To hear Edward relay concern over offering a welcoming environment amused her. She hadn’t found him to be quite the curmudgeon she’d been led to expect, but she wouldn’t put him anywhere near the welcome wagon. He was too imposing. Too…undeniable.
And still too close.
Finally, the creaky old cage that passed for an elevator stilled. He effortlessly released them from the metal trap, which opened to a small room with walls, like the rest of the building, consisting primarily of glass. “You must pay the window cleaners a fortune,” she muttered.
“We actually have someone on staff who does that full-time.”
“What a…thrilling job.”
He made a noise suspiciously akin to laughter. “Probably not. But surprisingly well paid. First impressions, after all, are everything.”
Her first impression of Edward shot to the forefront of her mind, the thrill of which was quickly pared down by the fact he’d misled her about talking to Adam. Otherwise, he’d been almost…personable. Oddly, that unsettled her more than anything. The guy had to be on the edge with so much of a weight on his shoulders, yet he’d been arguably welcoming. If she didn’t know any better, she’d actually like the man.
“This is the most restricted floor. Everyone who comes in here needs to punch a code or leave a fingerprint signature.” He gestured toward a scanner. “After you.”
She eyed him, then the dimly lit lab beyond the glass. They were below ground and utterly alone. No trace of the outside world existed. It was just her and the man everyone thought guilty. The man with the impossibly wide shoulders and impeccably tailored suit who held every physical advantage over her…not the least of which was the way he made her knees weak and her pulse race. He was the kind of trouble she didn’t need to accompany into an empty basement, no matter how sophisticated the security.
She pressed her thumb against the scanner anyway.
The lock released, and she took some comfort in knowing there was a firm record of her arrival that night…assuming Edward couldn’t access and alter the data. She made a mental note to check with Adam regarding that fact, but the resolve did nothing to erase the memory of that troubling smile he’d given her earlier.
The door closed. After it clicked shut, Edward scanned his fingerprint and followed. She fought a shiver when the door locked behind him. “What if there’s a fire?”
“The doors will open from the inside—that’s common sense, safety, and fire code all rolled into one—but if all else fails, you break the glass. There are enough stools in here to do some damage.”
“Obviously not Plan A for a thief.”
“Nope. If the glass is compromised, this place will light up like a Christmas tree. The alarms immediately hit police and fire dispatch and everyone at the top of Steel Hawk.”
Sophie frowned. Everything she’d learned seemed to point the finger at Edward, but it didn’t make sense he’d fail to cover his tracks. It seemed equally unlikely that someone could so thoroughly frame him. “Does the building lock down?” she asked.
“No. That’s against fire code.”
“So someone could go through the glass, take what they wanted, and escape out the back?”
He shook his head. “On paper, yes. But there’s more than one door between us and the safe, and that goes for both mine and Adam’s. You can break through the first wall if you want, but you won’t make it to the second without being neutralized.”
His word choice gave her another small shiver, this one more ominous than the last. “And no one gets in without a fingerprint.”
“Exactly.” He paused, his gaze walking the length of her body. “Do I look guilty yet?”
Yes. “You said there weren’t cameras on the safe in question.”
He pointed to cameras directed toward the elevator and the door through which they’d entered the lab. “See those?” When she nodded, he said, “They aren’t real.”
“They’re not?”
“Nope. Anyone who has seen a YouTube video or a crime show on TV knows to cover the cameras. Spray paint, duct tape, a garment…you don’t even have to plan ahead to get past something like that. Those are dummies.”
“Where are the real ones?”
He looked at her for a long moment—so long that the air she’d initially thought cool turned hot. “Hidden.”
The snub irritated her, but just as quickly, she grew to appreciate that he kept the information to himself. The exact location didn’t matter, and as long as she had access to the footage, the cameras were moot. “Fair enough.”
A flash of surprise crossed his face, quickly chased away by a half grin—one she enjoyed a little too much. “I expected you to argue,” he admitted.
