That didn’t much matter to him since he planned to go up. “Thanks.”
He got two steps before Maura’s voice whispered in his ear through the tiny microphone dot he placed there. “She’s pretty.”
He smiled at the jealous sting to her voice. To hide his private discussion and prevent people from thinking he talked to himself, he mumbled under his breath. “A little young for me, don’t you think?”
“I forgot you’re not a fan of young women.”
He ignored the jab. “I prefer the brainy running-from-the-police type these days.”
“You are a smart man.”
He adjusted his tie. The implanted camera allowed her to see every move he made. At the elevator, he slid his key card through the reader then pressed the up button.
“After everything you had to do to get in the building they wouldn’t just let you go upstairs?” she asked.
“Nope. There are a series of protective measures in place.” He couldn’t help but be impressed. “It’s smart security.”
“Sounds like overkill. Biotech firms specialize in that sort of thing. You’ll never meet anyone more paranoid than a research scientist.”
“Keeps the unwanted out.”
“You mean, like you?”
“Guess that didn’t work, did it?” He nodded to the people exiting the car when the doors opened. After it emptied out, he stood in there all alone and waited for the door to slide shut again. “Guide me around the area using the blueprints.”
“The steel reinforced area we want to check out is on the fifth floor.” The microphone picked up the sounds of crinkling papers. “The main labs are on other floors, but that’s too obvious.”
“Hard to imagine Smithfield would be dumb enough to stick Hammer—a guy who is supposed to be dead or kidnapped—in with all of the other scientists in the building.”
“That would make containment hard.”
“Then five it is.” He hit the button. After a rumble, the car went down instead of up. He spun around and pounded on the up arrow, trying to send the car in the direction he wanted.
“You’re moving around and I’m getting dizzy. What’s going on?” she asked.
“We have trouble.” He lifted the tie so she could see the descending numbers above the door through the small camera.
She chuckled. “You hit the wrong button.”
“No, I didn’t.”
She cleared her throat. “Are you sure?” The amusement had left her voice.
That familiar churning started in his gut. “It’s possible the key-card chip determines your floor access.”
The M button flashed and the elevator didn’t stop.
“So much for the floor theory.” He mumbled the comment over the tapping in his earpiece. Sounded like the beat of a pen against a desk.
“Where did you get that chip?” she asked.
“From the security guard while he was having lunch yesterday. I recreated mine. There shouldn’t be any restrictions.”
“Get out of there.” Her words came out in a frantic rush.
He had the same thought but the execution was the problem. “How am I supposed to do that when I’m in a moving elevator?”
“Where is it going?”
“Underground. Looks like one of the basement levels.”
“There are seven of them, including three for the garage.”
He watched as numbers for each floor lit up as he passed. The car lowered to the bowels of the building. He got a flash of his future and it included walking off the car and into an ambush of gunfire.
The only solution was far from perfect. He slammed his palm against the emergency button. The quick stop threw him against the back of the elevator. He waited for an alarm to sound but the small box stayed deathly quiet.
“What are you doing?” she asked in a shaky voice.
“Getting out of here while I can still walk.”
“You think it’s a setup?”
Not think. Knew with a certainty that rocked him to the core. “They figured out the badge was a fake.”
“How is that possible? You were so careful.” Her words jumbled together.
For some reason he took unexpected comfort in her sudden lack of control. “These guys are good.”
“Can you be impressed another time? I’m betting the bruising security guys can pry the doors open with their fingertips.”
Liam worried they could kill with them. “True.”
He looked around. The only ways out of this situation were through the doors or the ceiling. Both options sucked. He gambled on only one being protected by armed men.
With one hand planted against the wall, he used the handrail for leverage and jumped up, knocking the ceiling panel out. The plastic cover crashed to the marble floor. The crack sounded like an explosion in the small space.
“What the heck was that?” She screamed the question.
The high-pitched shriek bulleted right into his brain. “Damn, woman.”
“What did I do?”
“Forget it.” He closed his eyes and waited for someone to rappel down on top of him. Instead of feeling relieved, he questioned his luck. He had a load of problems ahead of him.
First there was the camera. Someone watched all of this, which lessened his already poor chances of getting out of there without being arrested or killed. The second was that the cover came off too easy. In Liam’s world, effortless meant trouble. And there was the issue of his luck. The last time he’d tried to rescue a woman, he’d ended up with two shots in his thigh and an official reprimand. Reliving that experience didn’t appeal to him.
“How are you going to get up in that hole?” she asked.
Good question. “Use my awesome strength.”
“I can work out the right angle for the best lift, if you want.”
“No, I got this.”
Guys on television did this sort of dead-lift thing all the time, but the reality was much harder. Having Maura watch might help. After all, what man liked to fall flat on his face in front of his woman? And that’s how he thought of her right now. Smart, stunning and tough. If he lived through this and managed to stay out of jail, he’d work on having that impressive mind focus on him for more than ten minutes at a time.
