Hunted

by Beverly Long

  Ethan wasn’t going to take any chances.

  He drove to the end of the block and turned left. Then with a series of successive turns, he ended up on one of the residential streets that faced the front entrance of Linder Automation. There were only two parking spots available and he parallel-parked the truck in one of them and cut his lights. They were too far away to see into the lobby but at the right angle to see the entrance of the employee parking lot. He twisted in his seat to look at her. “So, figured out a way to get me inside?”

  “No.”

  He had. It had come to him when he’d seen the no-parking signs plastered every few feet, all the way around the semicircle drive in front of the building. “You said some of the workers come all together in a van.”

  “Yes. There’s no public transportation out to this area. I suspect many of the workers don’t have their own transportation and the cleaning company either goes to their individual houses and picks them up or more likely, picks them up at some central meeting point in the city that is accessible by the public transportation system.”

  “Where does the van go after it drops them off?”

  She thought for a minute. “I have no idea. I mean, it has to be parked somewhere because the man driving the van also is one of the workers.”

  “I bet they park in the underground parking, where the supervisors park.”

  “Maybe. I’m not sure where this is going.”

  “You’ve been in this parking area, right?”

  “Sure. After Claudia married my dad, they would occasionally ask me to meet them for dinner after work. We generally met somewhere near here because he’d be at the hangar. Claudia and I would ride together in her car and after dinner, one of them would bring me back so that I could pick up my car in the outside lot.”

  “So is there an elevator that takes the executives to the parking level?”

  “Yes. Stairs, too, I believe, but we always took the elevator from the third floor, where Claudia’s office is.”

  “Okay. Here’s what we’re going to do. When all the employees get out of the van, I’m going to get in.”

  “How are you going to do that? The driver stays in the vehicle. He’ll see you.”

  “We need to give everyone something to focus on when they’re getting out of the van.”

  She cocked her head. “Create some kind of disturbance?”

  “Just a little one. Something to look at. There’s a trash can outside the front door. I’m going to hide on the side of the building. When the van makes the corner, I’m going to throw a match into the trash and get a little fire going. Nothing too big, just something to get their attention. That may also help you because it will likely get the guard’s attention, too, and he might not be checking IDs as closely as usual.”

  “The timing will have to be perfect.”

  “My life for the past twenty years has been flying helicopters in and out of combat zones. My timing is pretty good.”

  “This is different.”

  “Trust me.”

  “There’s no question about that, Ethan. I trust you with my life.”

  His throat felt tight. “Good,” he managed.

  “Let’s assume everything works up to that point. What happens once you’re in the van?”

  “I’ll hide in the back. Once the van is parked inside and the driver is out, I’ll get on the elevator and you can meet me at the third floor.”

  “It seems like a ridiculous amount of effort just so that you can be inside with me. I’m going to be okay. I just have to find an office, log on, download the information from the server to my flash drive and get out. Besides, what are you going to do with Molly?”

  “She can stay in the truck. I’ll crack the window just a little bit. Fortunately the temperature has come up a little. She’ll be fine.”

  “It’s really not necessary,” she insisted.

  “I can’t shake the feeling that it’s dangerous for you to go into that building. I won’t take the chance.”

  His words hung heavy in the air. Maybe it wasn’t a declaration of love but it was definitely something. But as if by tacit agreement, Chandler wasn’t asking for more specifics, and he didn’t feel prepared to offer up anything.

  Chandler McCann had gotten to him.

  Big-time.

  She deserved to know that people hated him. Her proximity to him might be putting her at risk as much as her own entanglements.

  But he hadn’t talked to anybody about what had happened overseas. He couldn’t. Not even Chandler.

  He was getting inside that building. If he couldn’t be honest with her, he sure as hell was going to protect her.

  Chapter Twelve

  At twenty minutes after three, she saw an SUV come down the snow-covered street, the white vehicle almost blending into its surroundings. It made the right-hand turn into the lot and pulled into the empty third row.

  “I think that’s Lauren,” she said. “Now or never.”

  Chandler had never felt so ill to her stomach.

  “Wish me luck,” she added.

  Ethan didn’t respond. He just grabbed her and kissed her hard.

  She smiled at him. Now she’d have shaky legs, too, but it was worth it. She loved kissing him.

  They each opened their door. Molly whined, as if she knew something was not right. Chandler reached back in and petted the dog on her head. “It’ll be okay,” she said, talking to the dog, hoping to reassure everyone.

  “At least you’ve got boots now,” Ethan muttered. He led the way down the snow-packed sidewalk. When they reached the end, he grabbed her hand and squeezed her fingers hard. “Be careful,” he said.

  She managed a nod, licked her lips and crossed the street at an angle that was out of the security guard’s line of vision. She didn’t think it mattered. The man rarely looked up from his newspaper.

  It was definitely Lauren’s car. Chandler’s heart started to beat faster. When she knocked on the window, Lauren’s head jerked up.

