by Diane Capri
When Kim looked back, the woman noticed her and accidently met Kim’s gaze.
The woman’s scarred face seemed frozen, unable to form normal expressions. But her eyes rounded in recognition. She stopped, pivoted, turned and ran back up the few stairs she’d just covered and slipped through the first doorway she reached.
Kim quickened her pace, leaving Gaspar farther behind. She pushed past the five Friday night party girls and raced up to the fire door leading to the seventh floor.
She grabbed the handle, still warmed by the woman’s grip, and pulled the heavy door open. The second she stepped across the threshold, one foot into the corridor, two quick, muffled gunshots propelled bullets into the steel doorjamb inches from Kim’s head. She ducked back into the stairwell and behind the door. Subsonic bullets. The shooter had come prepared.
Kim pulled her gun and waited on the handle side of the door. Gaspar recognized the silenced gunfire and rushed up to Kim from the flight below. He positioned himself on the hinge side. On the count of three, Gaspar would open the door. Kim would enter low to minimize the target. A shooter would tend to aim high, where center mass was expected to be.
“Right behind you,” he said to Kim’s back as she went through the fire door again and entered the main corridor, shouting, “Stop! FBI!”
Instead of aiming high, another bullet slammed past Kim in a near miss. She dove into the nearest feeder hallway as she fired back.
Gaspar rolled through the fire door in a half-crouch, gun drawn, and slid into the feeder hallway across from Kim. They could see each other, but not the woman.
Where did she go?
Kim ducked her head around the corner in an effort to locate the shooter. The first shot had been too close for Kim to believe the woman was a lousy marksman. Twice more, the woman returned fire. But her shots hit wide of the mark and seemed to be wildly aimed. Maybe she was running away, but Kim couldn’t see her in the dim corridor light.
And then the shooting stopped.
The woman had uttered not one sound, Kim thought. Her shoes and clothes had made no noise. She could be anywhere now.
Kim waited. She called out again. No response.
Gaspar stayed in place. Kim moved by sliding along the wall toward the elevator bank until she could see the digital elevator car progress sign. Both cars were in use. One had stopped on the tenth floor, Neagley’s floor. The other car was moving down toward the fifth and eventually to the ground floor because the floors below were now mostly empty.
Where did the shooter go?
Had she entered the elevator?
Was she on her way down and out into the cold Chicago darkness?
There was another stairwell somewhere. Had she found it?
Or was she hiding somewhere on the floor or in the building, waiting for a cleaner shot?
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Friday, November 12
6:15 p.m.
Chicago, IL
Silence on the seventh floor lingered. If the woman was still there, Kim saw no evidence of her. The tenth floor situation pulled her even as seventh floor events held her captive.
Finally, Gaspar said from his vantage point a few feet away, “Your call.”
They couldn’t simply stay here, in limbo. She took a deep breath. Too many things could go wrong either way. But she sensed the woman was gone.
Probably.
Maybe.
Hopefully.
Kim carefully returned to Gaspar’s covered position in the feeder hallway.
“Okay. I’ll run up to Neagley’s office and get someone to call Chicago PD, if they haven’t already. Response time has got to be fairly quick here. Someone might have called in the gunfire already, with luck. If you don’t find her in two minutes, give up. Meet me upstairs.”
Before she went, she watched Gaspar’s face to be sure he would follow orders, which would be unusual. Sternly, seriously, she said, “Don’t make my first visit to your family be a condolence call, Chico.”
He nodded. “You’ll love Maria’s Tres Leches, Sunshine.”
Kim flashed him a quick, terse grin. Nodded. With no further delay, she turned, dashed back into the stairwell, and covered the remaining three flights to Neagley’s floor two steps at a time.
When she reached the identical fire door on the tenth floor landing, Kim pulled the heavy steel slab open and rushed toward Neagley’s security guard, still standing well-pressed and starched at the threshold as he had been all day.
He glanced down at her, grinned. “Heavy breathing AND a gun? Is this how the FBI answers the bell these days, Agent Otto?”
Kim spared barely half a moment to wonder how he’d learned her identity as she pushed past him through the open door to Neagley’s interior lobby and tried to make sense of the discordant experience that instantly assaulted her senses.
The scent of recent gunshots and panic and death and medicine.
Paul highly agitated, babbling screams, hands held to his head. Left arm bleeding at the bicep. Frightened and frightening and every move volatile, extreme.
Neagley standing near her brother. She looks directly at Paul’s face and speaks to him calmly, quietly. She offers no comforting touch.
Nothing she says makes a difference in Paul’s behavior. Paul’s screaming and incoherence consume every ounce of bandwidth in the room.
The double-amputee who had been waiting for Neagley earlier is laid out on the floor. Paramedics working on him. His eyes display the open stare of a dead man.
One paramedic closes the man’s eyelids. The simple action she’d seen too many times before triggered something in Kim’s brain; it began to sort events properly again.
Kim watched as the paramedics placed the body on the gurney and his pant legs hiked up, flashing like shooting stars when overhead lighting bounced off the silver rods below his knees.
