The Midnight Effect

by Pamela Fryer

  “How do you know Vince Luggo?” Miles asked. Meiling returned a confused stare. “He’s the man who attacked us.”

  “Ah. He follows Colton around like a lap dog.” She shook her head. “He doesn’t talk to anybody. I didn’t know his name.”

  “Are there others like him?”

  “No other bodyguard types, I think, but he’s got plenty of lackeys to do his dirty work.” She shrugged. “Over the past year, anything could have changed.”

  “What about security inside?” he pressed. “Annie told us there were no cameras on the roof.”

  “I’ve never been on the roof. I couldn’t say if she’s right or not. But if Annie is teleporting herself, there’s no telling what she’s seen. I would bet she’s right.” Meiling nodded. “That’s where the helipad is located, and Colton is very secretive about his comings and goings. It would make sense he doesn’t want cameras there.”

  “Do you know how many security officers there are?” Lily asked her.

  “There are usually only two guards on duty at a time, one guard at the gate, and one in the control room, because everything that happens is recorded on video tape.” She pursed her lips in a smirk. “Of course, that’s to protect him and him alone. Security isn’t an issue on the inside. Employees can only travel as far as they’re allowed by electronic pass codes.”

  Lily’s hope spiked. “What was your pass code?”

  “Deleted when I took my exit interview.” Meiling frowned. “I know what you’re planning, but I can’t help you. It will be impossible for you to get inside.” She sighed, shaking her head, as if she knew Lily would try anyway.

  There was nothing the other woman could say to convince her away now. Lily was getting Annie out of there, one way or another.

  “People have disappeared from IntelliGenysis. If you truly intend to go in there, be careful. Colton won’t be very forgiving toward anyone who tries to interfere with his master plan.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  The wind had slacked off, leaving fat, icy raindrops to fall straight to the ground.

  Once outside on Meiling’s driveway, Lily’s composure fell. She covered her face with her hands and Miles heard the gasp that would lead to sobs. He took her under his arm and brought her close.

  “Let’s get out of the rain.”

  He glanced back. Meiling peered out of the narrow window beside the door. Her gaze slipped away, her eyes full of regret, and she let the sheer curtain drift back into place.

  Nothing that happened at IntelliGenysis was the woman’s fault, but he was glad she felt guilty. She wouldn’t have given them information if she didn’t.

  He guided Lily to the passenger side and helped her in, then hurried to the driver’s side. He started the car. The windshield wipers thumped back and forth, a dreary sound on a bleak night. Meiling had given them nothing but hopelessness.

  But Lily wasn’t convinced. He knew her well enough already to understand she was stronger than that.

  “It’s worse than I thought,” Lily said quietly. She stared straight forward at nothing, her eyes unfocussed. “He’s using her for evil.”

  “You heard Ms. Wong. Annie knows the difference between right and wrong better than most adults.”

  A silver tear rolled down Lily’s cheek. “She’s so scared, all by herself there.” She turned to him. “It’s different, now. Before, she had Cassandra. Now she’s all alone.”

  “We’re going to get her out.” He grasped her hand where it rested on her thigh. It was wet from the rain and ice cold. “Even if we can’t get inside, we can make such a public spectacle he’ll give her up to quiet the scandal.”

  Lily shook her head and her composure fell. “He’ll never willingly give her up. You heard her, Annie is his most successful experiment.”

  He gave her hand a squeeze. “We’ll figure a way.”

  Miles put the car in drive and drove out of the residential area. They’d come in on Hastings, which was the main street in town. One of the hotel ads in the phone book had a cursory map directing travelers off Hastings.

  “Where are we going?” Lily asked when he didn’t drive to the highway.

  “Command central.” Up ahead he saw the sign for the Holiday Inn. The neighborhood didn’t seem too bad and the hotel appeared modern and well maintained. He turned into the parking lot and parked in the front by registration. “It’s almost nine and we’re both tired.”

