by Rebecca York
“In his emails Blake specifically told you to phone him? And he called his game SIMon Sez? With the first part of ‘Simon’ capitalized?”
She nodded.
He hit her with a fast question. “Were the two of you into something illegal together?”
“No! Would I be here if that were true?”
“I don’t know,” he answered honestly. “You could be trying to throw me off the track after you got caught in the building.”
Panic bloomed on her face. “I thought you could help me. I guess I was wrong.”
She had just finished speaking when a knock sounded at the door.
Both of them went rigid.
“Who is it?” Shane called.
“S&D security.”
“What are you doing here?”
“We have reason to believe you are sheltering Elena Reyes, and we want her for questioning.”
Shane thought about that. Kinkead had asked Shane to come in, not hold her at his apartment. And how would Kinkead even know she was here?
“Hold up your identification.”
The demand was greeted by several low pops as holes appeared in the door, inches from where they were standing.
Bullets from a gun with a silencer.
Shane pulled Elena back and around the corner moments before the door burst open and two men rushed in. Pulling his gun, Shane got off a shot in their direction, making them dodge and giving himself a moment to consider what to do. He wondered if the neighbors would call in the incident to the cops. Or would they figure they were just hearing a loud television shoot-’em-up show?
But he couldn’t count on the police coming to the rescue. That meant he was in a very awkward position, caught between goons with guns and a woman he didn’t trust.
He already knew she’d done something unethical, if not strictly illegal. But she’d apparently had second and maybe third thoughts and come to him instead of bringing the phone to her brother. That seemed to count in her favor, but it could be a ploy to get herself out of trouble.
Taking a considerable chance, he decided to trust her—for the moment.
When he turned to her, he saw she was thinking she’d gotten herself into more trouble than she’d bargained for.
“Too bad I didn’t bring my climbing equipment home.”
She nodded.
“There’s a back way out of the apartment,” he said. “The kitchen door. Lucky for us, it’s around the corner from the main entrance here.” He gestured toward the door where the thugs had crashed inside. “And it opens into the hallway near the stairwell. You go out that way and down to the garage—on the level below the lobby. You know my car, right?”
“Yes.”
“It’s in space 52 about halfway from the stairs to the main door.” He sighed as he fished his keys out of his pocket and handed them to her. “Drive it up to the stairwell door, and wait for me.”
“And you’ll come right after me?”
“As fast as I can.”
He was trying to get her to safety. But was it safe to send her into the hall at all? Did the gunmen know about the back exit? Or had they come here on the spur of the moment without any preparation?
He risked darting back to the kitchen, opening the door a crack, and looking out into the corridor. “All clear. Go. The stairs are to the left.”
He saw the fear, but also the determination in her eyes as she followed his directions.
Movement in the apartment’s front hall had him rushing back and getting off a shot as one of the gunmen came around the corner. But Shane couldn’t keep shooting at them. Shots inside the building were eventually going to attract attention, and if one of the residents came to investigate, they could get hurt.
He had to give Elena time to get downstairs. Looking around for a way to keep the bastards busy, he spied the metal office trash can that he’d left by the back door when he’d taken out the rubbish.
Working quickly, he snatched up two dish towels and dribbled water onto them from the faucet before stuffing them into the can. Then he set a wad of paper towels in on top of them and lit the towels with a match from the box he kept in one of the kitchen drawers. The paper flared up, but when the fire burned down to the dish towels, they started smoldering and giving off smoke instead of more open flames. Excellent. Because his aim wasn’t to set the apartment building on fire.
From inside the kitchen, he used a broom handle to push the smoking can toward the front door, coughing as he inhaled some of the fumes. He gave it a shove, and it scooted across the floor toward the front of the apartment where he could hear the other guys coughing, too.
“What the hell?” he heard one exclaim.
“Get out if you don’t want to get fried,” he shouted back.
Then he ducked out the kitchen door and quietly crossed the hall, following the route Elena had taken. When he was in the stairwell, he started running, taking the steps as fast as he could without tripping over his own feet. With a sigh of relief, he reached the garage level and snatched open the door.
In a hurry to catch up with Elena, he burst into the open area, then stopped dead when he saw a man grab her and hustle her into the backseat of a vehicle.
Chapter 13
Panic seized Alesandro. He’d scared the mierda out of his sister, then sent her over to S&D to get the information he needed. All the time he’d been waiting in her apartment, he’d thought she’d done it.
But the puta’s nerve had failed.
That left him up shit creek in a wire canoe, an interesting American phrase that fit his present situation well.
He channeled his panic into anger at Elena for double-crossing him. Jesus, if he’d known she was going to screw him, he would have gotten the hell out of her apartment hours ago. With his heart almost blocking his windpipe, he pushed himself off the couch, wincing as his injuries protested.
