Shit, they were coming for me already and I had to get out of this thing and inside before they got here and I was so screwed and Devon needed me and I was –
I realized several minutes later that the siren had faded away again in the distance, as whoever it was sped off to some other crime scene that totally didn’t involve me. I was still free, clear, and innocent of all charges.
I realized this while me and my stolen snowplow sat in the middle of the lobby of Killane Corporate Holdings, surrounded by a sea of shattered glass.
Yeah, I kind of, sort of, might have panicked just a little bit when I heard that siren … and it’s entirely possible that my foot slipped off the brake and hit the gas pedal at some point in the next few frantic seconds, and it’s a certified fact that one very expensive piece of city property and I slammed up over the curb, slid across the snowy sidewalk, and crashed through the front of the building in an explosion of breaking glass.
Geez, Ashley, you couldn’t have just used your keycard like a normal person?
I sat looking out through the snowplow’s cracked windshield for a minute or five. I’d belted in before I took off on my life of crime and hadn’t hit anything that didn’t give way immediately, so I was unhurt – except for the whole ‘psychological trauma’ thing, anyway. I sat, I wondered what the hell had just happened, and I noticed in a detached way that the truck had crunched over a few chairs in the waiting area while sliding to a stop.
This was going to be one pricey fix for building maintenance, that was for sure. I wondered if it would come out of my paycheck, because that’s the weird kind of thought you have when you come crashing to your boyfriend’s rescue in a liberated snowplow.
I shut off the engine, I rolled down my window, and I listened to the silence. This place was deserted as anything, and the ticking of the cooling engine was really loud in all that silence.
Then an alarm sounded in the distance, and that got my ass snapped back to reality in a hurry.
If any security staff were still in the building, they’d be here any minute. If the chief of security, Mr. Ferrum, happened to be on hand, he’d probably show up holding a blazing gun in each hand while calling in an air strike on his headset.
Meanwhile, the cameras covering every inch of the place must have caught my sudden arrival and would show me climbing down out of the cab – but while that sure would complicate my whole ‘some drunk hijacked the plow’ story, that would also be part of the aftermath.
The aftermath was just that, after, and didn’t matter. What mattered now was getting to Devon, which meant making it across the lobby and into an elevator before any security guys showed up to delay me with all kinds of uncomfortable questions.
I flung open the driver’s side door and scrambled down to the floor. My boots skidded a little bit on the broken glass, but I stayed upright and kept moving. Behind me was the plow, skewed sideways over wrecked chairs and shattered glass. Ahead of me and to the right was the main bank of elevators; ahead of me and just to the left was my old friend, main reception.
I slowed a little, looking at the desk where I’d sat in another life. I’d sat there taking unimportant calls and directing visitors to the real receptionists who controlled access to people who mattered. I’d sat there wondering how the hell I was going to keep my head above water on thirteen lousy dollars and twenty-five sucky cents an hour, and I’d sat there alone – alone at work and home, just me.
Alone. As in, with nobody.
I looked at the chair where I’d first seen Devon on that fateful morning when I was five minutes late. I’d been pretty convinced he was one serious and batshit crazy asshole that day, and now?
Now I wasn’t alone anymore. I was with that adorable batshit crazy asshole, and somewhere far above, he needed me. He needed me right now, before it was too late for both of us.
Snap out of it and GO, Ashley.
I sprinted across the lobby to the elevators, slammed the flat of my hand onto the nearest ‘up’ button, and slipped sideways through the opening doors. I punched the button for the highest floor I could reach in this main, common-masses elevator, and then I leaned against the back wall, my eyes closed.
Slow, deep breaths. Focus. You’re almost there.
Oh, and maybe pull out your phone and call him while you’re at it?
I’m not sure why I bothered. He’d never answered one of the dozens of calls I’d made during this crazy rescue expedition, never replied to any of the texts – I had to be wasting my time, trying to reach out and touch someone who … well, someone who probably wasn’t there anymore to answer.
But what if he was?
So as the elevator hummed upward, I pulled out my trusty iPhone and tried one more time.
A call. No answer.
A text – ‘on my way up now, please wait’ – and no reply.
I dropped the phone back into my coat pocket. I put my back to the wall of the elevator and watched the floor numbers marching upward on the digital display over the door. I listened to some sappy generic love song playing on the speakers overhead.
Travel time from the lobby to the roof? Five minutes, tops.
Five minutes between me and the man I hoped was still up there, still hanging on, still fighting the demons inside his head.
Five minutes, and all I could do was wait.
***
I felt the phone vibrating madly in my pocket, demanding my attention.
I ignored the call, as I had all the others. She had better things to do than talk to a monster who was about to break her heart into a million lost pieces.
The phone buzzed again. I considered tossing it over the edge of the roof and into the vast gulf that yawned beyond, just a few feet and a world away, but I didn’t.
I read the text instead, just as I had all the others. I couldn’t help it – it was so touching and horrifying to witness her determination to step between me and the forces that waited to claim me. My beloved Ashley, I’m not worth it. Not one bit.
