He put a hand to his ear to block out the alarm and all the talking and concentrate on his trusted adviser. “What’s happening?”
“I wish I knew.”
“That answer doesn’t fill me with confidence. Also makes me question your credibility since it smacks of the exact opposite feeling of what you’ve been selling to the room.”
Lowell had known Palmer for years. They’d thrown in together soon after Craft took a lucrative business running secured storage space facilities and grew it into a multimillion-dollar enterprise. He moved it from servicing small-time residential customers to being the place commercial businesses looked to for long-term privacy and storage solutions. They were the leader in the field, and the cash kept rolling in.
But creating an empire also created enemies. Family members raged at his refusal to cut them in or be their bank. Former employees who believed loyalty was enough to secure their jobs learned that he demanded results when he fired them and sent them packing from the building minutes later.
He insisted on greatness and eliminated those who didn’t give it to him. His system ensured that he surrounded himself with the best but had also led to many threats over the years. The latest, which demanded he step down, was less about evening a score than about pushing him out.
He was not going anywhere.
Along the way while transitioning from one type of company to another, Palmer lost a wife who preferred shorter work hours to a bigger paycheck. After that, their son died and Palmer ended up alone. Through it all, he never lost his commitment to the job. So when Palmer’s voice wavered with worry now, Lowell knew to listen.
Lowell went with his gut. “Call the police.”
“We still can’t phone out.”
“Find a satellite phone if you have to.”
The siren continued to wail in the background. Lowell strained to hear the low rumble of Angie and Mark’s conversation over the buzzing and squealing, but he couldn’t make out more than a few useless words. The alarm blocked out everything unless you were standing right on top of someone else.
And Angie and Mark did appear to be rather close all of a sudden. Lowell couldn’t remember ever seeing them talk outside of an executive meeting before now. This was her new ploy. She’d flirted with a business associate from another office the week before. Suddenly she’d turned on the charm to some of the executive staff, or attempted to, when she’d always found them beneath her in the past. It was as if she was trying to ingratiate herself, but he had no idea why.
She’d used a few days together over Thanksgiving when his family was out of town to insist he buy her a condo. When he said no, she’d smashed the favorite decanter in his library and made a scene. Threatening to remove her from the property had calmed things down.
Now he wondered if it was time to move on. After all, women like Angie were not hard to find. Beautiful women gravitated to power. He possessed it, which meant he could possess them.
But dropping her would be difficult. She had skills and she listened. She handled the unpleasant items at work and eased his stress during the day. She gave him something he needed, and she knew that.
Maybe he should just buy her the condo.
“Sir?”
Lowell dragged his attention back to Palmer, but the disgust over Angie’s newest and not-so-veiled attempts at making him jealous still boiled his blood. “Well, we can’t sit here and wait for someone to attack me.”
Forget the woman. Forget the inconvenience. Lowell swore under his breath as the reality of the situation hit home. This attack wasn’t a test run. Whatever was happening was for real.
“We can’t go out there and invite someone to take a shot at you, either.”
“This is exactly why I brought on McBain. He was supposed to prevent this sort of thing. The minute the party started, he disappeared. Have we heard anything?”
“No.”
“He’d better be subduing this attack.”
Palmer wiped a hand through his hair. “I think we need to explore the possibility McBain is the mastermind behind this. The pieces fit. The escalation started after he came on your property.”
The idea had floated through Lowell’s mind earlier and he’d immediately discounted it. He refused to believe his instincts had wandered that far off track. He’d trusted Aaron and didn’t want to believe that his trust was misplaced or that he had invited his attacker in close.
Having Palmer voice the concerns made Lowell’s defenses rise. “I believe there is another possibility, one we’ve been avoiding. That Aaron and his men were our first casualties today. What are you going to do to ensure that there aren’t more?”
Palmer stood up straight again. “The situation is under control.”
“How can you say that?”
Palmer glanced at his assistant and then back to Lowell. “We are in lockdown in here. Whatever is happening outside that door isn’t coming in here.”
“That has been the scenario for almost an hour and we are not one ounce safer, as far as I can tell.”
The other security man, Max something, if Lowell remembered right, came over. When Palmer nodded, Max delivered his report. “This is different from a voluntary situation. I’m saying the doors are locked.”
“What are you talking about?” Lowell asked.
“We are stuck in this interior room.” Palmer slowly twisted the knob and nothing happened. He shook it harder and the door rattled but didn’t move. “The door appears to be bolted from the outside. I can take it off at the hinges, or try, but I don’t know what’s on the other side.”
“They trapped us in here, sir.” Max delivered the information in a quick burst. Then he turned to Lowell. “If I may say so, sir, clearly someone who works for you and is integral to your operation, close enough to know your schedule, wants you out. That’s the only explanation behind the threats.”
“Not the only.” Palmer glanced at Brandon, who was staring right back.
