Her expression was so severe at the moment, dark brows drawn together as she chewed her plump lower lip in concentration. The temptation to poke fun at her, just a little, was too much to resist.
“Latex gloves come in handy when you don’t want to leave behind any sort of calling card.” The comment was matter-of-fact. “Also good if you need to administer first aid. There’s a couple of other situations where they’d be useful.”
“And a few unorthodox uses in moments of more adventurous play, if one was so inclined.” He took a prudent step back.
Lizzy shot him a sharp glance, then bent and grasped the edge of construction plastic. “I haven’t used them that way and I’ll pass on hearing details.”
“But I’d be happy to share—”
“Don’t.”
He grinned. “If you ever change your mind about either the information or—”
“Nope.” Lizzy didn’t sound mad, but the last word had been definite. Instead, she dragged the construction plastic off the pallets and across the floor until it was closer to one of the windows. Then she stood there, staring at it.
This time, he wanted to see something before she pointed it out so he joined her where she was standing.
“Not too close to the windows.” She bumped him with his shoulder and he obliged by moving a few feet but not far.
“What are those impressions on the plastic?” He pointed. The way the plastic had been spread over the pallets, there shouldn’t have been those sorts of marks in it but this sheet had the sort of marks he’d seen left in carpet when heavy furniture had been sitting on top of it for too long. “Are there pallets missing? Maybe they were stacked on top of the pile over there.”
Lizzy shook her head. “Close, but no. And good spot. The shooter dragged this plastic over here to the open window frames. Not too close. Just far enough inside to make sure he or she wouldn’t be seen from the street or nearby buildings during the day. None of the lighting works yet in here and the sun was behind the building at the time of the shooting. Decent amount of shadow.”
He looked out the window. “I can see the street from here, but not well.”
“Uh-huh.” Lizzy moved to stand even with one of the indentations. “Shift those pallets of supplies over here and they become a makeshift table or platform. Shooter probably laid on top of it for stability to set up the shot.”
Apparently satisfied, she returned the plastic back to where it had been.
“There’s nothing else.” He had hoped to find something. Perhaps a bullet casing or piece of clothing, or even a small pile of sand. He seemed to remember something about it in one of those police procedural shows constantly on television.
“No, there isn’t. And that tells us a few things too.” Lizzy pulled him farther away from the windows, then paused. “Do you smell something?”
Come to think of it, something had been setting him on edge and started the beginnings of a headache. “Yes. Something sweet. Candy sweet. I don’t prefer sugary things because they give me a headache.”
“Huh.” Lizzy drew in a deep breath through her nose and exhaled through her mouth. “Bubblegum.”
“Someone was chewing bubblegum?” He couldn’t keep the incredulity from his tone. The shooting had been yesterday, he seriously doubted any human’s olfactory senses were that good.
“No.” Lizzy returned to the plastic and took another sniff. “It’s the plastic. I didn’t notice the smell until I pulled it off. Vapor must’ve been caught under it with the pallets. Our shooter uses an e-cig.”
“Those are supposed to be very unobtrusive.” He still wasn’t sure he believed it could have lingered so long and fear was starting to twist his guts. Perhaps the person they were looking for had been here much more recently. Or they were coming back.
“Compared to cigarettes, e-cigs are a huge improvement.” She wrinkled her nose. “But the vapor scent can hang around longer than the marketing says it does, especially the sweeter flavored scents. Under the plastic, it’s not like it had any place to go anyway.”
Well, it was an explanation for the smell of bubblegum, however long a stretch it was for Kyle to have considered. “Is there anything else?”
Lizzy cast one more glance around the room. “Not here. No. I’d like to check the other floors just to be sure, but then we can leave.”
Relieved, he waited until she returned to him and walked with her back to the door to the stairwell. “Is there a chance the shooter will return?”
“Not likely.” She paused, pushing him to the side as she opened the door, still being careful. “Another thing snipers like to be sure to have when they choose a perch is a quick escape route. This one took the time to clean up after he or she left, so I’m guessing they didn’t plan to come back. Actually, the chances are very slim.”
She hesitated. Looked at him.
That didn’t mean they might not stumble across the person on a different floor. He wanted to raise the argument but perhaps it would be stating the obvious.
It was the first time he saw indecision in her expression as her lips pressed together and her eyes darted around the room and down the stairwell. Kyle pressed back, away from the door, as he waited for her to think her options through. They’d been quiet on the way up but not perfectly silent. Their conversation here had also been in low tones, not likely to be heard from more than a few feet away, but there was still a chance someone waiting could have heard something.
“Shit.” She muttered under her breath. “It’s still extremely unlikely. But we’ll clear each floor as we go down to be sure. Stay close, right behind me. If Murphy’s Law kicks in, we don’t want someone coming out from above us while we’re still going down the stairwell.”
“The elevator?” Security would notice but right now it would be so much faster than stairs, less exposed.
