Stolen (A Diana Hunter Mystery Book 3)

by Alison Golden

  Diana looked at the plants critically. They were quite bushy. Hiding something like a small canister wouldn’t have been hard. No one would have considered looking there for something suspicious. Certainly not a canister. She glanced up at the vents.

  “I guess they could have,” she said slowly. “But if they used the air vents, it would ensure a more even dispersal. I suggest we test the plants and the vents. Better safe than sorry.”

  “If they used the vents, they could attach the scopolamine straight to the big A/C units up on the roof, couldn’t they?” Ruth asked.

  Diana considered this, but it was Tina who answered. “It’s unlikely,” she said. “Most of these buildings have multiple A/C units, but they service a large portion of the building. Using those on the roof would mean that people in other areas of the hotel would have been affected too.”

  “But are we sure no one outside the ballroom was drugged?” Hopkinson asked. “After all, they wouldn’t know, would they? Scopolamine wipes their memory of whatever took place. And if the thieves were simply targeting the ballroom, the people in the other areas these vents reach wouldn’t have noticed anything. None of their belongings were stolen.”

  “It’s possible but risky. Certainly, though, using the air conditioning system would have been the easiest way for them to pull this off. They could hook up a canister to the A/C before the party. Then they could come back later, or even the following day, to recover the evidence.”

  Diana glanced at a vent. “Dispersing it throughout the hotel seems overkill and unnecessary. My bet is they restricted the release to just this room.”

  She pulled a chair over to the wall and got up. She still couldn’t reach. Damn it. She was going to need a screwdriver, too.

  She turned to jump off the chair and found Hopkinson standing behind her. He was holding up a screwdriver, a smug grin on his face. “Need help?” he asked.

  She glared at him. “Yes, please,” she said with a saccharine smile. She hopped off the chair and waved him up. “Be my guest.”

  Hopkinson snorted and climbed up. He unscrewed the faceplate and jerked it off with a loud grating sound. “I’m guessing no one does this too often,” he said. He peered into the vent. “It’s too dark to see anything.”

  “Need some help?” Diana held up the flashlight she grabbed from Tina’s kit earlier. She was wearing the same smug grin that he sported only moments ago.

  Hopkinson gave her a long, hard stare. “Thanks,” he said, not taking his eyes off hers as he handed her the faceplate and took the flashlight. “So, what am I looking for?” he asked.

  “I’m not sure. Anything that shouldn’t be in an air vent. Possibly scopolamine residue. Let me get you a swab.” She leaned the faceplate against the wall and went over to Tina’s kit. “Tina, I need a tester.”

  “Top row, on the left,” the woman replied.

  Diana found the special test tubes that came with a swab used to collect samples. She grabbed a few and walked over to Hopkinson. “Here you go,” she said holding one up for him.

  “Other than a dead rat—I think that’s what that is anyway, it looks kind of furry—there’s nothing in here,” he said as he reached down to hand back the flashlight in exchange for the test kit. He ripped the plastic open, removed the tube and unscrewed the cap, ran the cotton end of the swab over the floor of the vent and put the swab back in the test tube. He screwed the lid on tightly and handed it back to Diana.

  “Faceplate, please.”

  Diana picked up the faceplate and handed it to him. After screwing it back on, Hopkinson jumped off the chair. He eyed the rest of the tubes in her hand. “What are those for?”

  “We’re going to do all the vents.”

  “Are you kidding me?” he asked. “There must be ten of them in here.”

  Diana shook her head. “Twelve. I counted.”

  “But why do all of them?”

  “It’s unlikely they would have used every single vent. There are just too many of them. But we don’t want to risk swabbing only the ones they didn’t use. It would give us a false negative.”

  Hopkinson nodded. “Makes sense.”

  They spent the next ninety minutes removing faceplates and swabbing the inside of the remaining vents. Once they were done, Diana looked around. “Maybe we should check out the theory that they used outside A/C units, just in case.”