Waiting a moment until he was steady on his feet, he started moving, heading for the door. The climb down the stairs was agony, and he cursed Elena for living in an apartment without an elevator.
Outside, he paused for a moment on the stoop to catch his breath and make sure the coast was clear. To his relief, he saw no one lurking in the shadows. He was almost to his car when two tough-looking men stepped up, one on either side of him. One was tall and muscular, the other shorter but also in good shape. He knew who they were—enforcers for the man who had given him the assignment of getting the information from S&D.
“What?” he gasped, fighting the sudden sick feeling in his chest that made breathing almost impossible.
“Give me your keys,” one of them demanded.
He looked wildly around the parking lot, hoping someone would show up and interrupt the scene, but there was no one around but him and the ruthless thugs. They must have been outside all along, waiting to see what would happen. Which meant it wouldn’t have done any good to leave earlier.
“Wait. My sister will be here soon.”
“You lying piece of shit. We had a directional mike on her apartment. We heard you talking to her on the phone. She’s not coming back. Now give me those keys.”
Struggling to control his shaking fingers, Alesandro dug out his keys. The man snatched them away and hustled Alesandro to the back of his car, where the man clicked the lock on the trunk.
“What…”
One of them held his arms. The other punched him in the stomach, making him double over in sudden pain. Another punch to the jaw made him literally see stars. He was fighting to stay conscious, for all the good that was going to do him.
Dimly he heard them talking.
“The boss said to make sure he arrives with his cell.”
More of his senses returned as one of the men fumbled for the phone at his belt and unclipped it. Then they dumped him into the trunk and folded his legs
so he’d fit inside, the awkward position adding to his misery.
“No, please,” he managed to gasp.
Before he could say more, the trunk lid slammed shut, leaving him in darkness. He clenched his teeth, trying to think. Was there some way out of here? Like if he broke a taillight, could he stick his hand out and attract someone’s attention?
***
“Christ.”
Shane couldn’t let them take Elena out of the garage. Determined to cut them off, he ran for his SUV, then realized he didn’t have the goddamn keys. He’d given them to Elena.
Cursing, he thought his only option was to rush the other car on foot. Then he spotted something on the cement floor where the thugs’ vehicle had been moments earlier. The keys. She had dropped them, maybe on purpose, knowing he was going to need them.
As the car with Elena headed for the garage door, he scooped up the keys and ran back to his vehicle. Once inside, he whipped out of his parking space, almost crashing into a pickup in the row behind him.
As he gunned the engine, he could see the car with the bad guys ahead of him. There were two men inside—in addition to the ones who had come into his apartment. An impressive strike force. Apparently whoever had sent them wasn’t taking any chances.
One of the thugs was driving, and one was in the backseat with Elena to keep her under control. She was sitting up, which he hoped meant she hadn’t been drugged, and she’d be able to run when he needed her to.
The lead car slowed as it approached the mesh door at the garage entrance. The driver must have acquired the code for the garage door and an automatic opener to go with it. As the door wheezed upward, Shane barreled forward, intent on escape, but there wasn’t enough head room to exit immediately.
Taking advantage of the momentary delay, Shane pressed the button on his own automatic opener clipped to the sun visor. The wide door made a grinding sound and reversed directions, coming down just as the other car sped forward. Taken by surprise, the driver crashed his car into the barrier, and the vehicle bounced back toward Shane.
The driver leaped out of the car and whirled, firing his automatic pistol at Shane. But Shane had already opened the door of his SUV. Using it as a shield, he returned fire, and the guy went down and lay unmoving on the floor of the garage. As Shane advanced on the car, he could see Elena in the backseat struggling with the other man, who had his attention focused on her.
The thug yanked her long, dark hair, whipping her head around so violently that Shane was afraid her neck might snap. The guy was hauling back his other hand to smack her when Shane pulled the door open, jerked the guy out, and slammed him onto the ground, hearing his head crack against the concrete. Elena raced out after him, crunching her shoe on his gun hand. He screamed and let go of the weapon. Shane kicked it a few feet away, then kicked the man in the face. He went still.
Grabbing the extra weapon, Shane fired a bullet into the car’s engine before hurrying Elena to his car.
“Are you all right?” he asked as they both climbed inside.
“Yes.”
“You dropped the keys.”
“I was hoping you’d find them.”
“Yeah. Thanks.”
He worked the controls on the garage door again, lifting the metal barrier just as the stairwell door in back of them burst open and the men from upstairs stormed out.
He gunned the engine, making it out of the garage as he heard bullets whizzing past.
They sped into the night.
Elena had twisted around. “They’re getting in the car I was in.”
“I don’t think it’s gonna start.”
She was still looking back as they exited the apartment development onto Rockville Pike.
“Did you kill that man?” She asked. “The one you shot?”