When the paramedics rolled the gurney toward her on their way out of the office, Kim stopped them and showed her badge. “What happened here?”
“No idea,” one paramedic told her. “The young guy was acting just like that when we arrived. We tried to help with the arm, but he just went crazier when we tried to approach him. The woman told us to leave him alone.” He glanced at the man on the gurney. “This man was dead already. Probably a heart attack.”
Gaspar arrived in time to hear. He glanced into the office and must have seen Paul’s bleeding arm and Neagley’s odd behavior, along with the commotion, too. He displayed his badge briefly before he asked, “What makes you think he had a heart attack?”
The same paramedic replied, “You have any reason to believe otherwise? Because we don’t see any.”
“Where are you taking him?” Kim asked.
“Hospital. We don’t have the authority to pronounce the obvious. Somebody with more liability insurance has to do that.” The grim humor of someone coping with too much death in his line of work.
“Chicago PD on the way?” Kim asked.
“Not on our account. We don’t call cops to heart attacks. Nothing else going on here beyond the young guy’s nicked arm, is there?”
Gaspar looked toward Kim, who shook her head once before he said, “I just got here.”
The paramedic nodded and joined his partner at the elevator. They tucked the gurney inside and the doors slowly reconnected before the car began its ponderous descent.
If the patient wasn’t dead already, he would be by the time they made it to the hospital, Kim thought.
The woman who shot at them three floors below was already gone. Kim needed to hear the facts about what happened here from Neagley as quickly as possible. Besides, surely someone else had been on the seventh floor during the firefight. Surely the cops had already been notified. Chicago PD was probably on the way. The last thing she needed was to be officially questioned. She didn’t have much time to figure something out before the place was flooded with way more trouble than she wanted to be mired in.
Back in Neagley’s lobby, Pau
l’s tantrum continued unabated. Neagley continued efforts to calm him, with very little success. At least with the paramedics gone, a small slice of chaos subsided. Neagley managed to herd Paul through the heavy door and deeper into the interior offices. For a few moments, Kim barely heard Paul’s muffled screaming, and then Neagley’s lobby became eerily quiet, like the silence just before a tornado hits.
Kim knew they should move. Do something before Chicago PD arrived. But what?
She needed to reach Neagley, and fast. Neagley was the woman with all their answers. Neagley knew who the dead amputee was, knew what had happened to him. Neagley knew the scarred-faced woman, too. Probably knew why she shot at Kim and Gaspar, and maybe where she’d gone. Neagley knew O’Donnell and Dixon, too.
Neagley was at the center of it all.
Somehow, Reacher was, too.
And Neagley knew precisely how Reacher was involved. Kim was sure of it. But how to make Neagley confess was a knottier problem than Kim could solve based on what she’d learned so far, which was precisely nothing.
Only two people within immediate striking distance possessed more information than Kim already had. Neagley, who had disappeared inside her office fortress, unlikely to either emerge or cooperate when she eventually resurfaced.
And Neagley’s standing guard, stationed fifteen feet away in the 10th floor corridor. Already moving in that direction, Kim glanced at Gaspar and said, “Let’s go.”
CHAPTER TWELVE
Friday, November 12
6:37 p.m.
Chicago, IL
The security guard was still standing in the hallway at the exterior door to Neagley’s offices, as he had been each time Kim had approached today. He appeared as unruffled and fresh as the first time she’d passed him this morning.
“You have the advantage. You know who we are,” Kim said by way of opening.
The tall man said, “FBI Special Agents Otto and Gaspar, yes.”
“What’s your name?”
His lips turned up in a slight smile.
Kim waited a beat before she said, “Are you refusing to identify yourself to Federal agents?”
His smile broadened.
Gaspar said, “You aren’t required to tell us your name.”
He said, “I know.”
Gaspar said, “But I’m suspicious about why you won’t. So suspicious, in fact, that you might be obstructing justice here, simply by refusing to cooperate in a federal investigation.”
“Possibly,” he said. “What is it you’re investigating, exactly?”
“Murder. Kidnapping.”
“Guess I didn’t realize murder was the FBI’s beat these days. Thought you folks were more interested in terrorism and such.”
Kim said, “We’re talking about your job, not ours. What exactly is your job?”
“You’ve observed me in the performance of my duties several times today, haven’t you? My job is to remain stationed right here.”
“Why?”
“You met Paul Neagley? He escapes. I’m the guy who finds him and brings him back.”
“Not much of a job for a former member of the Secret Service,” Kim said.
His eyes opened a little wider. He grinned, but didn’t bother to deny she’d guessed correctly. “The pay is better and I don’t have to take a bullet for politicians who can’t find their butts with both hands.”
“So what’s your name? It won’t take me long to find out.”
“Probably not.”
“And then I’ll have to come back and have this conversation again.”
“I’ll be here.”
“What happened in there? A guy is dead.”
“Paramedics said heart attack.” He shrugged. “That guy looked a little stressed when he came in, didn’t he? If he needed to hire my boss, he already had big problems before he got here. Stress must have been too much for him.”
