by Vicki Hinze
Stunned, Maggie groaned. “You’re defending him, too?” She couldn’t believe it. He’d gotten to the Queen Grouch? “Not fifteen minutes ago, you were issuing him a final warning about Aruba.”
“So what? He fills out a great pair of jeans, he remembered how you like your coffee and—”
“Oh,” Amanda interrupted. “He worried she’d be hungry, too.”
“Yeah,” Kate said. “I forgot that one. And I like the way he looks at you all dopey-eyed.”
“Oh, God.” Maggie groaned. “Deliver me.”
“For pity’s sake, lighten up, Maggie,” Amanda said. “Far be it from us to interfere....”
Maggie stepped around a stack of boxes and guffawed. “Oh, right. Right.”
“Okay,” Amanda conceded. “So maybe we are interfering a tiny bit by asking questions, but we’re concerned you’re going to do something totally stupid and regret it forever.”
“And we’ll have to listen to you gripe,” Kate tossed in.
“Kate. You don’t need to hit her with a Mack truck,” Amanda said. “Be gentle.”
“I was being gentle.”
“Subtle as a sledge.” Darcy added her unsolicited opinion.
“Whatever.” Kate sniffed, affronted. “I was honest.”
“Be that as it may...” Amanda resumed spokesman control, her voice not registering so much as a ripple. “You might want to reconsider your position on that little indiscretion of his, Maggie.”
She cut down the aisle and wound between two waist-high stacks of boxes, sidestepping the edge of an empty slatted-wood palette. “Little indiscretion?” Maggie shook her head. “Excuse me?” She just couldn’t believe it. “Have you guys gotten sudden amnesia or something?”
“Not bloody likely,” Darcy said. “It’s in your best interests. That’s all.” She let out a heaved breath that crackled static. “So he cheated. But, good grief, do you know the circumstances, Maggie?”
Now they were making excuses for him? “No, I don’t.”
“You should,” Kate advised her. “Maybe there are extenuating circumstances that warrant special consideration in his case?” Kate smacked her lips. “I don’t know, Maggie. I’m not feeling comfortable with your judgment. Things aren’t looking so good for you on that front.”
“I didn’t do anything, Kate. And you’re not remembering that has me seriously questioning your judgment.” Maggie stepped out of the row into the center clearing. “Don’t you guys get it? You trust someone with your best and your worst and when they break that trust, it’s just gone. You can’t wish it back. You can’t even order it back. It’s been shattered to pieces, and all that’s left is dust. It no longer exists.”
“We get that,” Amanda said. “Even Kate.”
“I identify with the shattering part, but matter never dissipates, it merely changes form—and Justin didn’t break your trust,” Kate said.
Maggie ignored her and pushed Amanda. “If you get what I’m saying, then why are you telling me I should play ostrich and bury my head in the sand? So I can chew myself up inside trying to scrounge together enough courage to try to trust again, and then put it in the hands of a man who has a history of blowing trust to Mars and back? Come on, guys.” She spun in a slow circle, sweeping the light from ceiling to floor, and caught a whiff of some scent.
Cologne. Subtle, too light to distinguish whether it was a man’s or a woman’s. She stepped off two steps in each direction, but lost the scent.
“I’m sorry,” Darcy said. “I just don’t understand you on this. You’re usually reasonable, Maggie.”
Now she was unreasonable? “Look, forget it. Just drop this.” Maggie gritted her teeth. “Just drop it.”
“No,” Amanda said. “This is too important. Men like Justin really are rare, Maggie. How many have looked at you like he does? Or made you feel what he does?”
They were honestly on his side. A swift flood of betrayal gushed through Maggie. Betrayal and abandonment. She stiffened against it. “Uh, Amanda. I’m the woman who burned the bed, boat, fence and storage building, and sent Jack out into the freezing night naked, riding on rims, if you’ll recall. I live with that. How could you possibly think I’d ever again trust the way a man looks at me?” Anger at them for turning on her erupted. “How could any of you think it’s wrong to hold being unfaithful against a man? How could you not understand how scared I am of it happening again?” She choked up.