  Miles shut off the engine and turned to Lily. “You didn’t plan to drive up to IntelliGenysis and bang on the door, did you? You need to absorb what you just learned and formulate a plan.”

  She looked like she wanted to protest, and he couldn’t help but admire her for it.

  “My head is spinning with what I just learned and I know yours is too,” he told her. “Trust me, you need to reassemble yourself before you make any hasty decisions.”

  To his surprise, she quirked a smile. “Is this Officer Goodwin speaking?”

  “Actually it’s Lieutenant First Class Goodwin. I served in the Marines.”

  Lily laughed. “Now why didn’t I guess that?” She grabbed her purse and hurried with him through the rain.

  A young woman greeted them with a smile. “Do you have a reservation?”

  Miles shook his head. “I saw your vacancy sign and thought I’d take a gamble.”

  She clicked on her computer. “The bad weather brought you in off the highway, did it? Good choice. I heard on the radio a jackknifed big rig shut the down highway two miles north of here. I have a single king with a mini-kitchen available, non smoking.”

  His empty stomach clenched. “We’ll need two rooms.”

  “I’m sorry, sir. It’s our only room available, and that’s only because of a last minute cancellation.”

  Lily glanced at him uneasily and Miles began to sweat. “Can you call a nearby hotel and see if there are any other rooms available?”

  The young lady smiled. “I’ll be glad to, sir, but there’s a cheerleading rally in town this week. We’ve been sold out for months.”

  “That’s okay,” Lily said. “I’m sure the room is fine. Will it be all right if I pay cash?”

  The woman’s gaze slid to Lily, no longer smiling. “Yes, but I’ll need to see some ID and you’ll be required to put down a sixty dollar deposit per night in addition to the room charges. Fully refundable, of course.”

  Miles opened his badge. “How’s this?”

  “Oh.” Rebecca, her name tag read, relaxed and her smile returned. “Fine. Thank you, officer.” She clicked on her keyboard again. “And I’ll be happy to waive the deposit. The rally ends tomorrow and many of our guests will be checking out in the morning. I’m sure I’ll be able to find a second room for you for tomorrow night.”

  Miles resisted the urge to say that would be a hundred years too late.

  She handed Lily the key. “Your room is upstairs and on the left side. There’s a stairway at the center and end of the wing. We serve a continental breakfast from six until nine in the lounge behind the lobby, and there’s a coffee maker in your room.”

  “Thank you, Rebecca,” Lily said.

  Miles followed Lily outside. She didn’t say anything as they returned to the car and drove to the far end of the hotel wing. Sure enough, the parking lot was filled with mini-vans emblazoned with high school slogans in bright, temporary paint.

  He took her bag and followed Lily up the stairs. She unlocked the room and moved inside, setting her purse on the table.

  Miles stood in the doorway on feet refusing to move inside. The single, king-size bed stood in the center of the room like a sacrificial dais. A lump formed in his throat. He drew a deep breath and forced his feet to step into the room. The bed seemed to grow larger in his peripheral vision.

  He dropped Lily’s duffel bag on the chair beside the table. “I think I should head home. I live about an hour and a half away. I can come back for you in the morning.”

  Lily stopped rifling through her
purse. She looked up with that deer-in-headlights expression. “Don’t be ridiculous.” As if reading his mind, she turned and looked at the bed. “Miles, this isn’t a big deal. We’re both adults, we can make this work.”

  Her voice shook as she said it. She was as uncomfortable as he was. He searched for an excuse. None came as a long, uncomfortable minute ticked by. A gust of wind blew in and crept through his clothes like icy fingers. He turned and closed the door.

  Lily abandoned whatever she was looking for and stepped closer.

  “You’ve already done so much for Annie and me, and I don’t have the right to ask anything more of you.” She swallowed. “But I don’t want to be alone tonight. Please, stay.”

  He looked down at the carpeting, unable to face the desolation in her eyes.

  “I know these past few days have been especially hard for you, and I respect what you’re going through. I would never do anything…. I would never intentionally make it worse for you.”

