Zack nodded taking in the information. “I’m going with you, don’t argue.” They were the sitting room. Gary Lao stood arms crossed near the elevator. He had the severe look of a Foo dog standing guard. Mo was curled on the sofa in her bathrobe, eyes large with shock. Zack’s heart pounded at the sight of her. She reached out her hand to his wrist. He yanked it away. “I’m going downstairs with Les,” he said, casting Mo an angry look.
Mo shrunk back from the harsh tone looking hurt. Zack stepped onto the elevator and pushed the button for the basement. His eyes were drawn in an angry bead on hers. She opened her small mouth in puzzlement and tilted her head watching him as the doors closed.
Down in the basement Zack and Les checked the elevator shafts and headed up the stairwell of the west wing of the hotel. Zack hated that he was already winded by the fifth floor but he refused to grab an elevator when Les suggested it. He shook his head at how much his injuries had taken out of him. They ran into Vince’s people on the sixteenth floor. Janet Ben-Ghury introduced Ward McGovern. They had cleared the floor. The rooms on the sixteenth floor were accessible by the lobby elevators but only one of the elevators went to the presidential suite. It wasn’t accessible from the rest of the floor. The roof. They went back into the stairwell and after Ben-Ghury punched in the code, out onto the roof. It was after midnight. The sound of a plane coming in for a landing was deafening. You couldn’t hear them at all inside the hotel. They searched the roof and looked down to the sixteenth at Mo’s bathroom window. Nothing. No ropes, grappling hooks, nothing. Since Les had filled Zack in on the details surrounding the incident at his condo he was aware of the similarity to that incident. He also knew no prints or other evidence had been gleaned from the rope found at his down stairs neighbor’s.
“What’s this, oh, elevator.” Zack gathered from its position on to the roof on the edge of the presidential suite. It was a small geodesic dome of steel plates riveted with large steel bolts. No entry. Not without a pneumatic wrench. There were two other domes as well. The three west wing elevators, but only the one he gazed at serviced Mo’s suite.
“Someone was up on this roof and they’re a slippery mother,” McGovern stated what was obvious to the rest of them.
Al Simpson and Harve Graver stepped out onto the roof. “Can’t sleep Burnham, gotta keep everybody up at night?” Al asked with a crabby tone. Harve looked over the edge of the roof.
“We’re going room to room. I swear to God I’m gonna get this jerk. We got some uniforms coming from Shaumberg to assist. Every inch of this hotel is going to be searched by morning.” Al stood and glared at Zack, surveying the bandages Zack’s open shirt did not conceal. “You need to go back to your sweetie and get the hell outta the way. Harve get a doctor here before Burnham bleeds to death on us.”
Zack looked down and saw blood saturating his shirt.
He listened to them with glee. Idiots! It was a good thing he had been able to seal off his entry to the elevator shaft while leaving the plate he had gotten loose looking untouched. This was like clandestine war. He against them all. What fools! They could check out the hatch in the elevator if it occurred to them and find everything in the shaft normal. He had been busy over his break. The bolts holding the steel plates on the dome over the elevator had taken time and strength to remove. The time spent more than worthwhile. He had done it while everyone was off on their little vacation. He had made a mistake getting caught up in watching her. Witch. He had been spellbound at the sight of her rising from her bath. Didn’t she know he hated to be teased like that?
Okay, maybe it hadn’t been the smartest thing he’d ever done going to Burnham’s apartment. But he had to know where things stood. He had hoped to settle things in Montreal. But Mo hadn’t gotten on the plane. She could be derailed with a few choice words, evidently. He had flown up to Montreal and using one of his fake identities, boarded another plane and flown to the town where he had a car stashed. It had been a pleasant ride back occupied with making plans. He thought about Mo and Claude and Roddy. They weren’t the only ones who could put on a production as they would soon find out. He’d had such plans with Mo in Montreal. But she’d run to him, that abysmally goodie two shoes cop. The joy he’d felt when he heard about Burnham’s injuries. The disappointment when he’d lived. He’d kept an eye on them the whole time. He’d even seen Zack being picked up by that big cop the day he was shot. He just couldn’t get into the building. Especially once the press had shown up.