“Oh, honey,” Amanda said. “We’re on your side. We just don’t want you to miss out on a man who truly adores you.”
“Yeah,” Darcy said. “It’s just a perspective thing. You know, being burned kind of tints the picture. You need to see it clearly.”
“Look, Maggie,” Kate said. “You get this right, you win. You screw up, we all lose. It’s that simple. Now, we know you did all that stuff, and for some reason, it eats at you. But that was with Jack. Justin isn’t Jack. And, frankly, Jack deserved every single thing you did to him and then some. You know we all feel that way about it. You’re just messing up with Justin. We’re saving you from yourself.”
“Don’t.” She didn’t need saving.
Finally she saw what she’d been looking for, and all other thoughts fled her mind. Her heart rate sped up a notch. “I’ve found the door.”
She moved closer to the wall, dragged her fingertips over the fine joint. They registered barely a line. “Well, it’s not actually a door,” she amended. “It’s a wide slat inserted in the wall.”
“Check for trip wires,” Kate suggested.
“Pressure-sensitive bombs,” Amanda said on a rush. “Kunz is crazy about them. And laser. He loves laser.”
“There’s no light, Amanda,” Maggie said, sounding a lot more calm than she felt. “No laser. Ease up a bit. I’m checking every millimeter for everything.” And she did. Twice. Then a third time, using a standard grid pattern, which she widened and went over a fourth time for extra caution. “Maggie?” Justin’s voice rang out. “Are you okay?”
He was back in the communications loop. That, too, comforted her—and irritated her because it comforted her. Refusing to wonder why, she said, “I’m fine,” then finished the intense inspection. “There’s nothing here. The area is barren.”
Now why would anyone go to the trouble of putting in that window only to have an empty room? It didn’t make sense. There had to be a reason. Uncomfortable, she tipped the flashlight to elevate its beam and checked the ceiling, then the floor, and then all points in between.
Still nothing.
Stranger and stranger. She again widened the grid to make sure the slat itself wasn’t a lead that would act as a trigger for something else. “It’s clean,” she said, finally satisfied. “I’m going to pull the slat.”
She grabbed the two-by-six and tested its weight. Lifting the bottom straight up, she swung it toward her, then pulled the slat out of the channel holding it in place at the ceiling. The slat broke free. Balancing its weight, she turned and stepped sideways, then leaned it against the wall.
“Slat’s out.” She moved to the center of the opening and peered inside. “I see the window.”
Wiping gritty sawdust from her hands, she looked inside the narrow three-foot room, shining the light down to the left and then the right. “Estimate the room to measure three-by-sixty feet, maybe a little longer,” she said, allowing for distortion by the lack of light. “Plywood walls, unpainted. Same concrete floor as the rest of the short-stack. The window is tinted to match the dome ceiling outside. It’s roughly a square foot, actually a little larger than the visual observed from outside led us to believe.”
“Any strange smells, sounds or other sensory input?” Darcy asked.
Obviously they were back to taping. “The wood smells new. It can’t have been in here long. The three inner plywood walls all still have fuzzy fibers and curls of sawdust on the edges, same as those in the short-stack proper.” She ran her fingers along the slat. “The edges of the slat haven’t
been sanded and they’re not worn smooth. I see a few more wood shavings in here than outside. This secret room has been added recently.” That fit with the photo Will had supplied dating it, as well. “No other scents, and no sounds at all. It’s dead quiet in here.”
“What’s in the room?” Darcy asked. “Any contents?”
“Nothing. Not a single—wait.” Something was at the far end of the narrow space. She moved toward it. “A fire hose.” That made no sense, either. “It appears to be functional.”
“Why would there be a functional fire hose there?” Kate asked. “And a window?”
“Stand by, Maggie,” Darcy said. “Let me check something.”
“Are you sure it’s functional, the fire hose?” Amanda asked.
Maggie checked it, examined the wall connection. “It appears to be, yes.”
Darcy returned. “I reviewed the plans again to be sure, Maggie. The short-stack has sprinklers, so the hose isn’t needed for fire. Look out the window. What do you see?” Maggie dragged the hose with her to the window, looked down. Hundreds of kids were playing in the snow. “I see the pit,” she said. “And the fire hose is exactly the right length to reach the window. It reaches no further.”
