by Tarah Benner
28
Lark
As Lark sat in the back of the sedan, a horrible feeling sank into her gut. Soren had said that he would radio her as soon as they had located Annalisa, but all Lark had gotten was silence. He and Thompson had been in the building for nearly twelve minutes, which meant that they’d run into trouble.
“What do you think’s going on in there?” asked Lark.
“No idea,” Axel grumbled. He was sitting in the driver’s seat, and they were watching the rear of the building. “Prolly Thompson’s copper friends decided to arrest Sim an’ Soren.”
“I doubt it,” said Lark, though she got a faint prickle of unease. She trusted Thompson absolutely, but she didn’t know much about her ex-cop friends. What if they had turned on Soren when they’d gone in to make the grab? That would certainly explain why they weren’t back yet.
Just when Lark’s imagination began to run away with her, a garble of static broke through the silence. A jolt of anticipation shot down her spine, and she snatched up the police radio and hit the button to talk.
“Soren?” she breathed.
“She’s gone,” he said, his voice dead and muffled.
“Gone?” she repeated, her heart blazing into overdrive. “What do you mean gone?”
“I mean she ran. She told the workers to destroy all the files and skipped out of the building before we got to her.”
“Shit!” Lark cried, flinging down the radio.
“That sneaky bitch,” said Axel.
“I can’t believe this!” Lark cried.
She wanted to scream. After everything that had happened — all the running and planning — Annalisa had been one step ahead of them.
It didn’t make any sense, Lark thought. There were only so many ways out of that building. Roger and Mac had had the front entrance covered, and they were staring at the back exit. There could have been another entrance that Lark didn’t know about, but it would have been difficult for Annalisa to slip away unnoticed. Unless . . .
Suddenly, Lark had an idea. It was so ridiculously simple that she wondered how it had not occurred to her before.
“Axel! Drive,” she said, practically trembling with excitement.
“What’re you —”
“Just go!” Lark cried, pointing around the side of the building. She could just make out the concrete overhang concealing the ramp, but she couldn’t put it into words.
“What? Where?”
“Over there!” Lark screamed. “The parking garage!”
Axel didn’t need to be told twice. He threw the vehicle into reverse and slammed his foot down on the accelerator. Lark grabbed hold of the door handle to keep from flying across the back seat as Axel whipped the car around and zoomed toward the overhang.
Lark’s blood was pounding in her veins, carrying with it a surge of adrenaline. It was a long shot, but if Annalisa was still in the building, she would have to go through the garage to make her escape.
They reached the overhang, and Lark had a brief second to stare into the dark abyss. There was no one manning the booth outside, but there was an electronic card reader that controlled the barricade.
“Hang on,” said Axel, lining up the car.
He hit the accelerator, and Lark clenched her teeth together as Axel blew through the flimsy metal arm blocking the ramp. It tore away from the mechanism as if it were made of tin foil and bounced off their hood as they flew through the entrance.
Axel plowed over a speed bump at forty miles an hour, and Lark thought her molars might shatter. She was lifted off her seat as they flew over the bump, and then her body weight slammed back down on her spine.
Their tires squealed as Axel whipped around the corner. They passed several “Wrong Way” and “Do Not Enter” signs as they flew down the ramp, and Lark clenched her fists to brace herself for a possible head-on collision.
Axel yanked the steering wheel hard to the left, and Lark gasped as she was thrown into the side of the door. He let out a whoop of excitement, and the high-pitched squeal of tires told her that they were definitely exceeding the speed limit.
“Slow down!” Lark yelled, squeezing her eyes shut as they plunged down an even steeper ramp. “She’s no good if we hit her!”
“D’you wanna catch this bitch or not?”
Lark didn’t argue. She knew better. Axel seemed to be having the time of his life. He was gripping the steering wheel like a NASCAR driver and hollering like a cowboy on a bucking bronco. They corkscrewed around a concrete pillar, flew down another ramp, and came to a halt on the bottom floor of the garage.