“Those can turn into death in a box.” She gave him a hard look and there were ghosts, memories in her dark brown eyes. “If he or she was here long enough to set up their perch and break it back down again this way, they’d have had the chance to set something up in the elevator to buy them time in case of pursuit closing in. It’d be a contingency plan.”
He considered that. “You would do it.”
“Yes.”
* * *
“All set, Mr. Yeun?” The security guard stood and smiled as they walked out into the empty lobby.
From this angle, Lizzy spotted three small monitors giving the old man a view of the lobby behind him and the emergency exits in the two stairwells. He hadn’t even been monitoring who was on each of the floors once he’d issued them badges.
Obviously the businesses in this building required some security, but not incredibly tight. It would be a long shot to try acquiring the footage from the day before to try to spot their shooter. Possibly worth it though. If she could get her hands on it.
Doing so meant bringing official scrutiny here. She couldn’t do that without also giving away their location. For at least the past twenty-four hours, she’d been in blackout with no communication to either the police or the federal marshals. Safeguard could probably guess she was alive and her whereabouts because she’d checked into the hotel but they’d wait for her to report in first.
This was one of those times when she wouldn’t feel a drop of shame in being paranoid. She wanted to get Kyle safely back to the hotel and maybe even moving to a different spot before contacting each of her contacts.
Doing all of that would delay getting the right people here to conduct further investigation and forensics.
“Everything all right, darling?” Kyle’s question prompted her to make a quick decision.
It was unorthodox, but hell, it’d answer another one of the dozens of questions she had about this entire situation.
She smiled at the securi
ty guard apologetically. “I know I took the stairs, but I was wondering, does this building have a fourth floor?”
The guard gave her a quizzical look. “Well, there are a bunch of floors above the floor you went to and that was the third floor. Four comes after three so I’d say yes, there’s a fourth floor.”
Duh. She popped out a giggle and pitched her voice for embarrassment. “Oh! I didn’t explain my question very well. I was reading up on Asian cultures, see. And you know how a lot of buildings don’t have a thirteenth floor? Well, some buildings don’t have a fourth floor either because it’s bad luck or something. It’s a superstition thing and those kinds of things are so interesting. So I check as often as I can to see if I spot a building like that. I totally forgot when I asked that we take the stairs up.”
“Huh. To be honest, I never noticed.” The security guard scratched his head and waved a hand toward the elevator. “Why don’t you go ahead and take a look?”
Lizzy looked up at Kyle with wide eyes and blinked a couple of times. “Do you mind, sweetie?”
Amusement twinkled in his eyes as he looked down at her. “Of course not.”
She gave them both the brightest smile she could flash and skipped over to the elevator.
It took a long minute or two to arrive. Slow elevator. All for the better, they’d be leaving quickly. When the elevator opened, she leaned in to get a look at the button panel and pressed the button for the top floor using the top of her knuckle.
“This one has a fourth floor.” She returned to them in a rush, letting out a breathless laugh.
“You might want to check out a few of the corporate buildings in Chinatown, miss.” The security guard smiled. “Might have a better chance of finding a building like that there.”
“Thank you.” Lizzy hooked her hand in the crook of Kyle’s arm and the two of them waved as they left.
“What was that about?” Kyle asked.
“Walk first. We’ll need to get a little distance.” She set the pace to match several other tourists heading toward Pike Place Market. “And did you put your hand on my ass as we were leaving? Seriously?”
Kyle shrugged, completely unrepentant. “It’s a habit. It would have appeared odd if I didn’t do it as we left. Our friend at the security desk would’ve been disappointed.”
“If you want to keep using that hand, don’t do it again without permission.” She closed her mouth with a click of her teeth, instantly regretting the phrasing.
Both his eyebrows went up. “Really? Well then, I promise not to do it again until you give me permission.”
“Not what I meant.”
“Perhaps not, but I will enjoy reminding you of the promise in any case.” He chuckled.
Fantastic.
“However, I do want to know what you did in the elevator. I thought you said it would be dangerous to go inside.” Kyle hadn’t forgotten his question.
And he’d be getting his answer in a minute or so. It was a damned slow elevator.
At that moment, there was a muffled boom. She let them both turn to look back the way they’d come like everyone else on the street. Then she tugged at Kyle to get him moving.
“I sent it up to the top floor.” She pulled them into a café and started to reach into her bag for pieces of clothing to change.
“Was that an explosion?” Kyle’s hand covered hers on the bag and he leaned in to whisper intensely. “Wait. You said it could be a trap of some kind. What if someone is hurt?”
Here was where she hoped her gut never led her wrong. “As a contingency, it wouldn’t be set to blow up and take the whole building down and it didn’t, as you saw. The sniper would just want enough of a delay to buy him or her time to escape. Most likely the elevator would be disabled, even fall back down to the ground floor with the intent to injure whoever was inside but not cause damage to any of the other floors or the people on them. The elevator was empty when I sent it up. No one should be hurt.”