“What about Paul’s arm? Looked like a gunshot wound to me. I smelled a recently fired weapon, too.”
“I didn’t hear any gunshots.”
“What was the dead man’s name?”
“I don’t know.”
“What about the woman that was with him?”
“What about her?”
“Did you see her leave?”
“Of course. I was standing right here.”
“Did she have a gun?”
“I didn’t frisk her.”
“What was her name?”
“I didn’t ask. Look, my orders are to stand here. If Paul gets away, I’m to chase him down and bring him back. That’s it. I’m not introduced to clients. I’m not tasked with identifying, scrutinizing, interrogating or remembering them.”
“That’s a little odd for a man with your training, isn’t it?”
“Makes my job easier. Besides, visitors don’t necessarily know my orders. Maybe they think my job is more expansive. So they don’t mess with me much.”
“What time does Frances Neagley normally leave for the day?
“Can’t say. She leaves through the back. There’s a secure parking garage attached to the building.”
Kim turned and grabbed the knob to the entrance door only to realize it had locked automatically. “I left something inside. Do you have a key to this door?”
“No.”
Kim pulled her smartphone out of her pocket and pressed the redial for Neagley’s office. The phone rang repeatedly before a voice mail service picked up asking her to leave a message. She hung up.
“Office opens in the morning at nine,” he said.
Kim pressed the camera button on her phone, lifted it to capture him in full face view and pressed the video record.
“You need facial recognition to identify me,” he said. “You can’t simply make a call, can you? Means you’re not officially here, doesn’t it?”
She closed her phone and walked away.
“We’ll be back,” Gaspar said, as he moved to follow Kim toward the elevator bank.
“I’ll be here,” he repeated.
When Gaspar reached Kim, he leaned against the wall where she stood waiting for the elevator.
“What do you suppose that guy is all about?” Gaspar asked.
“He’s connected to Neagley. You expected cooperation? This has got to be the slowest elevator on the planet.” She punched the call button again and glanced at her Seiko. “It’s almost seven o’clock. Missed our plane.”
“We could catch a cab to O’Hare and get a later flight. Or check in somewhere and grab dinner. Come back tomorrow. Try again with Neagley. Call the Boss in the meantime.”
Kim said nothing.
“Want me to keep tossing out options, or are you going to pick one, Dragon Lady Boss?”
Before Kim could reply to his sarcasm, Neagley emerged from inside her office and strode purposefully past the door guard and then past them toward the stairwell. She offered no sign of recognition.
Gaspar noticed Neagley first. He went after her. His long stride covered ground quickly.
“Neagley!” Kim called out.
Neagley didn’t alter her pace. She reached the heavy steel fire door, pushed it open and moved into the stairwell. She’d be down the entire ten flights and out into the night long before the elevator arrived.
Kim followed right behind Gaspar. Quickened her step to catch up.
Gaspar reached the stairwell entrance. He grabbed the knob and pushed against the closing fire door, pressed it wider and continued onto the landing.
Kim was a split second behind him.
She reached out to keep the fire door open after he passed through and followed him into the stairwell.
Before her eyes could adjust to the dim emergency lighting, Kim heard a heavy grunt three steps ahead.
In the dimness, she saw Gaspar’s body crumpled on the cement floor in front of her.
Her momentum carried her forward and she tripped over him.
She reached out, seeking the wall’s solid, cool touch, and pi
voted quickly away from his body.
But not quickly enough.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Friday, November 12
3:00 a.m.
Chicago, IL
Kim felt relaxed and a little lazy. She hovered at the edge of consciousness in a state she sometimes attained through meditation. She felt no anxiety, no urgency. She seemed to be floating in a pool of delicious quiet. Her consciousness began to deepen into sleep once more and she willingly succumbed.
Until her pillow moved of its own accord, and her eyes jumped open. The only light came from weak emergency bulbs bolted to the wall, casting an eerie red patina.
The room was confusing. Not her bedroom. Not her hotel room. Where was she?
There was rough fabric under her cheek instead of the silk pillowcases she preferred. Her pillow was rigid, unforgiving. Something was wrong with her bed, too. Hard as cement and just as cold. How could that be?
Her pillow moved again. She bolted upright into a full sitting position, heart pounding, and blinked several times to clear the sleep fog from her vision.
What she could see in the dim light only ramped up her anxiety. Her pillow had been Gaspar’s bony, trouser-clad shin. For a moment she thought he might be dead. But no. He’d moved a second ago. So not dead. But what? Drugged?
Somehow, understanding and returning awareness calmed her. Curious. But nothing frightening at the moment.
Her bed had been the concrete floor. The room appeared to be an enclosed stairwell. She’d seen similar stairwells not long ago, but where? She tried to remember. After a second or two, she gave up.
Yes. Drugged. But not dead. Why not? Odd.
Kim reached over and shook Gaspar’s shoulder. He groaned, but didn’t wake up. She shook him more vigorously until his eyelids popped open. She watched until he worked through the same initial disorientation and grogginess she’d felt.
“I have a slight headache, Chico. Got any Tylenol on you?” Her throat was parched and her voice sounded whispery.