Lark gripped the door handle to steady herself, scanning the area for Annalisa. There were only a handful of cars on that level: A BMW, a Lexus, and a black Mercedes-Benz.
Just then, Lark heard a quiet beep-beep, and a flash of headlights illuminated the garage. It was the Mercedes.
A second later, the vehicle roared to life, and Lark’s breath caught in her throat.
“There!” she yelled.
“It’s a remote start,” said Axel, squinting through the artificial light into the dark stairwell.
“Back up!” Lark hissed. “Block the ramp!”
Axel didn’t even hesitate. He threw the car into reverse and shot backwards up the ramp in the direction they’d come. He flicked off the lights and killed the engine, and Lark combed the shadows for any signs of life.
“Do you see her?” she asked anxiously.
“Naw.”
Lark rolled down the window. It was impossible to see anything in the far reaches of the garage, but just then, Lark heard a familiar clack-clack-clack that set her teeth on edge.
Someone was coming down the stairwell.
“Stay here,” said Lark, pushing the door open and getting out of the car.
“What’re you —” But Lark didn’t hear the rest. She carefully closed the door behind her and waited for Annalisa to emerge.
It seemed to take a year and a day, but finally her familiar jaunty bob appeared.
Annalisa Stein looked almost as composed as she had the last time Lark had seen her. She was dressed to the nines in a white lace top, a charcoal blazer, and a long pencil skirt that hugged her tall slender frame.
Annalisa’s short dark waves looked a little flat, which made Lark think that she’d put in a late night at the office the day before. She was carrying a chic leather briefcase that was straining at the seams, and Lark knew it was loaded with much more weight that its designers had intended.
Annalisa reached the bottom of the stairs and glanced around, looking to her right and her left as if checking for police officers. She took off again toward her Mercedes, her high heels moving at an impressive clip as she crossed the parking garage.
Lark’s anger started to bubble up from beneath the surface as she watched Annalisa. She started moving toward her slowly, careful to stay out of sight in case the COO tried to flee.
When Annalisa was only a few feet from her car, Lark stepped into the light and glared down at the COO.
“It’s over, Ms. Stein,” she said in a low, deadly voice.
Annalisa looked up, and her face went slack with shock. She froze, and Lark heard her keys hit the concrete floor. A flicker of terror swept over Annalisa’s normally composed face, and Lark felt a surge of satisfaction that she was able to inflict such an emotion.
“What do you want?” asked Annalisa.
“I want you to pay for what you’ve done.”
At those words, all the color seemed to drain from Annalisa’s face, making her pink rouge stand out clownishly on her pale dead face.
“Stay — away from me,” she croaked.
“I can’t do that,” said Lark, taking another half step toward her.
Annalisa’s nostrils flared. She was staring at Lark as if she were the scum of the earth, but she was clearly too terrified to speak.
“You’re coming with us,” said Lark.
Annalisa shook her head, and Lark saw some of
that familiar boldness return. “You can’t kidnap me,” she hissed. “The building is swarming with officers and my own security detail. If you try anything —”
“They’ll what?” said Lark. “Arrest us?” She shook her head. “They know what you did, Annalisa. Those officers are with us.”
For the first time, Lark saw real fear in Annalisa’s eyes. She glanced down at Lark’s hands as if searching for a weapon, and then she looked into the black sedan, where Axel was sitting in the driver’s seat.
When she saw Axel, the true desperation of her situation seemed to hit her, and Lark could have sworn she heard Annalisa’s heart skip a beat.
“Stay back!” she warned, her voice trembling with nerves.
Lark shook her head. “You aren’t getting away with this — not this time.”
Annalisa’s face went blank, and for a moment, Lark couldn’t get a read on her expression. Both of them were staring at each other, trying to guess what the other would do. Then Annalisa did something Lark never would have guessed. She bolted.