And Simpson, what a joke. He thought he’d had him on the run. We’ll see about that. While they’re all going bananas at the hotel he was already well into planning his grand finally at the coliseum. His schuloss as they say in the world of clowns. This time the show ended the way he wanted it to. If he couldn’t have Mo…
Back in the room Zack paced in fury. Mo eyed him afraid to say a word. He’d heard. Gary had left with Les. Al had questioned her and she told him what little she could about the person she’d seen. Now it was just she and Zack and she could feel the livid freeze.
He was having a hard time even looking at her for fear of what he might say or do. He held a towel against his side. He’d blown off a paramedic who wanted to put him in an ambulance and was waiting on the doctor who had seen Mo. Whitney’s doctor who the man himself had insisted on calling. Exhausting himself, he sat down on a chair across from her. “All about trust. Gotta trust Claude. Gotta trust Misha. Gotta trust everybody in the whole damn world except the man who’s inside you at night.”
“Zack, let, me explain, you were in the…”
“Shut up! When were you going to tell me? Didn’t have time? Everyone knew but me! What did you think I was going to do? Yank out my IV and start kicking in doors?”
His sharp command startled, then angered her. She tried to level her tone and be reasonable. “That’s exactly what I thought you’d do.” Mo jumped up and paced. She thought she’d made the right decision. There was nothing he could have done. “Look at you now. Standing there bleeding when there was a paramedic right here! What do you think you would have done?” She got more worked up as she spoke. She couldn’t help it.
The question hung in the air as the elevator doors opened and the doctor stepped in. “My but La Cirque du Celestial is the gift that keeps on giving.” Zack and Mo both looked at him in astonishment. “Give me some more light,” he ordered Mo, getting down to business. Mo snapped on more lamps and turned up the overhead. She wanted to snap something more. The angry snapping of light switches didn’t help. The doctor unwound the blood soaked bandage until a long track of metal staples were revealed. Starting just above the waist on the side traveling upward toward the front where it bloomed out into a wider wound with several short lines of stitching like a stick drawing of a flower. The skin was still black and blue turning to yellow around the edges of the long path the bullet had traveled. Miraculously the bullet had ricocheted off his highest rib. It had traveled along his flesh burning the line deeply enough to require stitching. Mo saw how close he’d come and had to sit down. A wave of nausea rolled over her.
Luckily, only a few staples had been pulled enough to create the bloody mess. “Looks worse than it is, but we’ll need to go to the hospital.”
“You got some catgut? I’m not going anywhere.” Zack’s lips pressed tight and narrowed his eyes in a way the doctor understood as implacable determination.
“I’ll do what I can, but you need to get this checked out as soon as possible.” The doctor went to work. Zack gritted his teeth but when Mo tried to take his hand he pushed it away. “How’s the shoulder?”
“Hurts. It’s not bleeding. I don’t think.” Zack winced as the doctor inspected the bandaged shoulder.
“Call me tomorrow. And rest. Don’t miss the antibiotics. Didn’t anyone tell you you’ve been severely injured? I think you would have figured it out on your own by now. Keep him down, Ms. Whitman. For God’s sake!” The doctor briskly snapped his bag shut.
Zack lay back
nestled into the back of the sofa dazed with pain. He felt the stupidity of climbing sixteen stories worth of steps. He was weak, without even the energy to sustain his anger. “Zack?”
Mo leaned over him, terrified of and for him. But look at what he’d done. Didn’t that in itself justify the decision she had made?” She didn’t care about being right. Not after what she’d just seen. “Drink this water. He said you needed to drink some water. You’re dehydrated.”
Zack heaved a sigh and groaned as the pain shot up his side as if he was on that ladder all over again. He reached up for the water but his arm fell limply. Mo carefully held the glass to his lips. He vaguely remembered the doctor plunging the hypodermic needle into him. What was in that? Did he give him something? It felt so nice to lean back with his eyes closed. The pain lessened and Zack didn’t even notice when he stopped feeling his body.
