Deadly Interest (42 page)

She returned to her task, sliding those tiny
metal restraints the other direction, in order to free the second
arm, but this time, I noticed that her fingers shook.

Across the room, a phone jangled, splitting
the silence with its shrill ring.

I yelped, as did she. I reached out a hand,
grabbing Maya’s arm to steady us both as the phone rang again.
“Just the phone,” I said.

Her head canted and she stared across the
night-blue expanse. “I think that’s my phone,” she said, her voice
hoarse. Her fearful eyes widened so much that I could see white all
the way around her pupils. She clutched my hand. “Who would be
calling me? Is it Owen? Does he know I’m here?”

After five long rings, it finally stopped,
but the noise echoed in my mind in the sudden silence. I let go of
Maya and tried my best to keep my voice soothing and low. “Let’s
get this done.”

She nodded, but looked unconvinced.

“
Ten minutes,” I said.
“we’re back in your car and on our way home.”

“
Ten minutes,” she
repeated so softly I could barely hear the breathy
words.

“
Come on.” I opened the
lid of the copier, placed the application face down on the glass,
and hit the square green button. The machine whooshed to life,
shooting a bright-light glow out from its edges as it scanned the
page. “Let me get one more,” I said, and hit the button
again.

Maya held onto the inch-thick computer
printout up to her chest like a school girl, and as soon as I
finished, she lifted the lid and set the original in place. “Two,”
she said, changing the setting and starting her copies.

There were over fifty accounts listed on
each page of the report, so within minutes, we had all we came for.
“Okay?” I asked, as Maya lifted the last original from the glass.
“We done?”

She nodded, rearranging the pages back into
their proper folds. “I’ll put this back, you turn off the copier,
okay? The switch is behind it.”

One second later, the copier was utterly
still, and the deafening silence returned, keeping us in whispers.
“Almost ready?” I asked, as Maya slipped the silver brackets back
over the top of the report then moved to lock the drawers we’d
opened.

“
Let’s go,” she
said.

I’d just shoved all our copies in my purse
and we’d donned our jackets when Maya made a little noise that
stopped me.

“
What?”

“
We didn’t put the
original application back.”

“
Damn,” I said, digging it
out from my stash.

As Maya pulled out her keys again, I heard
their now-familiar jangle.

And, I heard something else.

My hand shot out, of its own accord,
silencing the musical clinking of the keys in Maya’s hands. She
stared at me. She’d heard it, too.

It was the elevator. And it was moving.

I shoved the original application back into
my purse and grabbed Maya, pulling her toward her side of the
office. I had the vague idea that if we were on that side, and
pretending to leave, then no one would be the wiser about our true
purpose here today.

“
Turn the lights on,” I
said.

“
I can’t,” she said,
pointing to a corner near the door. “Too far.”

I heard the sickeningly recognizable sound
of the elevator doors opening. Someone had gotten off at this
floor.

Flashlight off. I stuck it into my back
pocket as we ran toward her desk, and once there, I slowed us both
to a stroll, trying in vain to control my breathing. “We’re okay,”
I whispered. “We’re on our way out. Remember that.”

Her head nodded, but her eyes were wild with
panic.

We stood there, in front of her desk, me
slightly in the lead with a protective hand extended behind me,
like a parent would reach for a child before crossing the street. I
felt every nerve in my body go taut, standing there, listening.
Realizing that anyone in the hallway would be nearly invisible to
us, but that if we stepped out beyond the cubicle separator, we
would be backlit by the wall of night-sky windows, I yanked at
Maya’s arm. Forget trying to explain our being here. “Get down,” I
said.

We waited and listened for long minutes.
Nothing. Not a breath, not a footstep, not a word.

“
Maybe it’s nothing.”
Maya’s hopeful whisper seemed over-loud in the quiet.

I swallowed. Shook my head.

Pressing a finger to my lips, I pulled at
her jacket sleeve, indicating she should follow me. I swung my
purse so that the strap crossed my chest, to keep it from swinging
free as we crawled. I turned to Maya, indicating she should do the
same.