It took Lark half a second to process what was happening as Annalisa turned and sprinted toward the stairwell. Her movements were clumsy and uncoordinated, as if it had been years since she’d actually run. Her briefcase swung wildly as she made a break for the building, and Lark tore after her with a growl.
As they ran, Axel started the engine, and Lark pumped her arms as a determined Annalisa jetted across the garage. She moved faster than Lark would have expected for a woman so elegant, but she wasn’t fast enough.
In just a few seconds, Lark closed the distance between them. She reached out an arm to bridge the gap and grabbed Annalisa by the hair.
Annalisa screamed but did not stop. She flailed and continued to pull, and Lark tackled her from behind. They both slammed into the ground, and Lark felt pain erupt all over her body as she landed on Annalisa’s narrow bony frame.
Axel let out a yell that ricocheted off the concrete walls, but Annalisa continued to fight. She was throwing her body violently from side to side, but Lark flattened her like a pancake and pinned her wrists to the ground.
“You’re done,” Lark growled, clambering to her feet and hauling Annalisa with her.
Annalisa was still bucking and twisting like a wild animal, and it was all Lark could do to wrestle her across the parking garage.
To her relief, Axel met her halfway and slapped a pair of handcuffs onto Annalisa’s wrists. They silenced her with a piece of duct tape and threw her into the back, where Lark bound her ankles and secured her waist with the middle seat belt.
Axel slammed the back door shut, and Lark climbed into the front. She snatched the police radio off the floor and grabbed her handgun from the glove compartment.
“Soren?” she panted, still winded from the fight.
“Here.”
Lark took a second to breathe, meeting Axel’s gaze with a victorious grin. “We got her.”
29
Lark
After she’d told Soren what had happened, Lark set the police radio down and reached into the back for Annalisa’s bag. Annalisa was still flailing around on the worn leather seat, but with her wrists and ankles bound and a gun pointed at her head, she wasn’t going to escape.
Inside the bag, Lark found the standard white-collar paraphernalia: empty coffee thermos, financial statements, Annalisa’s makeup bag, and a computer hard drive.
“Well, this makes things easier,” said Lark, grinning at Axel and brandishing the hard drive.
Annalisa’s eyes narrowed into slits, and she made a noise of contempt in her throat.
“It doesn’t matter,” said Lark. “We’ve already got plenty of dirt on you and GreenSeed. This will just be extra motivation for you.”
She could feel the hatred rolling off Annalisa in waves as they pulled out of the parking garage and onto the highway. Since nobody had seen them take Annalisa, no one would be looking for them. As far as her security detail knew, Annalisa had made her escape, and by the time someone found her Mercedes and put the pieces together, their plan would already be set in motion.
It was only a thirty-minute drive to the rendezvous point in Española. The town was completely deserted, which made it an ideal spot for interrogating Annalisa.
Her eyes widened in panic as Axel decelerated, and Lark directed him toward a dilapidated one-story adobe. It had faded blue text painted along the side and dusty mannequins in the window.
The building had once been a thrift store, but by the looks of things, it hadn’t seen a customer in years. The windows were streaked and dirty, and a torn piece of paper was taped haphazardly over the door. A dozen or so mismatched chairs were tethered together with a rusty chain, and a broken kiva stove lay in pieces in the grass.
Axel parked the car and came around to help Lark wrestle Annalisa inside. She blinked rapidly in the bright sunshine, and Lark saw genuine fear in her eyes. She thought they had brought her there to kill her.
As much as that idea appealed to Lark, they needed Annalisa alive. Phase two of their plan depended entirely on her, and Lark was counting on the COO’s self-preservational instincts to get them what they needed.
Annalisa stumbled as they pushed her across the dead brown grass. She was shaking like a leaf, and one of her shoes was missing. Axel grunted in annoyance and hoisted her over his shoulder. Annalisa let out a muffled sob, but there was nothing she could do.