He had refused to go into the bedroom. Mo put the throw on him and lifted his legs onto the coffee table. She had seen what she hadn’t seen before. He had a temper bolstered by a savage stubbornness. It made her realize how little she knew him. Was that suppressed part of him what made him such a stunningly animalistic lover? Had that been running beneath the surface the whole time? Was it the drugs? She breathed a shuddered breath at the fury that had been directed towards her. If the doctor hadn’t come in…”
Zack slept hard and Mo slipped out to go for a run. Meese signaled Hagman and they settled into their Lincoln Town Car and cruised slowly along. Her sleep had not gone well. She’d been afraid to sleep in the bedroom alone and had settled in a chair. Not surprisingly it had been a wakeful night of discomfort and worry about Zack. Moore had spent the night discreetly in the second bedroom and Smith had people all over the hotel, including the roof. On top of that, Al and the police had conducted a room to room search. Yet she’d felt vulnerable at the same time her mind raced with the fight with Zack. She’d felt the need to keep checking him. She feared he might waken and need her. She feared for them both when he came out of his stupor and they picked up where they’d left off. She ran toward the coliseum recalling seeing a brief glimpse of that anger the night she crawled onto his lap in her hotel room and he’d accused her of needing another notch on her bedpost.
People usually put their best sides forward with other people. It could take a long time to really know someone. Al Simpson was one of the few people she’d ever met that didn’t bother. But then his disposition had been formed by years of homicide work and an inherent lack of interest in what people thought of him. But Zack hadn’t tried to manipulate her with a Mr. Niceguy approach. He wouldn’t even have been here if she had not gone to him. Could he have manipulated that and she just hadn’t seen it? He seemed like a ‘what you see is what you get’ kind of guy. Except in bed where he had completely demolished any expectations she might have had and supplanted them with the keen knowledge of a tender sensuality combined with primal rawness. Had she fallen in love with a man because he had challenged her? In every way? Because he had taken her body to extremes of pleasure she had never guessed existed.
She had felt a wall of anger slam into her the night before. She knew he wouldn’t have hit her but she felt as if the strength of his fury could have pounded her without him ever raising a hand. Now indignation gleaned the sharp stalks of fear. How dare he make her feel guilty? How dare he be so presumptuous to second guess a decision she had made under duress. Especially when there was nothing he could have done. As if he had any room to talk after running up sixteen flights of stairs until he almost bled to death. Did he think he was going to take control of her decisions? Did he believe she would surrender her judgment to him? She was going to see exactly what Zack Burnham did when things didn’t go his way. That was the best way to see what a person was really made of.
To the frustration of the boys she did an abrupt turn. They had to turn around avoiding service trucks that had blocked the way. She was ahead by the time they got turned around. Meese twisted his mouth with annoyance and hit the pedal. He showed the other guy some fancy maneuvers driving as if land mines were planted in the massive coliseum parking lot.
Mo was braced for battle. She practically jumped into the room. It was empty. She looked in all the rooms but he was nowhere to be found. She saw his packed bag sitting to the side of the elevator and she felt her heart do a triple. Scanning the room again she dashed onto the elevator.
“Have you seen Zack?” She asked Meese who she had asked to wait in the lobby. Then she saw Marvin Bedlow, Vince Smith’s assistant director of security. She ran into Janet Ben-Ghury who was apparently pulling a double armed with coffee and an annoyed countenance. Who did that remind her of she said to herself thinking of Al Simpson. Ben-Ghury hadn’t seen Zack. Mr. Coleman the desk manager gave her a strained smile. He’d had a lot of angry people complaining about being rousted in the middle of the night and questioned yet again about events connected to their most important and troublesome guest.
Mo sucked it up and was about to dial Al Simpson when he came through the door. “Have you heard from Zack? I can’t find him anywhere.”