  She smiled and touched his forearm in a tender, yet entirely platonic gesture. His appreciation for her doubled.

  “Maybe we can call up for an extra cot.”

  He forced a laugh. It sounded brittle. “No, you’re right. We’re not teenagers.”

  Miles did his best to straighten his shoulders. As difficult as it was to be frank, he wanted no misinterpretation. “It’s just that I’ve slept alone since…” He turned away and drove his fingers through his hair. “You’re right. It has been hard to be with you and Annie. You’ve made me remember things I thought were gone for good.”

  When he faced her again, Lily looked solemn. He wished he had more to give her. She deserved so much more.

  “Things I wasn’t ready to remember.” He grimaced. “You could say it was a crash course.”

  A slow smile touched her lips. He smiled too. Some of the tension drained out of him.

  “I appreciate that you’ve been sensitive,” he finished.

  “I wouldn’t be a very good friend if I wasn’t.” She turned back to her purse and found the bottle of aspirin she’d been looking for. “I’m hungry after all. I’m going to stick one of these pasta containers in the microwave.”

  “Stick them both in. I’m starved too.” He gave her a sly look. “I told you I knew how to manage a stakeout.”

  “I’ll never doubt you again,” she said.

  He wondered if she would hold true to that tomorrow morning when it came time to finalize their plan.

  Lily hand washed some silverware and set it aside on paper towels. Though she had no doubt the dishwasher worked fine and there was probably a maid who did the final cleaning after each guest, she felt better doing them herself and knowing they were clean.

  She set out two steaming plates of Fettuccini Alfredo on the guest table and poured them each a glass of water.

  “I’ve been thinking about how to approach IntelliGenysis,” she said lightly as she folded paper towels to use as napkins and set out the cleaned silverware. She broke the loaf of French bread at the middle and set half on each plate. She waited until she knew Miles wasn’t going to respond before going on, certain he was poised to voice argument against both her ideas.

  She sat and dug into the pasta, savoring the creamy sauce. “Mmm. Italian is always better after it’s rested a while.”

  Miles eyed her.

  “Okay, so I was thinking.” She wiped her mouth with a napkin as he folded his arms over his chest. One brow twitched upward.

  “Idea one. We go up there and demand a meeting. See what kind of game plan he has.”

  “That could be disastrous. He tried to kill us, remember? I’m not about to willingly jump into that spider’s web.”

  “I didn’t say these were good ideas,” she returned. He would like the next idea even less. She dug back into the pasta, mustering up her courage. “But Vince Luggo didn’t try to shoot me. He intentionally aimed above my head at the rest stop.”

  “True or not, storming up to the door puts you at a severe disadvantage. He could do whatever he wanted to you and no one would ever know. You heard Meiling; people have disappeared from there.”

  “Idea two. Meiling also said the security department is outsourced. Well, if there are executive apartments inside the main building, there has to be a maid service, right? I’ll bet that’s outsourced too. If we could find out what company they use, maybe I could get a job as a maid. I can get my office to provide a fake job reference for me—”

  Miles had been shaking his head back and forth the entire time. “Bad idea,” he said. “I don’t like the thought of you sneaking in there. Besides, it wouldn’t work. He knows what you look like.”

  “Does he keep a personal eye on his maids?” she countered.

  “Who the hell knows?” Miles continued shaking his head. “It wouldn’t work.”

  “What do you propose?”

  “I need to think on it. Let me ask you this, what are you going to do when you get Annie back?”

  Some of her tension evaporated. She liked the fact he’d said when, not if.

  “Well, I had an idea for that too, but now that I think about it, I’ve changed my mind.”

  He gave her a skeptical look. “You’re not even going to run it by me?”

  “You don’t seem to like my ideas much.”

  “Give me a shot.” He grinned. “I promise I won’t shoot it down. Not immediately, anyway.”

  “I’ll shoot it down myself. It’s too dangerous.” She looked down at her plate and twirled pasta around her fork. “No.”

  “All right,” he said, waiting until she’d finished chewing. “At least tell me what it was.”

