Chapter 1

At exactly noon, the lunch rush was hitting Summit International Tower.

I was carrying three time-sensitive orders toward the elevator when a security supervisor stepped into my path and raised a metal crowd-control barrier.

"New building policy," he said, eyeing the delivery bags with disgust. "Couriers aren't allowed in the elevators anymore. Want to go upstairs? Use the stairs."

I almost laughed. Summit was forty-eight stories tall. He wasn't enforcing a reasonable safety rule. He was humiliating me.

Three years earlier, this district had barely had a convenience store. The tower's first tenants complained that there was nowhere to get lunch. Some businesses threatened to move out.

James Mercer, the property manager, had visited my courier hub personally.

"Evan, I'm begging you," he'd said. "We need someone willing to deliver out here. If our tenants leave, I'm out of a job."

I studied the redevelopment plans and saw long-term potential. I took over delivery coverage for the neighborhood, paid extra mileage incentives out of my own pocket, and personally handled the orders nobody else wanted. My crew kept those offices supplied while the neighborhood struggled to get off the ground.

Now Summit was a thriving upscale commercial center. We were so busy at lunch that even I, the owner of the local dispatch business, had to make runs. Apparently, now that the building had money, people like us were an embarrassment.

The guard gestured toward the emergency stairwell.

"Get climbing, or get out. And don't track dirt through our lobby."

I checked the delivery countdown on my phone.

"Fine," I said. "Just remember this the next time you need us."

Ray Hayes, the security supervisor, snorted.

"What about the service elevator?" I asked.

"No."

"Then how am I supposed to reach the forty-sixth floor?"

He unscrewed his water bottle. "You have legs, don't you? Isn't that why you're paid to deliver?"

The customers were waiting. I went up the stairs.

The first several flights were manageable. By the tenth floor, sweat had soaked my back. At fourteen, a customer called.

"My food says you're here. Why haven't you moved? It's already late."

I leaned on the rail. "Building management banned drivers from the elevators. I'm coming up the stairs."

"You've got to be kidding. I'm on seventeen."

"Almost there."

My legs shook on the last three flights. Kate Morgan, a regular customer, opened the door and stared at me.

"Evan, did you really walk up all seventeen floors?"

I nodded, still gasping.

"They wouldn't let you take an elevator? That's ridiculous."

I kept going. By thirty, I had to stop and catch my breath. The customer on thirty-two opened the door ready to complain, then noticed the sweat dripping from my chin.

"Why are you using the stairs?"

"New management policy."

"That's insane."

The person on forty-six was irritated by the delay until he saw the condition I was in. He accepted his lunch without another word.

When I finally returned to the lobby, my legs were trembling.

Ray was sitting comfortably in the air-conditioning.

"Well, you finished," he laughed. "A few more trips and you'll get in shape for free."

I held his gaze. "Remember you said that."

When Summit first opened, it could take half an hour to deliver a single order out here. In the established downtown zone, a driver could finish three or four in that time. I added bonuses to each Summit delivery; if nobody accepted one, I took it myself.

Ray had once ordered a late-night meal and waited nearly an hour for a driver. I brought it to him on my way home.

"Thanks, man," he'd told me. "Without you guys, I'd be eating vending-machine crackers again."

Three years later, he'd forgotten all about that.

I went straight to James Mercer's office.

"The lunch elevators are crowded," he said after hearing me out. "Management has to protect the tenant experience."

"By making people climb forty-eight floors?"

"We don't want delivery workers occupying the passenger elevators."

There was no point arguing. Downstairs, I found Ray setting out a clipboard at the rear entrance.

"New procedure," he told the other drivers. "Every delivery goes through the back. Sign in for every trip."

"We come in dozens of times a day," I said. "You expect us to sign in every time?"

He dropped the pen onto the clipboard.

"Don't like it? Don't deliver here."