Lowell heard the edge to the man’s voice. “Meaning?”
“There is someone in here who would benefit if his father was out of the picture.”
Lowell shot Brandon a look. He sat slumped in his chair, tapping his fingers against the table as Angie and Mark’s conversation went on without him.
Aaron had ventured down this line of questioning, as well. Lowell discounted the argument as easily this time as he had the last. “He doesn’t get controlling interesting in the business and what money he would get is tied up in a trust. There’s no benefit here.”
Max cleared his throat. “There are other reasons to kill a parent.”
Brandon’s lack of respect was not a secret. But that was different from being a killer. “And easier ways.”
Then there was the problem of weakness. Brandon didn’t have the guts to take charge of something like this. He’d barely gotten through college and couldn’t hold down the one job he managed to obtain, he’d lost it within a month. The idea of him acting the role of mastermind for something like this was out of the question.
Not that his hatred wasn’t strong enough. Even now Brandon sat there, the rage radiating off him and showing in every line of his taut muscles and locked jaw. Typical of his useless generation, he wanted everything handed to him. The sense of entitlement never wavered.
Lowell hoped that Brandon would one day turn all his misplaced anger into actual energy. “What does your gut tell you, Palmer?”
“Someone close to you wants you dead, and the person has chosen today to make that happen.”
Lowell had already figured out that part. “Then you better do your job.”
* * *
AARON LED THEM DOWN THE metal stairwell. Three sets of feet tapped against the steps as they moved. The close quarters emphasized the sounds of their breathing and the rustling of their clothing.
The kid was tied up and gagged on the floor above them. Aaron had wanted to knock him out, but Risa had insisted they leave him awake. She’d argued
about how helpful he’d been and how he was in enough trouble with being hurt. He’d come to take her, and she’d begged for his safety.
Aaron chalked it up to a difference between men and women. Once he found out the kid wanted Risa, Aaron didn’t care what happened to him so long as he never touched her.
But the mix of softness and toughness inside her intrigued him. She didn’t slip into panic mode, though she had every reason and all right to do so. She stood up, carried on and functioned as a good ad hoc team member.
She also liked to argue a point to death. Much more of this argument and his head would explode. “Absolutely not.”
“I can help. I can get places you guys can’t because I’m smaller.”
He refused to give into her on this. “No.”
She held on to the back of his suit jacket as they shuffled down the steps. Aaron stood in front of her like a shield, prepared to throw his body on top of hers if needed. Royal stood at the back with his gun and gaze scanning for danger.
The theory was any attacker would have to get through both of them to get to her. If they managed that, she had a weapon and promised she’d use it right before she raced down the stairs and out of the building into the cold but safer night.
“What choice do we have?” She asked the same question for the fourth time.
He’d used the same reasoning to take the risk and get off the upper floor. They were trapped up there. He needed to know what was happening with Lowell and get them all on the ground.
Then he would question every person inside and outside the building until someone broke.
“We can try anything else.” Anything that didn’t include her entering into more danger.
“There is another team roaming the halls. And that assumes the kid’s information is right and there aren’t more out there,” Royal said.
Aaron thought about firing Royal on the spot. “Whose side are you on here?”
“Just pointing out the obvious.”
Aaron fell back on the same argument. The same plan. “We cover the floors until we get to the conference room the kid mentioned. Risa hangs back and we blow in.”
“We could be dead by then.” Her fingers clenched his jacket as she said the words.
“Not to mention the problem with going in blind. There are other potential victims here and we could launch a firefight without figuring out who is behind this,” Royal said.
They hit the floor above the party and the conference room and Aaron hesitated. “It looks like most of the people are out of the building.”
“They could have been escorted out to highlight the true targets.”
Before he could reassess or pick apart Royal’s argument, Aaron slipped the door open and peeked out into the empty hall. No construction gear here. The floor was done and ready for use. Better news came from the quiet.
They walked out and onto the main floor. Neither of his coconspirators said anything as he led them toward the maintenance room. Without making a sound, they slid inside. There were closets and cleaning supplies, an electric box, vents and plumbing pipes. This was a maintenance pathway to the heart of the building. The vent system led from floor to floor, then to the basement.
He knew from the plans that someone could travel across the top of the rooms and use the lighting squares to peek in the spaces below. He’d made the mistake of mentioning that upstairs and Risa had morphed into commando mode.
He’d put an end to that right now. “I’ll go in, get above the conference room and see what’s happening there. We’ll figure out our next move once we have that intel.”
Risa ran her hand over the vent and peeked into the grate they’d need to use to get in. “Unless you plan on cutting off both arms, neither one of you is going to fit in the heating vents.”
“No way.”
“Big shoulders. Will the metal even hold your weight? And even if everything else works and you actually manage to get in there, I doubt that you’ll be able to maneuver enough to get back out. Someone will hear you in a second. I am your only choice.”
“Still no.”