  Peter was hot and sweating with the effort it had taken to swab all twelve vents. He wiped his dusty face. “Good idea. I could do with some fresh air. It would help if we had those blueprints, too. I’m going to find that hotel manager and see where he disappeared to.” He left the ballroom, the set of his shoulders determined.

  “Well, we’re done,” Tina said as she walked back toward her kit. “We’ll take all this to the lab and get to work.”

  “How long do you think it will take?” Diana asked. Tina checked her watch.

  “Well, it’s already pretty late, so it will have to wait until tomorrow morning. But I should have at least some results by early afternoon,” she replied.

  Diana glanced at her own watch, and her eyes widened. “Nine, already!” Time had flown. It had been around two when she arrived at the station, and since then, things had moved fast. Her track of time had slipped away from her. She needed to get home. Max was probably going crazy. But she still had a few more things to check.

  “Why don’t you two head on out? Hopkinson and I can wrap up here.”

  Tina looked at her. “You sure?” she asked.

  “No worries,” Diana said with a smile.

  “Okay,” Tina smiled warmly back at her. “Thanks.”

  “One thing. Could you leave me a few more of those testers?”

  Tina pulled out ten test kits and handed them to her. “What do you need them for?” she asked.

  “We’re going to look into the possibility that they used the external A/C units to disperse the scopolamine.

  “Uh-huh. You can swab those areas too.”

  “Yup.”

  “Well, good luck with that. Here, you’ll need this,” Tina said as she handed her the screwdriver Hopkinson had been using earlier.

  Diana looked at Tina carefully. She was pretty certain Hopkinson had not put it back. Tina snorted. “If I didn’t look after my equipment, I’d have nothing left.”

  Diana laughed. “I promise to take very good care of it.”

  “I’ll hold you to that. Okay, we’ll get going. See you tomorrow.”

  Diana waved. “See you.”

  Just then, Hopkinson walked back in. He was holding some papers in his hand. His trip had been successful, but he looked thunderous. “I knew I didn’t like the look of that guy. He “forgot” to get the blueprints. And suddenly he was much too busy to find them. I had to explain the perils of impeding an investigation.”

  Diana sighed. “You didn’t threaten him, did you?”

  Hopkinson glared at her. “You do know I’ve been doing this job for quite a while, don’t you?”

  “Of course. Doesn’t mean you’re the nicest person to deal with.”

  “No, I didn’t threaten him,” Hopkinson declared. He turned to Tina, who was giving them an odd smile. “Are you leaving us?”

  “Diana said you two could finish up here. We’ll get on with these first thing in the morning, and you should have some answers by tomorrow afternoon.”

  “Thanks, Tina,” Hopkinson replied. Ruth waved to both of them.

  Diana and Peter looked at each other. “Let’s take a look at these blueprints. Try to figure out how the A/C system works.” Peter walked over to one of the tables and spread the large plans out. There were a lot. The Fairmont was a big building.

  Diana bent over to study them. She groaned. “I can’t make a lick of sense out of these,” she said in exasperation.

  “So, you aren’t perfect, after all.”

  She looked up at him quickly but smiled when she saw the humorous twinkle in his eye. “Looks like I’m not. A
nd here I was thinking I was the embodiment of perfection. It’s such a shame to discover I’m just a regular old human.”

  “It’s a good thing that my brother,” Peter’s gaze darkened for a moment, “was in construction.” He finished the sentence on a whisper.

  Diana watched him. She wondered what was wrong.

  “Your brother?” she asked.

  Peter’s eyes refused to meet hers, but she could see they were shuttered. “I learned a lot from him,” he said abruptly. He bent over the plans, indicating loud and clear that the topic was closed.

  Diana opened her mouth but shut it just as quickly. She decided to drop the subject. For once.

  “So, can you understand anything?” she asked, pointing to the blueprints.

  “Enough. And as far as I can tell, the A/C system runs through the entire building. See?” Peter traced the plans with his finger. “They would have had to gas the whole building. Someone would have noticed, and it would have been a massive waste of the drug. I think we can write off the idea that they loaded the whole place. ”

  Diana looked up at the vents in the room, “But if they didn’t use the A/C units outside…” she trailed off. “Can you show me the venting system for this room?” she asked.