‘On my way up now, please wait.’
Why had I waited?
Was I such a beast that I wanted to make her watch the final ghastly act of this drama? Was I that cruel?
Or was I the kind of coward who would rather step back from the brink and stand waiting for the inevitable day when she would leave me, just as every decent person always did?
She was only a few minutes from my side.
I had so many questions, but only one answer – I loved her.
I loved her, and so I had to protect her from the monster in the mirror.
I’ve waited, sweet Ashley, but the time for waiting is over.
I turned my face up to the sky, feeling the faint, feathery touch of thousands of spiraling snowflakes. More snow waited below, much more.
Time to fly.
45. Fate
I stepped out onto the roof.
He was there.
He was still there, still waiting, still with me.
And then as I watched, Devon stepped up onto the ledge that ran all around the edge of the roof, forming a concrete rim perhaps a foot high. His back to me, he stood looking down at the abyss beneath the toes of his perfect Italian shoes.
No more waiting.
I watched that tall, dark figure standing lost and alone in the falling snow. I watched the man I loved more than life stand on the brink, ready to leave that life.
Ready to leave me.
No.
I nudged the access door shut behind me and walked closer.
Just a casual stroll across the summit of a windswept tower in the clouds, that’s all – nothing to it, other than everything.
At my back was the closed access door, set into a small service hatchway that stood in the northeast corner of the roof. To my left, less than ten feet of snow-patched concrete away, was the nearest edge, the top of the eastern face of the building.
1,400 feet straight down, a gaping, snowplow-shaped hole was now on display in the gla
ss base of that wall, courtesy of yours truly. Man, I hoped that wasn’t coming out of my paycheck.
Devon was just a few steps closer – still distant, still on the far side of the roof, still teetering on the edge of nothing, but a little closer. I watched him tilt his head a bit to the left as he stared down at the snow-buried street so far below. An icy breeze stirred his hair and tugged at his coat.
I kept walking. Could he hear my steps over the wind?
To my right, a forest of antennas sprouted from the roof. Every variety of high-gain HD antenna known to man stood there, as well a radio mast topped by a blinking red warning light, and a huddle of white satellite dishes relaying yet more invisible signals through the clouds and the snow and the wind.
Have I mentioned the wind?
Down at street level, the fierce winds that swept in on the leading edge of the storm had died away to nothing more than a whisper – but 1,400 feet above the street, the wind was always blowing. I’d been up on this roof so many times as we zipped from here to there and everywhere in Devon’s decadent sin palace of a helicopter, so I knew from experience that there’s no escaping the constant, insistent pull of the wind when you’re that high above everyone and everything.
The hem of his coat flapped in a sudden gust as he stood there on the brink. He shifted his feet a bit, searching for a better stance. That close, less than one step away from the void, a single random burst of wind could push him off balance and send him toppling over the edge, just like that.
It could happen in seconds, any second, right in front of me.
I worked my way closer, trying not to be too obvious about it – but also not being too quiet or subtle, because I sure as hell didn’t want to startle him, not while he was balanced over a quarter of a mile above the street.
But he had to know I was there, right?
I had no idea. I also had no plan, and no real clue as to what to do or how to proceed. So I just kept moving, taking one small step after another.
Further to my right, well past the antennas and satellite dishes, was the helipad we’d used on all those trips hither and yon.
A perfect rectangle of black tarmac on the concrete, it was visible from well above the city’s sea of skyscrapers, thanks to the giant white ‘H’ marking its center. At one end of the rectangle, a stenciled white number indicated the helipad’s weight tolerance in thousands of pounds, while the Killane Corporate Holdings logo graced the opposite end.
Tiny yellow aviation lights flashed all around the perimeter of the helipad, beacons for the helicopter that wasn’t leaving its hangar, not today.
No cavalry coming to the rescue on this fine afternoon, Ashley. It’s just you.
I came closer to him, step by careful step. Just idling along, all casual on the outside and panicked on the inside – fifty feet away, then forty, then thirty …
Then Devon turned his head and looked right at me.
“Hello, Ashley.”
I stopped. My feet refused orders to move. I just stopped and stood and stared at him. I tried to think of some brilliant thing to say, some life-saving combination of words that would bring him to his senses and end this, but my brain reported in that it had nothing for me.
Eyes violet and blue and filled with something unknowable stared back at me.
Those eyes knew no fear. No fear, no panic, no depression or desperation or despair – he stared at me, and his eyes held only a sweet, gentle sadness.
But didn’t something more flicker deep in those strange eyes as he stared at me? Something that looked a lot like …
Love waited there, deep and absolute. Was love driving him to do this, somehow? Or was it telling me I could stop him?
I didn’t know. But two things I did know, two absolutes of my own that would get us through this, somehow.
I loved Devon.
Devon would not leave me.
So I started talking. The right words had to exist, somewhere, and I had to have faith I would find them. After all, I’m nothing if not a big talker.