He jumped again, this time grabbing on to the edge of the opening. He hung there for a second. Much longer and his muscles would fatigue too fast. He had to hoist his body up there now. His second hand joined the first. Using all of his strength, he performed the world’s hardest chin lift and he did it in a suit with an audience. Why he forgot to take off the jacket first was a mystery.
His head cleared the opening. With one last burst of energy, he slid his arms onto the ledge. Just as he got his balance, the car started moving. His left arm slipped as gravity pressed him back down.
“Now what happened?” she asked.
“Time ran out.”
He struggled and shifted until he got his hand back up and his legs through the hole. A few more pushes and grunts and he got to his feet.
Standing on the top of a moving elevator didn’t give him many options. The dark, humid area didn’t exactly have any emergency exit signs. Cables held the car and ran twenty stories into the air. There were openings on each of the four sides. He assumed they led out to the hallways.
When he looked down, he saw he only had two floors left to plan an escape. That meant jumping into one of the openings that raced by him as the car moved down. He didn’t wait. With his arms up, he leaped for the closest one. The smack of his chest against the cement wall knocked the breath right out of him. The nerves in his injured leg screamed in protest.
His muscles burned and armpits ached from the weight of his legs dragging him down, but he pushed the pain out of his mind. He had to lift his body onto the ledge before his strength gave out, which he feared would be any second. Shuffling and pulling, he threw his leg onto the flat area above him and then pushed up with his knee. It took a few seconds, but
he finally landed on his stomach in the opening.
Rather than get up, he rolled to his back and gasped for breath in the middle of what turned out to be an oversize air duct. Lying there, he could hear the mumble of voices below. He had no idea if they looked up or if they could see any part of his suit or body sticking out.
His brain slowly started working again. It was only then he heard Maura’s wild screams in his ear.
“Answer me!”
“I’m fine.” The gruff whisper sounded strange to his ears. He had to admit he didn’t sound fine. Winded and out of gas, yes.
He still had to get out of the building.
He saw the number painted on the wall. “Give me the closest and least public route out.”
“I can only see the greasy ceiling, so get up.”
Liam eased up, ignoring his creaking bones as he went. Every part of him from his fingers to his lower back to his leg ached. He felt every single one of his thirty-two years. For the first time since he left the force, he thought it was a good thing he no longer worked undercover. A man could only punish his body for so long before it gave out. He wasn’t ready for that outcome and didn’t want to make choices that sped up the process.
“Crawl to your left until I tell you to stop.” Her voice boomed through the earpiece from out of nowhere.
It sure as hell woke him up. Without question, he followed her directions. He took every turn she said to take and stayed in control when his mind tried to wander to the building search that was likely being conducted for him right now. Exactly three minutes later, he popped out in a closet and knocked his head into a janitor’s cart.
She laughed. “Nice move.”
“You try being a superhero and see how you do.”
“You’re very manly.”
“That’s more like it.” He opened the door a crack and peeked out. “Where from here?”
“Go right to the end of the hall, down one flight of stairs to the emergency door. At that point, you’re underground but outside, so run up a few flights and I’ll come get you.”
“Sounds easy.” He studied the entire area looking for signs of life. “That would be a nice change.”
“The alarm will sound, but who cares. You can’t risk walking back through that lobby.”
“True.”
He conducted one last scan of the area. Two people came around the corner. They were the first signs of life he’d seen since the lobby. When they disappeared into a set of double doors halfway down the white hallway, he went for it.
He didn’t try to hide the sound of his shoes hitting the metal stairs. Neither did the group of men clomping up toward him.
“He’s there,” one said.
“Lock it down,” another yelled.
Liam ignored their disconnected orders and the possibility of being caught. Running now, he flew down the stairs, only touching the railings as a way to help him take flight and skip more steps. He saw the door just as two guards hit the landing below him.
“Stop!”
No way was he listening to that. He pushed against the emergency bar and braced for the squeal of the high-pitched alarm. For some reason, the sound never came. Only the shouts of the guards followed him.
Rather than question his luck at pulling away, Liam sprinted out into the light. He looked around for an easy place to hide.
“Maura?”
She didn’t respond to him through the microphone. Now that he thought about it, she hadn’t said anything for a few minutes. When the SUV they’d rented pulled right up beside him and slammed on the brakes, he knew why.
She pushed open the passenger door. “Get in.”
DAN LINDSEY BROKE THE YELLOW police tape and used his key to access his sister’s apartment. Two steps in, his heart stopped. The place looked a lot like a bomb went off in here, too.
“Maura?” He knew calling for her was a waste of breath, but he had to try.
She had been missing ever since her lab went up in flames. In those initial hours, he grieved the loss of his baby sister, the only family left in his life. They’d lost their parents five years before in a car crash. The pain still lingered, hit him from nowhere now and then, but didn’t live in him every day as it once had.