  “This is it,” he said, focusing in on one of the plans.

  She bent over to take a closer look. “These are the inlet vents, right?” Peter nodded. “Then, if it were me, I would have put the canisters at these junctures. Here and here,” she said, chewing on her lip. “They could release the drug and rely on the air forced through the vents to carry it into the room.

  “Why not place the canister right at the lip of the air vents, to make sure the scopolamine was dispersed more directly?”

  “Because I’d be worried about a maintenance crew finding them.”

  “Yeah, but as far as I can tell, they don’t do a lot of maintenance on the air vents.”

  “They had no way of knowing that. And there’s a good chance they brought in the canisters a few days before, to avoid any suspicion. The risk of someone finding them under those circumstances would have been high. Plus, they knew the cops would sweep the room right after the theft, and by hiding the canisters just out of sight, it would increase the odds of them being missed.”

  “Well, theories are great, but I guess we’re just going to have to check, aren’t we?”

  “Pretty much.”

  Peter looked up. “Hate to break it to you, but there’s no way I’m going to fit in one of those vents.”

  Diana eyed him and then up at the faceplate. “Great,” she said with a sigh. He was right. His shoulders were too wide. He would get stuck. It would be her who would have the dubious pleasure of crawling around. In the air vents. Which had rats. The joy.

  “Want a hand?” Peter looked much too pleased with himself.

  “I’m so glad you’re happy,” she grumbled.

  “Hey, no need to get touchy. Just offering to help,” he replied, raising his hands. The twinkle in his eye and the valiant effort he was putting into not grinning belied his words. He was enjoying this.

  “You’re such a gentleman,” she muttered. Diana was tempted to strangle him, but they had a job to do. She could restrict his airway later. She looked around the room and studied the vents. She wasn’t short, but she was nowhere near Peter’s height. Standing on a chair wouldn’t get her into the vent. She would need a leg up. Or… There! There was her solution. A sturdy-looking cabinet stood against one of the walls.

  She shrugged out of her jacket. Looking down at her shirt, she sighed. It was going to need a good dry cleaning after she was finished here. She unbuttoned her cuffs and rolled up the sleeves. “Come help me,” she ordered.

  “Yes, ma’am!” Peter said with a salute.

  She glared at him again. “You do know you aren’t funny, don’t you?”

  “Moi?” he asked, giving her an innocent look. “Actually, I think I’m hilarious.” There was a small look of triumph in the smile he was now giving her.

  “The size of your ego is unbelievable,” she said as she walked over to the sideboard. She glanced at him. “So, you going to give me a hand, or are you just going to stand there?”

  He shrugged, the smug smile still firmly planted on his lips. He walked over. “Do you mind?”

  She moved out of the way. Taking her place, Peter pushed the cabinet until it lined up with the vent. “Happy?”

  To be honest, she was impressed. That cabinet was damn big, and he had just pushed it across the carpet as if it weighed nothing.

  “Here,” she said, handing him the screwdriver. She climbed up onto the cabinet in what she hoped was a graceful move.

  Getting to her feet at the top, she saw the air vent was now about the same level as her shoulders. It was going to be a tight fit, even for her. She held her hand out without a word and curled her fingers around the screwdriver Peter silently handed her. She quickly undid the screws on the faceplate and pulled it off. Thankfully, it came away easily. She handed the faceplate and the screwdriver down to Peter and looked into the air vent dubiously. It was dark. Black, almost.

  “Don’t suppose you still have that flashlight?”

  “Of course I do,” he replied, handing it to her. Her stomach tightened, and she swallowed. She didn’t mind tight spaces. Hell, she didn’t mind the dark. But the thought of what might be living in these vents gave her the creeps. She had gone up against terrorists, hardened criminals, and a whole slew of very scary people without a qualm. But rats? That’s where she drew the line. She hated the disgusting, disease-carrying creatures. If one bit her, who knew what she would end up with?