The oppressive heat made breathing through
my mouth a necessity. Perspiration collected along my hairline,
under my arms, and across my waist. As sweat droplets made their
way down my forehead into my eyes I shook my head to clear my
vision. We could continue creeping along the floor, and, if we were
very careful, make our way back to the elevator.

As I put one hand flat on the carpet,
followed by another, followed by my knees, I plotted out our path.
If it was open, the elevator would be our best shot at escape. If
not, the “ding” would alert anyone else on this level to our
position and there wouldn’t be enough time for the doors to open,
us to get inside, and the doors to close again before he’d be upon
us.

If the doors were open, we could creep in
silently, hit the button for the first floor, and be on our way
down just as he realized we were there. It could work.

Knee, hand, knee, hand. I glanced back at
Maya. She was staying with me, her face a mask of intensity. Good
girl.

We crawled to the far wall of filing
cabinets; in our dark jackets and jeans we could be chameleons and
disappear into the background. We just needed a minute’s head
start. A half-minute, even.

My right knee came down on the side of hard
plastic push-pin. Biting the insides of my cheeks, I resisted the
urge to cry out in pain. Concentrate, I told myself.

We had only about twenty more crawl-steps to
go, but the elevator was around the doorway and I wouldn’t be able
to see if it was open or not without coming out into the pale
corridor light.

Our only other option was the stairway. If
we made it to the hall unnoticed, we could stand up and run to the
stairs. With a good enough head start, we could make it down ten
flights ahead of him. Sure we could.

With a lurch, my stomach remembered an
article I’d read once about danger in stairways, and how they were
particularly hazardous places. Most office building stairways
didn’t allow exit until one reached the first floor. We’d have to
make it all the way down, or be trapped if the intruder beat us
down by taking the elevator.

We would have to get to the elevator first,
noise or no noise.

I’d been straining to hear any sound at all
from anywhere on the floor. I heard nothing. Part of me wanted to
believe that either the security guard had made a quick stop on ten
and then left again, or that the elevator had mysteriously taken a
trip down and back up by itself.

I could feel my heart. People always say
that, but I never really believed it. Now, I knew it was true. My
heart beat, and I felt the pulsations in my eardrums speed up as we
neared the open loan department doors.

No one there.

Bracing myself, I moved forward just
slightly, enough to peer around into the corridor. All I wanted was
to see if the elevator was there. To see if it was open. To see if
we could make our break.

A fast shadow movement from my left made me
gasp, but before I could react, Owen Riordan jerked to a stop in
front of my flat-on-the-floor hands.

“
Don’t move.” I didn’t.
His voice was harsh and high, breathless. “Okay, now, slow,” he
said, “get up.” Frozen to the spot, I stared up at him; he kicked
at my shoulder with his foot. “I said, get your ass up.”

Scrambling to my feet, I glanced at Maya,
who cowered in terror.

When I turned back, I saw why. Owen held a
gun close to my face, its long silver barrel lined up so perfectly
at my eyes, that I could see the scalloped edges of the hollow
bullets in its cylinder.

“
You goddamn nosy bitch,”
he said. The small baseboard lights from the surrounding corridor
lit up Owen’s face from below, emphasizing his scowl and hollowing
out his eye sockets. I couldn’t read him.

Shoving the gun into my shoulder, he pressed
me back against the wall until I bumped into Maya, close behind. I
grabbed her hand, squeezing it in a show of bravery I didn’t really
feel.

“
What the hell is wrong
with you, Maya? I thought you were a smart girl.”

She didn’t answer, but I could feel her body
tremble against mine. If Owen had been the guy who’d attacked me
and Diana—and right about now I decided he was—then I knew better
than to underestimate him. Beneath that burgeoning layer of paunch,
the man had power. But this time, I told myself—this time I was not
going down so easily.

When he spoke again, his words were sharp.
“Did you get everything you came for? Think you’re some kind of
detectives? Got old Owen all figured out?”