  “I was thinking Annie and I could fly to New York. I have a good friend there. My assistant could buy the tickets out of Spokane. But first I will have used my credit card to rent a car that someone…”

  “Me.”

  “…drives in the other direction.”

  “What’s wrong with that plan?”

  “The last time someone switched places with me, she ended up dead.”

  He opened his mouth but she didn’t give him the chance to speak.

  “It’s too dangerous. Even if you are a cop and a marine. I won’t let you do it.”

  “Colton Reilly knows who I am. Chances are if Annie goes missing he’ll come looking at my house. No matter where I am, I’m going to have to keep my guard up and my head down.”

  Lily set her fork down. “God.” A hot wave of guilt rushed through her midsection. Her appetite vanished. “I’m so sorry.”

  “Lily.” Miles reached across the small table and grasped her hand. In his tight grip she could feel his strength and courage. That only made it harder to swallow the whole wretched mess.

  “None of this is your fault. We’re both victims. All three of us. The only one to blame is Colton.”

  Her throat tightened with sorrow. She stared at his hand and then, with resignation, brought her gaze up to his. “Would I be a horrible person if I don’t say I wish I’d never met you?”

  He smiled as he leaned back against the chair. “Would I be a lunatic if I don’t say I wish you hadn’t either?”

  She choked out a laugh over the sob struggling to break free.

  “The way I see it we need two plans. The first one to get Annie out of IntelliGenysis, the second to get you both out of Dodge. Once we get her there won’t be a lot of time to figure out plan two.”

  “You’re right. If I don’t act fast, I’ll be right back where I started.”

  Leaving the state meant leaving Miles. She’d known as much, had even expected he would be gone by now. But somehow, planning an out-of-state flight cemented the idea.

  Lily pushed the thought out of her mind. She didn’t want to consider never seeing him again.

  Her whole life she had existed in pursuit of long-term goals. Everything she did was part of a plan for the future. It was time to live in the moment, and this moment was spent with Miles. Don’t think about later
, when he’ll be gone.

  “I like the part about leaving the state, but I think Reilly will anticipate the airport,” he said. “We should consider alternatives.”

  “Like what?”

  “Maybe finding you a place to hide out in Spokane for a while.”

  Her heart thumped against her ribs. Was he going to suggest living with him?

  “If Reilly thinks you’re on the run he’s going to spread out looking for you. If you lay low he’ll look right past you.”

  She opened her mouth but nothing came out besides an awkward “bwa” sound.

  “Eddie has a house in Spokane. His wife passed away about ten years ago. I’m sure he’d let you stay with him for as long as you need. Eddie would love to play cop again.”

  “Are you sure you’d want to ask him? Anyone I’m near would be in danger.” Which still meant she couldn’t see Miles, even if she was only ten minutes away.

  Lily rose and took their empty plates to the kitchen. “I don’t think you should ask him. I’m sure in his heart he’d love to help, but he’s not up to it. It wouldn’t be fair to ask.”

  “I can’t arrange for you to be placed in a safe house. What I’m doing isn’t exactly on the record.”

  “I know.” She rinsed the plates and opened the dishwasher. “I think I should stick to the airport plan. Maybe I could buy a wig for myself and a hat for Annie. You know, without an airline ticket, Colton and his goon can’t get through airport security.”

  “What’s to stop him from buying a cheap ticket somewhere?” Miles countered. “He wouldn’t blink at the cost.”

  She sighed, defeated. “I still think it’s the best idea.” She resigned herself to the fact he wasn’t going to like it.

  Was it too much to hope he didn’t want her to leave, either?

  Lily dropped their dishes into the dishwasher. She closed it and faced him. “I’m going to take a shower. If you think up a better plan, let me know.”

  Lily emerged from the bathroom about forty-five minutes later. Her hair was messy but dry, as if she’d wound it up in a towel. She wore powder blue, satiny pajamas with ivory piping. The pants and long-sleeved shirt covered everything but her hands and feet.