Learning he’d lost Maura under equally shocking circumstances drove him to his knees. He ran a computer business and teamed up with Liam on projects now and then. He wasn’t the type to wallow or break down, but when the police delivered the news, he lost it.
After a day in an alcohol-fueled stupor with only Liam to keep him from jumping off a balcony, Dan sobered up in time for a second shock. The police insisted Maura was alive and on the run. Then Detective Spanner implicated Liam in the mess. To keep his mind from racing from one tragic ending to another, Dan needed to track Maura down.
He walked into the kitchen, turned over broken furniture and kicked the clothes aside. He saw a mess. He didn’t discover one clue about Maura’s whereabouts. Twenty minutes later, he stood in the middle of her apartment and glanced around one last time. Everything was out of place but nothing stuck out. He swore under his breath as he grabbed his keys off the breakfast bar.
Next stop, Liam’s house.
Dan opened the door to the hallway. He didn’t see the man or the gun until it was too late.
Chapter Nine
Rex Smithfield walked into the lab for the second time in two days. Dr. Hammer hated being disturbed almost as much as he despised Smithfield and his never-ending supply of expensive dark suits.
“Is there a problem?” Dr. Hammer didn’t pretend to be busy doing something else. That strategy never worked because when Smithfield walked in, he demanded full attention.
“Why would there be?”
“You’re here again. I figure you have better things to do.”
Smithfield’s eyebrow lifted in a rare show of emotion. “I am protecting my investment.”
The calculations started in Dr. Hammer’s head. The only way to rein in his temper over Smithfield’s attitude was to visualize the many ways he could kill the man before the guards could get in there to save him. Several regular lab chemicals would stop his heart.
“I can’t work with disruptions,” Dr. Hammer said.
“Since I own this building and your time, you will do whatever I tell you to do.” Smithfield’s voice hit like a sharp slap.
“That wasn’t the deal.”
“You faked your own kidnapping in order to get out from under the restrictions of your NIH contract and earn much more money. I would not think a man in that position, someone who would sell out his professional ethics, would be all that concerned about contract provisions.”
“My priority is my research.”
“I will let you reason all that out. I am here for another purpose.”
“Which is?”
“I may need your services for a project this evening.”
The turn in the conversation left Dr. Hammer speech less. One minute Smithfield unleashed his icy wrath, the next he talked business.
“It would appear Dr. Lindsey and her washed-up policeman are planning a break-in to the building. I assume you are the target. You and this lab.”
Dr. Hammer’s heart thudded with enough force to break out of his chest. “She can’t know about my work here.”
“Clearly, she does.”
Dr. Hammer tried to match what he knew about Maura to the vigilante woman Smithfield described. “None of this sounds like her. She’s not the type to get involved with nonsense. She worked, slept and then worked again.
That’s it.”
“I find that people under pressure do not always act how we expect them to.”
“But why would she come here?”
Smithfield took time to inspect his manicured finger nails. “As I suspected, she figured out your tie to me.”
“And she’s bringing the police?” Dr. Hammer’s mouth went dry. He was not the type to panic, but the thought of having his plan uncovered
and the resulting loss of respect in the community filled him with a thudding dread.
If his heart didn’t slow its tick, he might fall down.
But he couldn’t let Smithfield see any weakness. The man thrived on instilling anxiety and fear in others. Reveled in it.
“I doubt your Dr. Lindsey will go anywhere but here. As of this afternoon, the evidence surrounding the explosion will point only to her, a disgruntled employee who saw herself as better than she was. She needed to be the star and could not abide being forced to act the role of assistant.” Smithfield shrugged as if destroying a young woman’s life meant nothing. “It happens all the time in business.”
The plan proved how much Smithfield still under estimated Maura. Dr. Hammer vowed not to make that mistake. “It is hard to imagine her rushing in here and demanding answers.”
“Yes. A risky move for an otherwise intelligent woman.”
Dr. Hammer pushed aside thoughts of Maura. He had to save his work. Someone else would have to rescue her. “There’s no way for her to enter the building without you knowing.”
“I suspect she will cause a diversion of some sort. Frankly, if she has trouble breaching the exterior, I will help her in.”
“Why would you do that?” The shocked question escaped before Dr. Hammer could censor it.
The displeasure showed on the harsh lines of Smithfield’s face. “That is not your concern.”
“What do you want me to do?”
“Be ready.”
“I don’t understand.”
“When I need you, I will let you know.”
MAURA STOOD IN A PARKING LOT a few hours later and watched Liam get ready. She didn’t argue with his plan except for the timing. Going that night meant short preparation. She trusted him, but she also trusted her instincts and ability to reason. If she had more time, she’d sit down and look at the variables.
There was something in Smithfield Enterprises worth hiding. She bet the “something” in question was five foot nine and wore a lab coat. For a genius, Dr. Hammer seemed to have stumbled into something pretty stupid.
“My guy is handling the logistics of making the call look real,” Liam said as he pulled his belt through the hoops and clipped it at his trim waist.
Night Moves Page 7