by Julie Kenner
What the hell was going on here? And who did these men think they were to come in here and terrorize Maggie Kinsley when she was alone and defenseless?
Diana straightened, fully prepared to march into the office and tell the men to leave before she called security. How had they gotten upstairs past the guards in the lobby anyway? She would have to speak to someone about that tomorrow.
She’d just stepped out of the shadows when she heard the telltale cock of a gun. She’d never heard the sound outside of the movies, but it was strangely familiar. There was something elemental about it, something that set off a storm of panic in her body. Her heart hammered in her chest, and she found herself back against the wall, the sheetrock cool against her back.
“Who knows about this?” the man asked, his voice low.
“No one,” Maggie said. “Do you really think I would risk someone else’s safety by telling them what you were doing?”
Thwack.
Another strike against Maggie.
“Answer my questions only.”
Diana heard it then — some kind of accent. Russian? Eastern European?
His statement was followed by another voice, also male. But this one spoke quickly and fluidly in a language Diana couldn’t place. There was a rapid exchange between the two men that Diana couldn’t understand, and then the first man spoke again in English.
“You understand, I’m sure,” he said. “We cannot take the chance.”
And then Maggie, begging. “No, please… I have a son. He needs me. I won’t tell anyone. Please don’t — ”
Diana didn’t have time to consider her options. She didn’t even have time to contemplate the horror of what might be happening inside the office. There was only a series of muffled thumps followed by a slightly different kind of impact that could only be Maggie’s body hitting the floor.
Diana stifled a cry. She suddenly couldn’t feel her legs, and she was only vaguely aware of the wall against her back as she slid to the floor.
“What was that?” one of the men said from inside Maggie’s office.
“I don’t know. I’ll find out.”
Footsteps sounded from inside the office. They were heavy and purposeful on the carpet and got louder as the man approached the door to Maggie’s office. The door that would lead them to the hall where Diana was still trying to clear the fog from her brain. Still trying to mobilize herself to do the only left to do.
Run.
Chapter Four
She heard the command in her mind, but it didn't seem to reach the rest of her body. Paralyzed by a horrific combination of fear and grief, she could only listen as the man’s footsteps got closer to the hall. He was almost there when the adrenaline kicked in, suddenly flooding her body with a rush of energy that prompted her to move.
She clambered to her feet and turned away from Maggie’s office. Then she ran, ducking behind the first row of cubicles in the open part of the office reserved for general accounting and administrative staff.
The footsteps were in the hall as she hit her knees, crawling along the carpet, careful to stay low as she made her way to the stairs.
“Hello?” the man called out. “Is anyone there?”
She navigated her way through the winding partitions, trying to orient herself to the stairwell while listening for the man’s footsteps, trying to make sure she didn’t inadvertently work her way to his position.
Say something, she thought. She was flying blind without the sound of his voice, scrambling along the floor in what she hoped was the general direction of the stairs while hoping she wasn’t playing right into his hands.
He remained quiet, hunting her while she moved at what felt like an excruciatingly slow pace, careful not to knock anything over. Not to bump into anything or make any noise. She’d lost all track of time when she finally saw something she recognized — the pair of potted Ficus trees that flanked the hallway just past the lobby.
She was almost there. She just had to make it through the wide open space of the executive foyer without being seen. Then she’d be in front of the elevators, only steps from the door leading to the stairwell.
Still on her knees, she glanced back. She didn’t know where the man had gone, but time was her judge, jury and executioner. He was somewhere in the offices behind her. It was inevitable that he would make his way to the lobby, and that was assuming he wasn’t already watching, waiting for her to make a break for the elevator or stairs.
But she didn't have a choice. If she stayed, she was dead. As dead as Maggie…
Oh, god. Maggie...
She couldn’t think about that right now. She had to get out of the office. Find the guards. Get help. Maybe they could save Maggie. Maybe she was still alive.
She clung to the idea for a moment before putting it out of her mind. She wouldn’t do Maggie any good unless she could escape the men who had shot her. She turned her attention on the hall beyond the lobby. The elevators were right there, the stairwell just a few feet past them.
She got off her knees, rose to a crouching position like a runner waiting for the starting shot in a race. Then, before she could change her mind, she bolted, making a run for the elevator lobby. She was free. Out of the office, past the first elevator, then the second. She pulled open the door of the stairwell and rushed headlong down the concrete and metal stairs. The door had just closed behind her when she heard the ping of metal on metal.
He'd spotted her. Had shot at her. But the bullet had hit the stairwell door, and now she had a head start. It wasn’t much comfort against the knowledge that Maggie had been mixed up in something, that she’d been shot, that the same men who had shot her were now after Diana.
But it was something.
The stairwell door opened above her. She barely had time to register it before a series of shots rang out in the enclosed space. Muffled by the silencer, the sound was surreal — a soft thud followed by the deafening ping of bullets embedding themselves in the metal staircase.