“I don’t know.”
“Shouldn’t we call the police?”
“I don’t think so.”
“Because?”
“Because those goons found you at my apartment. They could just as easily find you at the police station. Or maybe they even have contacts inside the police department, for all I know.”
“Madre de Dios,” she whispered, then asked, “Where are we going?”
“To a safe house where we can hole up while I find out what’s really going on.”
“I told you about my brother.”
“But there’s more to it. I mean, who wanted that information, and why?”
***
Jerome Weller made a fist with his left hand and pounded it into his right. He wanted to spit out a stream of curses, but he knew that wasn’t going to do him any good. He’d thought everything was under control, but then it had all blown up in his face because Elena Reyes had had a stab of conscience.
That was the trouble when you dealt with people who thought they had a moral code. He’d had no problem like that with Arnold Blake. The guy might have once cared about right and wrong. But he’d given that up when he’d found out he could get more of the luxuries that his wife insisted she wanted and that were impossible to procure with his salary from S&D.
Blake had agreed to steal a valuable piece of software under development, something Lincoln Kinkead called Falcon’s Flight. That was only a code name, of course. The product had nothing to do with birds. It was just designed for people who thought of themselves as high fliers, and apparently Kinkead had enjoyed the little joke.
Jerome had always maintained legit business interests to cover his other activities. He’d gotten wind of Falcon’s Flight at a software conference in Las Vegas. He’d stumbled on it by accident in a bar when a guy named Rosenbloom, who should have been keeping his mouth shut, was bragging about his hotshot son, the computer whiz.
As soon as Jerome found out about the product, he knew it was worth a fortune. He could use it, but even better, he’d found a client who would pay big bucks for the program.
Jerome had researched S&D for vulnerable employees and found Blake. He’d arranged to bump into the guy at the public golf course where he played and got to talking with him. After several conversations, he’d come around to the subject of the software, and Blake had been interested in working out a deal. Jerome had been sure the IT guy would deliver it to him. But after they’d come to an agreement, the little worm had held out for more money. His mistake.
Too bad he’d croaked under torture. That put Jerome back at square one. But he’d figured out another way to get what Blake had stolen. He’d gone back to his list of employees in the S&D IT department and started doing background checks—not just on the individuals, but also on their relatives. That had led him to Elena Reyes. Her loyalty to her family was supposed to get him what he needed. Only she’d double-crossed her own brother and taken the information to the S&D security chief instead.
He snorted. Although he hadn’t counted on that little twist, he’d scrambled to have her intercepted her at Gallagher’s place.
Unfortunately, his guys had come up against some serious problems. And why had she run to Gallagher? Because she trusted him? Or because she was sleeping with him? He should have checked that out more carefully.
Now one of his men was dead, and Reyes was in the wind. But there was still a good chance of getting her back.
Jerome’s cell phone buzzed, and he looked at the number. It was one of the men he’d sent to Reyes’ apartment.
“We’re here with the brother.”
“Good work.”
“Where do you want him?”
“In the interrogation room downstairs. No point in letting him think that we’re going to make him comfortable.”
The man on the other end of the line laughed.
“And you got his cell phone?”
“Yes.”
“Keep it handy. I’m betting that his sister is going to call to find out how brother boy i
s doing. And she’s going to be upset when she finds out where he is and what’s been happening to him.”
The man on the other end of the line made a sound of agreement.
“Strip him and strap him down on the table. I’ll be right there,” Jerome said, feeling like things were looking up. Elena Reyes might have double-crossed her brother initially, but how was she going to react when he started pleading with her to save him?
***
Elena turned toward Shane and kept her gaze steady as she punched out her words. “I told you what’s going on.”
“I want to hear your story again.”
The way he was looking at her made her cringe. “It’s not a story. It’s the truth.”
“Start at the beginning. Did you and Arnold Blake have some kind of scam going?”
“No.”
“Okay. You found something in his desk,” he prompted, seeing if he would get the same story from her that she’d given him in the apartment.
“An old cell phone. I think he transferred the information he stole to the phone’s SIM card. The way you could put it on a memory stick. Only it wouldn’t be obvious.”
“You think so because?”
“Because of the emails he sent me. About SIMon Sez.”
***
Lincoln Kinkead sat down at the monitoring station and looked at the two uniformed security guards from the night shift. Philip, the one who had called him, was in his late thirties with thinning brown hair. He had been with the company for five years. The other one was Charles, who had come on board six months ago. He was younger, with blond hair a beat too long for Lincoln’s taste. Both were very reliable.
“Let’s go over what happened step by step,” Lincoln said.
He kept his gaze on the guard’s face as Philip repeated the story.
“I was in the can when she came in. But I saw her on the monitor when I rewound. She took the elevator upstairs, just before the cameras on the IT floor went off.”