A pause, then Darcy added, “The hose is totally unnecessary. Sprinklers also circle the pit.”
“You said they circle the pit. Does the spray cover what’s in the pit?” Maggie asked, looking for an angle. There had to be a logical reason for this hose to be here.
“Other than today, there isn’t anything in the pit that’s vulnerable to fire and needs protection. Just a marble slab floor and steps leading down into it.”
“Then why would someone fear fire enough to put a hose up here?” Kate asked, sounding as baffled as Maggie felt.
“Good question.” One Maggie intended to put to Daniel Barone.
Maggie took one more look out the window, then stepped back. You’re missing something. You’re missing something. Her instincts hummed and an odd chill shot up her spine. A second later something scraped the floor behind her. She spun around to confront it.
A swish of rushing air blew over her. Something hard cracked against her skull. Pain shot through her head, she staggered, spun, grabbing her skull, seeing stars. “Darcy!”
“What’s wrong? No visual. It’s too dark. Maggie? Maggie, talk to me!”
“Hold your positions.” Her tongue went thick, her mind foggy. She stumbled, trying to get to the door. The flashlight fell from her hand. Its beam of light went out. She bumped into the wall, leaned into it, shaking her head to clear it.
Steadier now, she pushed off the wall and felt her way down it. The opening had to be close by.
“Someone...hit...me.” She deliberately slurred her words, leading her attacker, she hoped, into believing she was more incapacitated by the blow than she actually was. “Hold...positions.” She intended the instruction for Amanda, Kate and Mark at Center Court. They’d know by that she was luring her attacker.
A bare hand shot out to grab her.
She sensed the movement before she felt it, and threw a shot out, connecting with the armpit.
“Umph.”
The grunt was too muffled to distinguish as male or female. Following the sound, she moved in, but met only air.
Retreating footsteps grinding on the concrete squeaked in the inky darkness. Footfalls quickly faded and then disappeared.
Maggie sucked in a sharp breath, felt her way to the door and stepped out of the hidden room into the long shadows of the short-stack. She looked for the attacker but, even straining, couldn’t see through the deep shadows between the lights.
Just get out.
Yes, get out and lock down the darn thing with the attacker inside. Bring in a team to flush him or her out.
Counting her steps, she moved toward the exit door, through a dark spot. Her shoe snagged on something and she twisted but lost her balance.
Crumpling, she braced. Her hands and knees collided with the concrete. Pain shot through her hands up her arms, through her knees and up her legs. The pain slammed through her bones, streaked to her shoulders and down to her feet. Sprawled on the concrete, she exhaled a heartfelt groan.
A strong hand closed around her ankle. “Maggie, it’s me. It’s me, Justin.”
Justin? She crawled to her knees and tried to stand. “Why are you down on the floor?”
“I came in after you.” He gained his feet with a few grunts and groans. “Someone cracked me in the back of the head.”
He helped her up and hugged her to him, his hands on her back trembling. “Are you okay?”
She gave in to the desire to comfort and be comforted, and rested her cheek against his chest. “I’m okay.”
“Maggie, what the heck is going on in here?”
“Someone ambushed me in the secret room. I heard him or her running away.”
“Darcy?” Justin said. “Did you get that?”
“I got it.”
“Darcy,” Maggie said. “Get a SWAT team up here fast. Whoever attacked me might still be inside.” Though with no guard on the exit door, he or she could also have left. “I want a CSI team in here as soon as SWAT clears it. If there’s a print in this place, I want it identified.” The person who’d hit her hadn’t been wearing gloves. When she’d shot a jab to the armpit, she’d felt a brush of bare hand.
“Maggie, it’s Will.”
“Go ahead, Will,” Maggie said into the two-way.
“Get out of there,” he said on a rush. “I’ve got the entrance covered—have had since Justin went in. No one has come out. The attacker is still inside.”
“You’re positive no one has come out.”
“Darn straight, I am.”
Justin tugged and Maggie followed, moving toward the exit door. “Darcy, there are no other short-stack exits, just the one door both Justin and I used, correct?”