She moved against the wall, as close as she dared without slowing her pace, trying to shield herself from the view of anyone peering over the railings above her. She looked at the door as she raced past another floor. It was painted with a large “3”.
Third floor then. Almost to the bottom and the guards who could protect her.
Another round of gunfire opened up behind her. She kept moving, half expecting to feel the tear of hot metal into her skin. And then she was passing another door.
2…
Cursing above her, something in the language she couldn’t identify followed by a word she could have sworn was “bitch.” Then more gunfire and the hot sting of something hitting her upper arm, a flash of pain that was gone a moment later.
She launched herself onto the ground floor landing and pulled open the door, spilling out into the bank’s main lobby. She was almost to the guard’s desk when she realized her error.
His body was sprawled out on the floor, half behind the long desk that was used to check in visitors, half in the open. A small circle marred the center of his forehead, blood caked around the opening. His eyes were open, unseeing.
He was dead.
She didn’t have time to feel anything. Her body and mind were singularly focused on survival. On the new reality that she would now have to clear the lobby to get help for Maggie.
She ran as fast as her feet would carry her, only vaguely aware that she was barefoot. Had she taken off her shoes? Had they fallen off? She couldn’t remember.
She sprinted for the glass doors, trying to remember if they were left open from the inside or if she needed her key. Her mind was a canvas, blank except for the overwhelming desire to escape, find help for Maggie, make the men who had shot her pay for what they had done.
She didn’t have a chance to ponder the consequences of being wrong. She hit the door at full speed as a series of muffled shots hit the floor around her, some of the bullets burying themselves in the tempered glass that surround
ed the lobby.
She expected to be met with resistance. To find the door was indeed locked. Instead it seemed to fly open as if by magic.
Easily. Almost like someone had opened it from the other side.
Except she was alone on the darkened street. A car sped past, disappearing into the distance. She hesitated only a split second before turning right, then broke into a sprint, wondering if she would be shot in the back.
She wasn’t, and she rounded the corner into an alley and plastered herself against the brick wall of a restaurant, already closed for the night. Everything came into sharp focus as she caught her breath.
The cool night air moving into her lungs, touching her skin with icy fingers.
The pavement, wet and cold under her bare feet.
The distant sound of tires whooshing through puddles.
It was foolish to stand still. She knew it in some distant part of her mind, but she couldn't seem to make herself move. She was paralyzed, immobile against the wall, relieved to feel something strong and unmoving at her back.
She didn’t know how much time passed before her head began to clear, but slowly, her brain started working again, cataloging everything that had happened. Everything that still might happen. She hadn’t seen anyone run past the alley, but that didn’t mean they wouldn’t be looking for her. She’d left her light on in her office. Her handbag was there, and yes, now she remembered, her shoes. It would be simple to figure out her identity. To realize she’d witnessed Maggie’s shooting. Then it was only a matter of looking at her identification. Showing up at her flat.
She couldn’t go home. That much was obvious.
She ran through the list of other possibilities in her mind. It didn’t take long. It was a short list. She didn’t dare contact her parents. Whomever had hurt Maggie — she still refused to believe her friend was dead — would expect her to go there. She would have to call them.
Eventually.
The only other person she would have trusted was lying in one of the executive offices, counting on Diana to get help. She didn’t have any more time to be indecisive.
She pushed off the wall and sprinted to the other end of the alley. They might come after her, but she could at least try not to be in their path when they did. She emerged onto Cannon Street and hurried toward the intersection, looking for one of the old phone booths that could still be found downtown.
She found one near Mansion House, the official residence of the Lord Mayor. Shutting herself inside the booth, she looked blankly at the machine in front of her. She’d never made a call from a pay phone. Did it cost money to dial in an emergency?
There was only one way to find out, and she picked up the handset and dialed 9-9-9. She held her breath while it rang, then exhaled in a rush when the dispatcher came on the line. She gave them the bank’s address, told them there had been a shooting. Then she hung up before they could ask her name.
She stepped back onto the street a moment later, relieved against all reason to be out of the booth’s close quarters. She looked both ways, debating. Then she started running.
Chapter Five
Leo was half asleep on the sofa when something broke through the blankness of his slumber. He was standing with his weapon in hand before the fog had even lifted from his brain. A moment later, he realized someone was banging on the door.
He moved carefully toward the front of his flat, the TV flickering blue against the walls. He was thankful for his bare feet, although less so for the fact that he’d stripped down to nothing but his jeans before he’d passed out on the sofa. He still had some hope of getting the jump on whoever was on the other side of the door.
Two feet away, he flattened himself against the wall, his weapon raised to his chest as he waited for the knocking to come again. It did, and this time it was accompanied by a voice.
“Leo? It’s me, Diana. Are you there?”