I’d gotten over the initial shock of being
discovered, and my mind started to plot out escape routes.
Something about the way he handled the weapon—the way he waved it
between us, the way his body swaggered as he did so—seemed
theatric. As if the gun imbued him with a power that he didn’t know
how to control.

“
What do you mean?” I
asked, working to achieve nonchalance, but the unevenness of my
voice was a dead giveaway. “We were just leaving.”

“
Cut the shit. I know
goddamn well what you came for. And what you think you found.”
Moonlight glinted off the barrel of the gun that he waved between
us, again. “Empty out your purses.”

My pepper spray. It was in there. I reached
into my cavernous bag, fingers making a quick search for the trusty
weapon.

“
No, wait,” he said. “Drop
your purses. On the floor.”

“
But—” I started to
say.

“
Drop them!” He screamed.
We dropped our bags; they made clanging thunks as they hit the
ground. “Now . . . back away from them.”

With the tip of his tongue sticking out the
corner of his mouth, he kept an eye trained on both of us as he
crouched to pick up both purses. The gun pointed upward, and if I’d
have tried to smash his chin with a well-placed kick, I risked
having him yank the trigger and the gun take off half my face.

Owen must have noticed me eyeing the gun,
because he took a step backward, effectively out of my reach when
he stood up again. Backing away two more steps, he upended both
purses on the nearest desk, nabbing the original application I’d
taken, and all the paperwork we’d so carefully researched and
copied. One-handed, using the desk as a brace, he folded the
information into quarters and shoved the thick wad into his back
pocket.

I noticed, for the first time, that he wore
skin-tight leather gloves. “Stupid,” he said under his breath.
Looking up at Maya, his voice took on a tone of blame. “Why can’t
you stupid women ever leave things alone? Goddamn nosy bitches. All
of you.” He kept watching us, even as he continued to dig through
our belongings.

If I made a move, Maya would move with me. I
forced myself to believe that she would, otherwise, I risked the
paralysis of indecision.

“
Did you know,” Owen said,
in an almost conversational tone, “that you were going to be dead
today?” His pale eyes glanced up, waited for a response from us.
When we gave him none, he set back to his purse-search. “Isn’t that
something? It’s weird isn’t it? Knowing when you’ll die. And
knowing there isn’t a thing you can do about it.”

Like hell, I thought, but hearing his words
shook me.

“
Ah,” he said, “here’s
one.” He held up Maya’s cell phone. Even in the dark I saw his
grin, the triumphant head-swagger. “Now where’s the other
one?”

My cell phone sat in my back jeans pocket,
as always set to vibrate rather than ring. With a start, I
remembered Lulinski had promised to keep in touch. I whispered a
prayer that if he did call, I’d be able to stifle my reaction to
the sudden buzz.

“
I don’t have mine,” I
said.

Owen stopped, mid-search. “I don’t believe
you.”

“
Fine,” I said, forcing
bravado into my voice. “Keep looking. Don’t let me stop
you.”

“
Then, where is it?” he
asked, with just enough inquisitiveness that let me know he
believed me.

“
At home,” I lied.
“Charging the battery.”

He seemed to weigh the answer, finally
deciding to believe me, because he gave up on the pile on the desk.
I tried hard not to show visible relief.

“
Okay, over there,” he
said, gesturing with the gun.

“
Where?” I
asked.

He angled himself to my side, and pushed at
the back of my shoulder. He must have pushed Maya, too, because she
bumped into me, catching herself from falling by grabbing onto my
arms.

His free hand did a quick sort of the
desktop, grabbing Maya’s keys in his fist. “Here,” he said,
thrusting them at her. “You clever girls can figure it out. Open up
those files. The ones you thought you were so smart to
uncover.”

My feet were heavy; I took small steps back
toward the window wall, as if moving slower could somehow keep me
alive longer.

Maya fumbled with the keys, her fingers
shaking worse than before. I watched her down-turned face as she
tried to steady herself by gripping the key with both hands. When
it finally clicked open, her dark eyes came up to meet mine,
silently asking what we could do. Her teeth bit down on her lip,
turning it almost white, and her chin trembled. I had no answer for
her.