“That’s correct. Consistent with the plan.”
“That’s a freaking fire code violation,” Amanda added.
“We’ll deal with that later,” Maggie promised. “For now, let’s just get SWAT up here to flush out whoever attacked us, and see what else we find.” She had a sneaking suspicion that the key to successfully halting any GRID attack lay in discovering the reason for that window and fire hose.
Closing the dark space between she and Justin and the exit, she accepted that, should they live, her head would pound for a week. “Why did you come in here, Justin?”
“I was worried. You were in here a long time with no contact.”
He couldn’t hear the private frequency.
“By the time I heard you, I was already inside. I was attacked seconds later.”
He kept a hand at her waist and they moved back-to-back, so they had full circle view. Finally they reached the exit door out of the short-stack, and Maggie noticed that Justin was strongly favoring his left knee.
The door opened.
Light flooded in from the main thoroughfare outside. A relieved shiver raced up her back, and Maggie walked out to where Will stood waiting. “Did you see anyone?”
“No one came out, Maggie.” Will looked her over, concerned. “You okay?”
She nodded. “Yes, thanks.”
“Will’s right,” Darcy said. “No one has come out that door, Maggie. ETA on the SWAT team is two minutes.”
“Thanks.” She looked at Justin. “Did you see your attacker?”
“No.” He stepped to Maggie’s side. “But I think it was a man.”
“Why?” Maggie asked. She hadn’t been able to determine whether the person had been female or male.
“Strength.” Justin grimaced. “He whacked the cartilage out of my knee with a ball bat.”
An intentional knee-shot. A professional. “A baseball bat?” Maggie turned around to look at him. “Or a nightstick.” All the security guards had batons, but most people still called them nightsticks.
“It could have been either.” Justin rubbed at his
left leg. “All I know is I’m going to have a heck of a bruise and a lot of swelling. If he’d hit my head that hard, my brain would be mush right now.”
Worry for him sliced through Maggie, cutting her deep. She stepped closer, touched his face and looked into his eyes. “But you are okay, right? You’re sure?”
He inhaled, absorbing her concern, and covered her hand on his face. “I’m sure.”
Relief washed over her. “Good.” She caught a shaky breath, moved away and leaned against the banister next to Will. “So, who went in or out of the short-stack?”
“I didn’t see any activity at all,” Justin said.
Will nodded his agreement. “Me, either.”
Darcy added. “I can confirm that on both counts.” Maggie looked at Justin. “If no one else was inside the short-stack with you and me, then who popped a home run on your kneecap and nailed me in the head?” Justin could have caused his own injury and hers.
His tone sharpened. He’d picked up on her suspicion and deeply resented it. “I can’t answer that, Maggie. I don’t know.”
She let out a frustrated sigh. “Well, doesn’t it strike you as odd?”
His jaw ticked. “Darned odd, but I was attacked, too, and I’m not pointing a finger at you.”
He had been attacked, and in a way that was atypical for a self-inflicted injury. Maggie stopped, dragged in a calming breath and cooled her temper. “I’m sorry. I had to ask. It’s my job. But I didn’t believe you were the attacker, Justin.”
“Well, thank you for believing the obvious.” He stepped away from her, his jaw tight, his shoulders stiff. He stared into a store window at a mobile DVD player, obviously furious and trying to tamp his temper.
Maggie shot his back a glare meant to bend steel and raised her voice, hoping he’d catch it. “Obvious to you maybe, Justin. But not to me.” She’d had to consider him. She’d be a sorry operative and a fool not to. Why couldn’t he see that?
He stared back at her over his shoulder. A second’s worth of pain, not anger, flickered in his eyes, then cool detachment replaced it, freezing her out. “There’s something you’re forgetting that you might want to remember. My back and my work are on the line here, too. Yet, unlike you, I don’t have to be here. I have a choice.” A muscle in his jaw ticked. “I’m not saying losing my life would be a greater sacrifice than you losing yours, or anyone else losing theirs. But mine is as important as anyone else’s, and it’s very important to me.” Justin limped away, down the thoroughfare, clearly wanting to put some space and distance between him and her.