He exhaled his relief, then stuffed the gun in the drawer of the console table where he kept his mail and keys. A quick look around the flat only made him more nervous. He wished he'd had time to give it a once over, make sure there were no signs of his real life, but then Diana knocked again, her voice more urgent.
“I need help! Open the door!”
He hurried to the door, unlocked the two massive bolts. He didn’t know what he expected. Diana wasn’t in the habit of paying him late night visits, or any kind of visit at all in fact. But what he didn’t expect was to find her barefoot and disheveled, blood dripping from some kind of wound on her upper arm.
“What the fuck…” It was instinct to pull her inside, bolt the door behind her. Then he was holding her head in his hands. “What happened? Are you all right?”
“There were some men… at the office…. they… oh, my god…” She choked on a sob. “I think they killed her, Leo.”
Leo forced himself to stay calm. Diana was all right. She was alive, right here in front of him. He ran his hands down to her shoulders as if trying to prove her vitality, then carefully turned over her arm. What he saw made him suck in his breath.
She’d been grazed by a bullet.
“Come on,” he said, leading her gently to the sofa. “Sit down.”
She obeyed his command like a child, and he went to the kitchen and poured whiskey into two glasses. He carried them, along with the bottle, back into the living room. He handed her one of the glasses, watched as she drained it, then poured her another drink before he sat next to her on the sofa with his own.
“We’ll have to clean up that arm soon,” he said. “But first, tell me what happened.”
She took another drink, inhaled deeply, and began to talk. He listened carefully, his mind attuned to the details that would matter when it was time to act.
And he would act.
He would have to. But more than that, he would act because no one could be allowed to scare Diana. To hunt her. To hurt her. There weren’t many things in his life worth protecting, but she was at the top of that very short list.
She sipped on her drink as she talked, and he watched as her shoulders began to loosen, the tension slowly leaving her jaw. Her eyes took on a faraway look as the alcohol seeped into her bloodstream. Good. That would help when it came time to clean up her arm, and when it came time for her to sleep, too. When she was done, he paged through everything she’d said for the questions that would help him.
“Had you ever seen the man who chased you? Had he ever come to the office? Visited Maggie there?” Leo asked her.
She shook her head. “I don’t think so. He didn’t look familiar.”
“And what about the man inside Maggie’s office?” Leo asked. “Did you get a look at him, even briefly?”
“I was too scared to look.” Her shoulders slumped in shame.
He reached out, took her delicate hand in his big one. “You did exactly the right thing by getting out alive. Was there anything about their voices? Anything that would make them easier to identify.”
“They had accents,” she said. “And… they spoke in a foreign language. I thought it was Russian at first, but now I don't think that’s right.”
“But they spoke English as well?”
She nodded.
“This is important, Diana; I want you to think back to their conversation with Maggie, to the words they exchanged with each other. Did they say anything that might help us figure out who they are or what they wanted?”
Her eyes glazed over, and her chest rose and fell with shallow breaths. She was remembering, and he left her to it, resisting the urge to pull her into his arms. To tell her not to remember, not to think about it because he didn’t want her to relive anything ugly or scary. But that wouldn’t help her, and she was going to need his help. That he already knew.
“They… spoke in the other language the one time they exchanged a lot of words,” she said. “I couldn’t understand them. Before that, they were asking Maggie questions. Asking who else knew, who else she told.”
“But they didn’t say what they were talking about?” he asked. “What she knew about?”
“Not outright,” she said. “They acted like Maggie understood.”
“Did she?” Leo asked.
Diana nodded. “I think so. She didn’t deny it. She just said no one else knew. She said… She said she was doing her job, that she wouldn’t tell anyone.”
“Good,” Leo said. “Is there anything else you can remember? Tattoos or scars on the man who chased you? Anything at all?”
“I don’t… I don’t think so.”
He nodded. "Stay here.”
He stood, and she grabbed his hand with panic in her eyes. “Where are you going?”
He sat next to her again, looked into her eyes. “I’m going to the bathroom to get something to clean up that arm. You don’t have to worry, Diana. You’re safe here.”
I’ll kill anyone who tries to hurt you. Tear them limb from limb.
He left the words unsaid. He didn’t know how long he’d be able to keep up the charade of his real life — especially now — but he would try. For her sake, he would try. Because she didn’t deserve what he’d done to her. The lies he’d told.
But neither did she deserve the brutality of the truth on the heels of what had happened tonight.
She nodded, and he rose again, hurrying to the bathroom so he could get back to her as quickly as possible. He returned less than two minutes later with a washcloth, a roll of gauze, some disinfectant, tweezers (in case he was wrong, and pieces of the bullet were still lodged in her skin), and some first aid tape. He set everything down on the coffee table and went to the kitchen where he filled a large bowl with warm water.
When he had everything in place, he poured them both another drink and sat next to her on the sofa.
“Are you sure you should be drinking that before you dig around in my arm?” she asked softly, eying the drink in his hand.