  She glanced back at Peter, who was watching her expectantly. She swallowed.

  His gaze softened for a moment. “You okay?” he asked. “Look, if you have a problem with tight spaces or anything, we can get someone else out here tomorrow to check the vents.”

  She shook her head. “I’ll be fine,” she replied. “I’m just not that fond of rats.”

  “You and me both.”

  She took a deep breath. She switched the flashlight on and checked the vent. It looked empty. She put the flashlight between her teeth and grabbed onto the edge of the vent, slowly hoisting herself inside, her top half resting on the vent floor. Grabbing onto the walls, she pulled herself inside. She got up into a crawling position. Her back hit the top of the vent. There was only an inch or so of clearance on either side. It was a tight fit.

  She took another deep breath and coughed. How could an air vent have such a musty, stale smell? And so much damned dust.

  “You okay in there?” Peter sounded a little worried.

  “Yeah, I’m fine,” she replied, slightly breathlessly. She was fine. There didn’t seem to be any rats. No tell-tale scampering. Trying to breathe as little as possible, she inched her way forward. The juncture was only a few feet ahead of her.

  Suddenly, she heard a scratching noise. She froze. Not rats. Please, anything but rats. She banged against the side with her flashlight making the vent clang and vibrate. The scratching noise stopped. She bit her fear down and moved forward. The faster she checked the juncture out, the faster she could get out of there. She hustled herself up that vent as fast as her hands and knees and the restrictive space would allow her.

  When she got to the end of it, Diana’s heart dropped. The vent running perpendicular to the one she was in was empty.

  “There’s nothing here,” she yelled, the frustration clear in her voice.

  “Come on out then.”

  “I want to check the other vents,” she replied.

  “You sure?”

  “Yes, I’m sure,” she said with a small sigh. She turned to the left and began to inch her way forward as she started to investigate the maze of tunnels that ran above the ballroom.

  After what felt like hours but which couldn’t have been more than ten minutes, she hit the jackpot.

  “Found something!” she shouted, excitem
ent permeating her tone.

  “Don’t touch it,” Peter immediately said. She heard some movement and then the faceplate of the vent closest to her came off. “I’ve got an evidence bag here,” he said.

  “Throw it over to me.”

  Peter threw it but the bag didn’t make it too far. “Damn it,” he said. He reached in but couldn’t get to the bag. Diana sighed. She awkwardly made her way over the top of the oblong, shiny metal object lying in the vent—clearly a canister, like she had predicted—and grabbed the bag. She backed up, trying her best not to brush against the canister and wipe away any evidence that might still be on it. She picked it up using the evidence bag and worked her way back to Peter.

  “Here,” she said, handing it to him. He grabbed hold of it and disappeared from view. She sighed. She couldn’t come out head first and there wasn’t enough room for her to turn around. So, she backed up and turned around at the juncture. God, she felt ridiculous. She inched herself back down the way she had just come and started to climb out, feet, and butt, first. When she was about halfway, she felt a strong pair of hands grab her waist.

  “I’ve got you,” she heard Peter say. Her heartbeat picked up the pace a little, and she swallowed.

  Peter helped her down, and she breathed a sigh of relief when her feet hit solid ground. He let go of her. “You okay?” he asked.

  “I am now. Glad we found something,” she said, indicating the canister.

  She brushed herself off while Peter put the faceplate back on the vent. She looked like she had just come out of a coalmine. Her shirt was ruined. Next time she went to a crime scene, she was going to bring along a ratty T-shirt.

  Peter looked at the canister quizzically. “It’s pretty small, isn’t it?”

  Diana walked over to him and took a closer look. It was small. No bigger than her forearm.

  “Tina will have to test the potency of the gas. I know scopolamine is pretty strong stuff, but I’m not sure this small canister would have been enough to cover this entire room,” she replied.

  “Then there’s a good chance there was more than one canister. Better distribution of the gas through the room. Or as a backup, in case one didn’t work,” Peter said thoughtfully. “It’s what I would have done.”