Kyle was silent for a moment. “But why do it at all?”
“To disable it before someone goes up there to do real work.” Which was true but not her main motive. “And to bring some attention to that building. Here. Out of the suit. We’ll put you in jeans with a T-shirt and vest. Keep the other vest on.”
Kyle took the items without argument but he looked unsettled.
She didn’t blame him. Of course there were doubts. Especially in a heavily populated area like a city, she figured an operative good enough to hide the evidence of their presence the way they did would also be sure to limit collateral damage unless absolutely necessary. It was a gamble, but it was almost certain she was right.
And she needed the police to investigate that building. And the fact that it’d been an explosion and not just a broken elevator added to her suspicions.
Safeguard had crossed paths with another skilled sniper not too long ago, one with an added joy for setting up explosives. The presence of explosives right here in combination with the connection to Phoenix Biotech was starting to point to Edict.
And Jewel.
Which meant Lizzy needed to take steps to confirm or rule out the possibility. Gabe would need to know for certain if this was more of Jewel’s work. This was a lead, but it wasn’t irrefutable. Lizzy liked to dig until she had the clear picture.
She needed more pieces to the puzzle.
It took her just a minute to change, clip a few dyed hair extensions into her hair, then twist it into a bun. With a cute cap on and just the hair extensions falling in loose curls, her look was sufficiently changed. She also pulled on jeans over the tight dress she’d been wearing and threw on a jacket.
Done, she exited the bathroom and tapped on the men’s room door. Kyle emerged a few seconds later.
“I don’t think I want coffee after all. Let’s go. We’ll pick up a late lunch on the way back.” She took his hand in hers and they proceeded to stroll out onto the street.
Sirens announced the arrival of police cars and they stopped to stare along with everyone else before heading toward Pike Place Market.
“What’s next?” Kyle adjusted his hand in hers until their fingers were linked.
A funny butterflies-in-the-belly feeling tickled her and she immediately decided to ignore it. “Lunch. Like I said. And some thinking.”
He released her hand and a pang of disappointment hit her just as quickly as the butterflies had happened. Then he wrapped his arm around her waist and pulled her close, whispering in her ear. “There was a bomb in the elevator I wanted to get into a few minutes ago. That doesn’t bother you at all?”
It was a fair question. Normal people would probably be very unsettled. Some of the people who worked in the building would probably be seriously freaked out.
“We weren’t in it. It’s been set off before someone else triggered it.” She turned her face toward his and pressed a kiss against his jaw, playfully. “I call it a win-win situation.”
Chapter Thirteen
There were few greater challenges than to put a project manager in the midst of events he could not control. For Kyle, it was torture, and he was back in the hotel room.
Alone.
Lizzy had stepped out soon after they’d returned and no amount of argument could convince her to take him with her this time. In fact, she’d seemed very much prepared to restrain him if necessary. Not something he generally found exciting but the threat, coming from her, had given him a few lightning quick fantasies as distraction.
Ah, the woman was delightfully uncommon. He was oddly grateful he’d met her now, in the midst of change, as opposed to prior to this insanity when he might have wasted the opportunity to get to her know her on a one-night stand.
That was, of course, assuming she’d have accepted his offer.
She was too sensu
al, too full of vitality to be the type to abstain. No. He was certain she did entertain propositions on occasion. But he was also equally sure she chose her trysts with more care than he had in the past.
Restless, Kyle rose from the bed and walked across the room, stopping in front of the fishbowl. Frederick swam in lazy circles, stopping only here and there to pick at the colorful gravel in the bottom of the bowl.
There had been conference rooms at Phoenix Biotech casually referred to as fishbowls. All four walls had been made entirely of glass with minimal or no frosted section to provide any sort of privacy for groups utilizing them. The fishbowl conference rooms had normally been on the executive levels, ostensibly to allow natural light farther into the interior of the floor. But it was more obvious that the company had taken transparency very literally and the executives kept an eye on everything.
Some people were like Frederick, content with their existence.
Kyle might have been too, but in the past several months, things had changed. As self-centered as he’d grown to be in his adulthood, and perhaps even a bit narcissistic if certain disenchanted ladies were to be believed, he had compelling reasons to adjust his lifestyle. There were more important things in the world than his bachelor life.
Speaking of which...
He headed over to the sofa and sat facing the laptop Lizzy had left behind. Using login information she’d given him for the guest profile, he accessed the desktop and brought up a browser. He typed in a URL by memory and a site loaded.
It was a live streaming video platform with a forum community for gamers. Normally, the broadcaster he was looking for was online at this time, even though it was late night in South Korea. But at the moment, the boy was off-line. Odd.
Personally, Kyle had no interest in games. It was the broadcaster he was looking for.
Ji Sung was diligent, both in his studies and in his game play. Kyle’s sister had written him many emails about his nephew. In fact, the boy’s abilities were professional level and there had been more than one team to offer Ji Sung a place. Ji Sung’s father had refused though.
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