  “Hi,” Chandler said.

  Lauren rolled down the window. She was smoking and she had her checkbook open in her lap, some unpaid bills next to her and a roll of stamps. As crazy as the night was, Chandler wanted to smile. She always paid her bills sitting in her car, too.

  She felt bad for having scared the woman. It was the middle of the night in an empty parking lot. “It’s me, Chandler McCann.”

  “Oh, hi,” Lauren said. “It’s pretty late for you to be working, isn’t it?”

  It was the perfect opening. “It is. I’m in trouble with my supervisor for not getting something done. He’s being a jerk about it.”

  “They’re all idiots. Make ’em a supervisor and suddenly they think they’re God.”

  It was exactly the reaction she was hoping for. “Problem is, I forgot my ID badge so I can’t get in the building.”

  “Can’t you just tell the guard and he’ll let you in?”

  Chandler shook her head. “He’s friends with my boss. I see them talking all the time. He’ll tell him and then I’ll be in trouble for not having my identification on me. You know what a stink that causes in a high-security building. I, uh, was hoping you might be able to help me.”

  “I could try,” Lauren said as she looked at her watch.

  “Can I borrow your badge and your baseball cap? I’m confident I can get past Security Pete at the desk. It won’t take me long to get the work done and then I’ll bring your stuff right back to you.”

  “I could get fired for giving my badge to someone else,” Lauren said, sounding nervous.

  “I know, I know. I wouldn’t ask if I wasn’t confident that I won’t get you in any trouble.” Now was the time to sweeten the deal. “I don’t think you’ll be able to work to
day because Security Pete might remember having already let you in the building once. You will need to call in sick to your company. But to compensate you for your time and trouble, I’m willing to give you five hundred dollars in cash.”

  The woman frowned at her. “Cash? Five hundred? And all I have to do is let you borrow my badge for a half hour?”

  “Yes.”

  “You’re not doing anything illegal, are you?”

  “No way. You know that my stepmother, Claudia Linder McCann, is the CEO of Linder Automation. I’m not crazy about her but I would never do anything to hurt her or the company. My dad would never forgive me.”

  She’d read somewhere that the best liars were the ones who stuck closest to the truth.

  It must have worked because Lauren was nodding. “Your stepmother won’t even look at the cleaning crew. It’s as if we’re the dirt that we sweep up.”

  Out of the corner of her eye, Chandler saw another vehicle coming down the road. It was the cleaning crew van. She needed to be inside and through security before the rest of the workers got there.

  She wanted to turn around to make sure that Ethan was safely out of sight, but she didn’t want to call attention to him. If Lauren thought something weird was going on, she might get spooked.

  “What do you say?” she asked, pulling the five hundred dollars out of her pocket.

  Lauren looked at the money. Then she grabbed it out of Chandler’s hand. “Here,” she said, shoving the baseball cap toward Chandler. “Take my jacket, too. With that and the baseball cap, the security guard won’t look at you twice. I’m getting out of here. I don’t want those stupid supervisors seeing my car.” She grabbed the envelope in her lap and ripped off the handwritten return address. “Here’s my address. Just put my ID in my mailbox. I work in two days so I’ll need it before then.”

  “Perfect,” Chandler said, taking the scrap of paper.

  Lauren started her car and pulled out of the lot. Chandler put Lauren’s coat on over her own jacket and jammed the baseball hat on her head. She caught her long hair up in her hand, wound it tightly into a bun, and stuffed it up inside the hat, the way Lauren always wore hers. Both the hat and the coat smelled like smoke.

  Her heart was hammering in her chest, making it hard to breathe. She walked briskly up the sidewalk and she could hear the engine of the van as it pulled into the circular drive.

  She pulled on the door and Security Pete looked up.

  And she felt his gaze linger.

  And she knew that she’d horribly underestimated him.

  She fought the urge to turn and run. She extended her badge, the way she’d seen the cleaning crew do, and willed her damn traitorous arm to stay steady.

  He leaned forward.

  And at just that minute, there was a commotion outside the window. She heard yelling but didn’t turn her head to look.

  Security Pete did. “Hells bells,” he said. “Damn smokers.”

  And she knew the fire in the trash can had caught.

  He pulled a fire extinguisher from under the counter and pushed his chair back. Two hundred and fifty pounds shifted.

  Let me in. Push the button.

  Security Pete ran his big fat hand across the sensor.

  The red bar lifted. She was in.

  Game on.

  * * *

  ETHAN HAD USED his old newspapers to start the fire, wadding them up tight so that they didn’t burn out too fast. He’d added them to the garbage container, which was already about half-full. Once he’d been sure the fire was going to take, he’d quickly hidden at the side of the building and watched the van approach.

  The plan had gone even better than he’d hoped. Four people got out of the back of the van and when they noticed the smoke and started hollering, the driver of the van had scooted across the bench seat and gotten out on the passenger side to see what the fuss was all about.