“The roof.” He pressed the elevator button. “Go back to your room. You’ve caused enough trouble for one day. Meese! You just letting her run around the hotel for Chrissake? She’s going to the room. Clear the elevator and stay on her. “I’ll put you into protective custody if you leave your room until I say.” The doors closed on him. Mo angrily pressed the button on the next elevator and stepped inside without waiting for Meese to follow orders. He just made the elevator in time scanning the small compartment as if it had numerous nooks and crannies where the enemy might conceal themselves.
“Of all the gall!” She huffed under her breath, eyes blazing at Meese. He crossed his arms, an arrogant little grin fixed on his face as he stared at the service trap in the ceiling of the elevator. Men. Were they all jerks? Even the best one she’d ever met was acting like a lunatic. What was he doing on the roof? Idiot. What did she care? Oh, she was just really getting to know him and she wasn’t sure he was all that after all. And Al Simpson! Enough said. And look at this guy looking as if he just swallowed the canary. They were all asses. Every one. Except Roddy who was like a father. But all the rest. “All of you!” she screeched at Meese before stepping off the elevator. She slammed the door to her room as Meese shrugged with a chuckle. Women.
She fumed in her room for a few minutes. Then she heard a door close. She peeked out then slipped out closing the bedroom door. Not seeing Meese but seeing the other bedroom door closed, she tiptoed over to confirm he was in the other bathroom. She heard him singing ‘Somewhere Out There’ and raised her brows in wonder. She went to the elevator hoping it was still on her floor. The door opened. She stepped onto it with a sigh and pushed the button.
She went down to the fifteenth floor and after a second’s scan saw the stairwell. Quietly she went up the steps. She was still fuming with indignation at Zack with the added sting of her usual animosity towards Al. She pushed the bar on the fire exit door. She’d half expected it to hold firm but it opened and she peeked around the edge of it. No one was in sight. She thought she heard a muffled voice as she approached three geodesic domes. She rounded the domes with a hand up to block the sun. The strong breeze blew wisps from her braid.
Mo stopped as she noticed a triangle of steel missing from the last dome. That’s an odd shaped door she thought. Blinded by the light she tried to look inside. Spots floated in front of her eyes as they tried to adjust to the dark. She leaned in putting her hands on the edge of the opening. She squeezed her eyes shut then opened them.
A hand fell on hers and she nearly jumped out of her skin. A big black hand grabbed the edge and up came Al. “Do I have to handcuff you?” He squeezed his large body through the triangle then threw up his hands and walked to the edge of the roof.
Suddenly Zack appeared from around the dome. “The elevator was being blocked from use so we could check this out. You were supposed to stay put. Bu
t for your information, your admirer was using this to access the roof and hide quickly. I found these dummy bolts on this plate. Evidently the stairs were too high exposure. Our guy’s been riding this elevator up and down for who knows how long spying on you. Us. Guess he got frustrated with its limitations and repelled down to the window for a better look. Lucky for us there’s a service ladder running inside the shaft. Al, you find anything?” Al was barking at someone on his phone. “Satisfy your curiosity or would you like a better look?” He stepped aside and waved as if she were on a game show. He was puffing with pain but she was too angry to have much sympathy. Actually, she was bursting with curiosity.
“No.” Ass. She turned on her heel as Al came toward them. “Not one word.” She went around the dome as Zack followed. Al punched briskly at his phone with large fingers. “Ben-Ghury!” he snapped into it.
“You going to put me under house arrest too?” She jerked at the door. She was almost flung back by its solid resistance. Zack caught her arm. She jerked it away. His fingers darted on the keypad like little bullets of irritation and pulled the door open. “While you’re at it you might as well make sure you bleed to death.” She jerked a nod at his shirt. A small red spot threatened. She took the stairs two at a time and went through the door into the hallway. Let him get the door for himself. Anything to prove himself the macho police detective!
Mo smacked her hand onto the elevator button. She didn’t look at him while they waited wordlessly. In silence they rode up the one floor to the suite. They looked at each other before stepping off. Her eyes flared but his were twin detonators. She bit her lip. He swung out his good arm in a ‘you first’ motion. Meese looked up in shock. He’d turned a ball game on low, never knowing she was gone.
Fly With Fire Page 30