“It’s either this or take our chances on walking onto that floor blind.”
Now she sounded like Royal. He worried enough about getting her out of there without having to come up with a plan to rescue her from inside the equivalent of a toothpaste tube when this went wrong.
And it would go wrong.
“What if they hear you or you fall?” he asked her. “So many things can go wrong. The chances of you getting caught are too high.”
“Be reasonable.”
Royal exhaled loud enough to be heard above the alarm system. “That argument is never going to work. He is not willing to risk your life.”
She frowned. “Why not?”
The throwaway question combined with her clueless expression snapped Aaron’s control. “Don’t be stupid.”
“Excuse me?” she said in a tone that sounded more like a lecturing schoolteacher than a questioning victim.
Royal moved an inch, putting his body slightly between Risa and Aaron. “Uh, Aaron.”
Aaron talked right over him, half around and partially through him. The point was to get Risa’s attention. “You know why. We’re dating.”
A sharp silence followed his shout. Except for the ticking of air through the vent, nothing made a sound.
After a few heated seconds, Royal broke the quiet. “Let her try. She knows the risk, and this is the least risky of all options.”
“I said no.” But the arguments and her determination were wearing him down.
“It’s possible the alarm will bring police and emergency personnel, but I’m not counting on it,” Royal said. “We’re not exactly on top of other buildings out here, and Elan is not up and running.”
It would be nice if Royal were a bit less convincing, but Aaron was not that lucky. “We have to assume we’re on our own.”
“Exactly.”
Aaron felt his command over the situation slip. “Whose side are you on?”
“The one that gets us out of here and identifies the conspiracy before anyone else gets killed. I know there are empty cartridges and the kid says it’s a prank, or whatever, but we have one dead and two more possible by now. We can’t depend on the hope that this is nothing but some odd sort of drill.”
“Which tells us it’s time to act.” He turned to Risa and knew she was their best course of action. “Fine.”
A smile broke across her face. “Thank you.”
“For what?” He grumbled because that’s how he felt on the inside. All raw and dug out and anxious for what was to come.
“For letting me do this. I know you’re against it and it’s killing you to give in.”
“I’m an idiot to listen to you on this.”
She shrugged out of her pantsuit jacket, leaving only a whisper-thin silky white shirt, and slipped her heels off. “And thanks for not hurting the kid upstairs.”
“I refrained because you wouldn’t let me kill him.” He slipped his fingers through the screen to the opening of the vents and twisted it until he heard a snap. With a tug, he pulled the screen off.
Looking at the space and peering deep into the darkness inside, he wondered how she would fit. She had a slim build, but the space was tight. He hated to admit it, but Risa was right. If he managed to get in there and shifted the wrong way, his shoulders would wedge and they’d need the Jaws of Life to get him out.
“You don’t kill kids except in self-defense.” She shook her head. “Boy, does that sound weird when I say it. I’m hoping I never need to use that sentence again. Or even think about what it means.”
She insisted on seeing the kid upstairs as a victim. That touched off a fire in Aaron’s brain that he didn’t want to analyze. “He’s older than you think he is.”
“And younger than you want him to be.”
Royal chuckled.
Aaron gave up. “You win this round.”
“I plan
to win the next one, too, so we may as well get started.”
She put his hands on her hips and turned her back to him. He scooted up close, then stopped. The point was to lift her up, but he hesitated. Feeling her body under his fingers, having the heat of her skin burn through his dress shirt, smelling the coconut scent in her hair, all brought it home.
“Please be careful.” He whispered the plea against her soft hair.
She glanced at him over her shoulder as if knowing how hard it was for him to ask anything of anyone. She squeezed his hand as her gaze searched his face. “You’ll make sure I’m safe.”
“Here.” Royal slipped a rope around her waist and tied a knot.
“What is this for?”
“If we have to, we can pull on this rope to get you back fast. If that happens, don’t fight it.”
Aaron wanted to kick his own butt for not thinking of the precaution. She had him spinning in circles. He looked at her and his common sense fled. Putting her straight into danger was eating a hole in his stomach and slowly rotting his brain.
She stared at the thick piece of corded rope and weighed it in her fingers. “Pulling on that thing would hurt. Like, rip off my skin.”
“Hey. It likely won’t be necessary, so let’s concentrate on the bigger issue.” Aaron put a hand under her chin and lifted her face so he could see directly into those dark eyes. “You go quiet but fast.”
“Got it.” Her voice came back as a soft whisper.
“I won’t let anything happen to you.”
She smiled. “I know.”
Before he could lose control or do something stupid like waste their first kiss on a quick moment, he picked her up and lifted her to the grate. She went up and in without any noise. Her bare feet disappeared a second later.
Royal waited until the opening was clear. “You’ve got it bad for her.”
Aaron didn’t dispute it because he knew Royal wasn’t wrong.
“Your lack of denial says it all.”
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