  That had given Ethan the chance to move out of the shadows, cross in front of the van’s headlights, move alongside the van and slip inside the open back door into a dark corner. After a minute, somebody shut the back door. The driver got back inside, never realizing that he’d picked up a passenger.

  Ethan could tell when they pulled into the underground parking area because there was more light coming into the van. That meant more opportunity for discovery. He didn’t want to hurt the driver, but there was no way he was going to let the man alert others and potentially cause problems for Chandler.

  It drove him crazy that she was out of his sight. She had proven time and again that she was tougher than she looked, but the idea of her getting harmed in any way made him want to punch something. Instead, he braced himself to take the curves as the van lumbered along. The best thing he could do to help Chandler was to get inside without incident.

  The van slowed, made a sharp right-hand turn and then stopped. The driver killed the ignition.

  Now it was absolutely still inside the vehicle. Ethan forced himself to breath naturally, quietly, and after a few seconds of what sounded like the man fumbling with his seat belt, the door on the driver’s side opened.

  The door closed. Ethan heard the man’s footsteps fade as he walked away. Ethan raised his head, just high enough to see the man swipe what appeared to be a plastic card in some kind of electronic badge reader. Then he pulled on the heavy metal door. It opened. Ethan saw the stairs that Chandler had mentioned. The man went inside and the door swung shut behind him.

  Chandler hadn’t mentioned that the door required a badge swipe. She probably didn’t know. She had said that she and her stepmother left from work to meet Baker but she’d probably never arrived at work through the garage.

  Ethan got out of the van, closing the door as softly as he could. He hurried toward the elevator, with every step feeling the heavy weight of the handgun that he carried in his jacket pocket.

  He pushed the up button on the elevator. It blinked but didn’t stay on. The doors remained closed. He pushed it again. Same results.

  And then he saw it. There was a badge reader next to the elevator.

  Damn it.

  The reality of his situation hit him. Both the stairs and the elevator required a badge to enter. It was no doubt different once you were inside the building. Then, employees could use both in traveling from floor to floor and when exiting.

  He was trapped in the parking garage.

  Chandler was on her own.

  * * *

  CHANDLER HAD AN office on the fourth floor. She did not head for it. Instead, she went to the third floor and waited for Ethan as planned.

  The exterior walls were lined with offices on three sides and a big conference room on the fourth side. All the doors were closed. The interior space was filled with groups of cubicles, with high padded walls designed to absorb the sounds of busy workers. But it was all quiet now, with just a few lights dimly lit.

  She waited for the ding of the elevator, to let her know that Ethan was near.

  But the only noise she heard in the room was the motor on the water cooler that sat along the wall, halfway between the elevator and the stairs.

  The closest bay of cubicles was where the marketing staff worked. She sat down at one of the computers, turned it on, signed in with her test user account and watched both the elevator and the blinking computer cursor.

  Where the hell was Ethan?

  Had he been discovered by the van driver?

  Her stomach twisted in fear.

  She had no idea how long she might have before the cleaning crew got their vacuums and mops and made their way to the third floor. Lights would go on and she would be discovered.

  She had to be out of there before that happened.

  Her test user sign-on worked. She clicked through the screens, accessing the directory of ser
ver files. She scanned the list. What the hell had she named the file? She’d wanted something that wouldn’t be obvious to somebody else that it was wedding information. She’d written the name down and put it under the telephone on her desk but she sure as hell couldn’t go get it now.

  Wait, there it was. Binding Intent.

  She inserted the flash drive that she’d purchased at the store and watched the screen to make sure the downloading process was working. Her heart was thumping in her chest. It was a big file and it seemed to be taking forever.

  Please, please let Ethan be okay, she silently prayed.

  Forty percent downloaded. Sixty-five percent. Eighty-three percent. She watched the messages on her screen. Almost done.

  She heard a noise outside the door. If she jerked the flash drive out before the file was completely downloaded, she risked ruining the data.

  Ninety-two percent.

  A door across the room was opening.

  One hundred percent.

  She clicked the mouse, exited the program, pulled the flash drive and ran for the elevator. She pushed the button.

  “Stop,” someone ordered. “Security.”

  She turned, ready to show him her—Lauren’s—ID badge. A man, all in black, his arms extended, stood in the doorway. He was holding a deadly-looking gun that was pointed at her.

  Pulling a weapon wasn’t normal protocol under these circumstances. Clearly the security guard had been given orders to use force if necessary.

  Which meant her ID badge was going to be useless in this situation.

  She made a move to go right toward the stairs, then heard the soft ding of the elevator. She quickly reversed and threw herself into the elevator when the doors opened.

  She slammed her hand on the close button.

  The gun went off, and she heard a terrible noise as his shot hit the closed elevator door. She wanted to sag to the floor in relief.