“Hey, Devon. You know you’re about to ruin a perfectly good suit, right?”
I’m not a genius with words when I’m heartbroken and terrified, okay? Sue me.
“Oh, I think this grey French silk will go marvelously with the ghastly amount of blood I’m about to splatter all over it.”
“You’ll be way too dead to appreciate that. Besides, from this high up, I’m pretty sure you’ll just vaporize on impact – no splatters, no suit, no color-coordinated carnage.”
He frowned as if I’d just suggested the wrong kind of wine to go with dinner.
“Do you really think so? I was counting on being quite the stylish corpse – it would be awful if there was nothing left to photograph, nothing for the tabloids to splash across their covers. Wouldn’t the snow provide enough cushion to keep my body at least somewhat intact?”
“Nope. Your fillings and the Rolex might survive, but that’s about it.”
“This thing, truly?” He stripped the Rolex Cosmograph Daytona off his wrist, held it dangling from his fingers, and eyed the thirty thousand dollars of gold and steel like a scientist examining a new and doubtful species of bug.
“I can’t imagine this delicate bit of Swiss craftsmanship would survive the fall, but shall we perform a modest experiment to be sure?”
And with that, he spun the watch around by its band a time or two and then pitched it out into the air. It sailed through a gentle arc over the emptiness below, tumbled a bit as gravity took hold, and then dove straight down through the falling snow, one hundred and five stories to the ground.
Devon watched it plunge earthward, absorbed by his impromptu physics experiment.
“Devon?”
“Mmmm?” He continued peering downward, leaning forward by a few unnerving inches to get a better view as he puzzled over this fashion-related wrinkle in his plans.
“Devon, once you’re done gathering experimental data, could you maybe tell me what’s going on?”
“Oh, it’s quite simple.”
He tore his interest away from the watch and beamed a polite, press conference sort of smile my way.
Then he shifted his weight, turning to face back out over the city and the snow. He edged forward on the ledge, sliding his feet a few inches closer to the point of no return. He spread his arms wide.
No. God no, please.
He turned his head from left to right, as if addressing a vast audience. Snow swirled down, settling in tiny drifts on his outstretched arms. He tilted his face to the sky and more snowflakes dove onto his pale face as he spoke.
“You see before you the final moments of the special project.”
What the hell?
He pivoted right to left this time, like a stage actor accepting applause from a sea of admirers. Then he dropped his arms back to his sides and leaned forward to peer over the edge again.
“Devon, wait up – the special project? That was all about putting the Killanes out of business and into jail, and you’ve done that – what does the special project have to do with you being out here on this roof, tossing Rolexes into the abyss and scaring the hell out of your loyal girlfriend?”
“Don’t feel badly, Ashley. I told no one the true scope of the special project, not even you or Uncle Sheridan.”
“Look, I can understand an elaborate plot to bring down the Killanes, sure – after what they did to you, I think you showed a lot of restraint to not just mow down that entire tribe of assholes with an assault rifle. So drawing up a plan for revenge on those guys, fine – but why plan for this?”
I waved a shaking hand at him, at the roof and the gulf beyond, at the nightmare playing out live and in color, right in front of me. “Please, help me to understand why you would plan to do this to yourself – and why would you plan to do this to me, Devon? I’m part of you, so you’re doing this to me too, you know.”
My sweet, broken guy stared down at the expanse of snow and death waiting be
low, as his loyal and popbrained girlfriend who somehow never saw this coming walked just a little bit closer. I closed the distance between us to barely more than ten feet.
Then he turned to stare at me with those strange, beautiful eyes.
“You were never meant to be part of this plan, Ashley.”
“I’m part of your life, Devon. Silly me, I kind of like to think I’m a pretty important part of that life, and so I’m part of this too, like it or not. How could you miss seeing that? How the hell did you think I was going to react to this, baby?”
He trembled – just for an instant, but I saw it. A tremor ran through his body, he blinked way more times than necessary, and I saw … not doubt, not really, but regret and fear and aching, bone-deep sadness.
“Ashley, I planned all of this with such great care – but you were not a part of my plan because the special project was set in motion long before you entered my life, when I was eighteen and you were only a child.
“The special project began on the day I signed away my inheritance at that conference table only a few blocks from here, and the special project has determined every moment of my life since, marching me along a path leading directly from my eighteenth birthday to this roof.”
He sighed. He turned from me, hands still deep in his pockets, and stared down past his feet. “But I never knew you would step out onto that path, my Ashley. When you did, when I looked into your fierce eyes on that first day in the lobby … did you know I was terrified?”
“Um, you came across as seriously pissed off and kind of an asshole, actually.”
He chuckled. “I fear I did not react well to a bold young woman throwing my foolproof plan onto the scrap heap, simply by existing. But though I may have played the part of an angry tyrant, it was purely an instinctive reaction, a defense mechanism of sorts – I assure you I was in fact quite frightened.
Five Minutes Late: A Billionaire Romance Page 53