The back window was already broken, so Lark kicked out the jagged shards of glass and climbed inside to unlock the door. It was warm and musty inside the shop, and the state of the merchandise confirmed Lark’s suspicions that the store had long since been abandoned.
The glass display cases were covered in dust, and several of them had been jimmied open. Most of the clothes and bedding were gone, leaving an assortment of musical instruments, golf clubs, and furniture behind.
Axel deposited Annalisa in a ratty armchair that was sandwiched between an old-fashioned brass headboard and a scuffed armoire. He tied her to the chair and pulled off her tape to let her sip some water, but Annalisa just hawked up a loogie and spat in his face.
It was a mark of how focused Axel was that he didn’t say or do anything. He just wiped the spittle from his cheek and slammed the water bottle down onto the table beside her.
They waited in silence for Soren and the others, watching Annalisa sweat through her fancy blazer. Her hair was askew and her makeup was a mess, but deep down she was still the cunning, ruthless executive that had once clawed her way to the top of the corporate ladder.
Lark could practically see the wheels turning inside her head, and she got a flicker of apprehension that Annalisa might still find a way to screw them.
Finally, Soren pulled up in Thompson’s police cruiser. They watched him through the dusty window, and a look of horror spread across Annalisa’s face.
“You,” she breathed as Soren sidled through the door. Her eyes shot from Soren to Simjay to Thompson and back to Soren, all of whom were dressed in full police uniforms. “It was all a setup,” she murmured.
“Your employees seemed to think it was real,” Thompson mused. “They got real busy shredding everything as soon as we arrived.”
Annalisa fixed her prim little mouth in a familiar smug expression, but Lark could sense her fear simmering just beneath the surface.
“You have to let me go,” said Annalisa coolly. “I’ll be missed.”
“Oh, we’re counting on that,” said Lark.
“We know how important you are to GreenSeed,” Soren added.
“Then you know what will happen if you kill me,” said Annalisa. “You’d never make it out of the state.”
“Don’t worry,” said Lark. “No one wants to kill you.”
“I mean, we want to,” said Simjay. “But that would be counterproductive.”
Annalisa swallowed. “What do you want?”
“We want you to shut down San Judas,” said Soren. “Quietly.”
�
��What?” snapped Annalisa. “Why would I do that?”
“Do you want the real reason or the board-friendly version?” Lark asked.
Annalisa’s expression hardened, and Lark knew that she had underestimated them.
“You can tell the board the truth,” said Soren. “That with all the inmates who have escaped — not to mention the recent murder of Mercy Peters — the liability of the prison has begun to outweigh its profitability.”
“That’s not true,” said Annalisa.
“Come on,” said Simjay, who was leaning against a dusty glass case. “The government per diem rate per inmate must have diminished significantly with everything that’s going on. And with the FDA stonewalling you on the new crops, it’s just not cost-effective to keep it running.”
Annalisa’s scowl deepened, and Lark knew that everything Simjay had said was true.
“What’s in it for you?” she asked finally.
“We want you to release the prisoners,” said Lark.
Annalisa let out a snort of laughter. “You must be joking.”
Soren shook his head.
Annalisa stared at them for several seconds, blinking furiously as she tried to work out their end game. “You can’t be serious. I can’t release hundreds of inmates just because you ask me to.”
“Why not?” asked Lark. “According to the Department of Homeland Security, eighty percent of state-run facilities have already closed. Lots of offenders have been released.”
“Not violent criminals,” said Annalisa, clearly rattled at the thought of thousands of men and women like them walking around free.
“You really should revisit some of your case files,” said Lark. “I bet you’d find that most of the inmates have already served their mandatory minimum sentences. The few who haven’t — the really, really bad eggs —”
“They’re all bad eggs,” Annalisa grumbled. “You four are proof positive —”
“We’re talking about the Hudson Peterses of the world,” said Soren. “Those inmates you can relocate to other facilities. No one will question why.”