenkins was slightly taken aback by Tammy’s forthrightness. She had always said Mr. Jenkins and Mr. Roth.

“What, no ‘Mr.’?” Jenkins asked, the way you’d ask a child if they wanted candy.

No one else was working. It was just her and Jenkins, and her fear of spiders was beginning to morph into something else—a fear of a trap, of a setup. Jenkins was stalling. He had never said more than one or two words to her at a time before today.

No more being businesslike. This was getting on Tammy’s nerves.

“May I please just have my tape and let me get out of here?” she said, more agitated than angry.

Jenkins’ tone shifted—from forced pleasantry to something sharper. His bluff had been called, and he knew it.

“Fine. Enough of this. You want the truth?” he said. “I set it up so you’d have to come get the tape. I wanted you away from the band, on uneven ground, so I could talk some sense into you. Roth is onto all of you. You’re not going to outsmart him.”

He was vague, but he chose his words carefully—just enough to make her wonder how much Roth really knew.

“He knows what you want the tape for,” Jenkins continued as he handed her the box. “And he knows now that you have it. Don’t be surprised if he pays you a visit at the studio.”

Tammy looked Jenkins straight in the eye. Without thinking it through, she said, “I don’t know yet how much Roth knows. But I know you don’t know anything.”

Her heart pounded in her chest.

“And you know what else?” she added. “I know about you and the car full of tapes. If you don’t want Roth to ever find out about that, next time you’ll deliver the tape… yourself.”

Tammy didn’t even realize it, but she had just won a huge fight.

Maybe she knew it a little. The way she walked away—her strut no longer forced, now something closer to a confident swagger—suggested as much.