“Don’t worry. I’m sure it’s coming.”
Her words earned the other half of that grin.
“The safe is this way,” he said, leading her through the cold, sterile space.
“I don’t even feel like I’m in the same building,” she said. The aboveground brickwork and exposed beams that celebrated the building’s heritage were nowhere to be found. Instead, everything was sleek and modern—all glass, metal, and glaring white.
“It’s a pretty striking difference, isn’t it?” Edward asked.
“I’ve seen dingier pharmaceutical labs,” she answered honestly. She tried to take it all in, but the effort was almost futile. There was nothing distinctive about the sprawling space other than its plainness.
“Adam takes this gig seriously.” Edward’s voice was filled with pride. It wasn’t the tone of a man who wanted to destroy a company, but money had a way of shifting loyalties and crafting lies.
“That might be an understatement.”
“Maybe,” he said mysteriously.
After a couple of turns, she’d grown disoriented. “Someone not familiar with the layout would have a hard time down here,” she said.
“Another indication this is an inside job.”
He said it so matter-of-factly, she couldn’t help but wonder what he was thinking. Wouldn’t an innocent man fight? He seemed a bit too unbothered by the weight of what he was accused of.
“I’m not going to show you where Adam’s safe is,” he said. “He’s wired for privacy, and unless and until that location has direct bearing on your investigation, I’d prefer to respect that.”
“No problem.” Again, her grudging respect for Edward grew.
He led her to a door near what she guessed to be the back corner of the building. She didn’t like how turned around she felt. “Do you have the fire escape diagrams down here like you do upstairs?”
“On the wall by the elevator.”
“I don’t know how I missed it,” she said. But she had a pretty good idea. She’d been too busy gawking at the way Edward’s shoulders filled his suit.
“The floor plan isn’t as complicated as it looks,” he said. He stopped and turned to face her, then pointed in the direction from which they’d come. There’s a long open space that spans the length of the basement. Stairwells are located each end and the elevator opens near the middle. And then there’s this.”
He opened the door, revealing what looked to be a supply room. Then he gestured for her to go ahead of him.
Oh, hell no.
She had to fight to keep the words from her lips. A largely vacant building, a man who looked all kinds of guilty, and a closet did not make for a good combination. But she hadn’t fought tooth and nail for this job to do an about-face, and she’d already hesitated long enough to draw Edward’s curiosity.
“Something wrong?”
“You tell me. I generally like to get to know a guy before I accompany him into a dark closet.”
Edward laughed, and the sound rendered her boneless. He was so unmistakably male—all hard and glaring and feral, and then he surprised her with laughter. Warm laughter—the kind that belonged on the freaking Hallmark channel. “We can revisit that point later,” he said. “In the meantime, my safe is through
here.”
Sophie swallowed. Either he’d just actually joked about something, or she had landed in a minefield…and she didn’t know which option she preferred. “In…here?”
“Scout’s honor,” he said.
“Aren’t you supposed to hold up three fingers when you say that?” she asked. But she edged past him anyway, her heart thundering in protest.
“Hell if I know. I was never a scout.”
His words sank in at the precise moment the door closed, not that it mattered. Scout or not, he was between her and the exit, and the room was suddenly woefully short of air. “I presume this room is lacking in security cameras?”
“The door is on the feed. There’s a hidden, motion-activated camera inside, but never an indication anyone noticed the secret panel, let alone attempted to open or pass through it.”
She frowned. “What if someone knew about the camera and blocked the sensor?”
“Then the camera would have gone dark with that person still in view, and we would have known something was up.”
If Edward was being framed, someone was doing a hell of a job of making him look guilty. He had just edged from being at the top of the list to being the only name there, and that wasn’t good. “I assume you haven’t picked up anything useful.”
“Nope.”
No surprise there. She shifted her focus to her surroundings.
Their only accompaniment in the enclosed space was a weak swath of light from a bulb situated over the door through which they’d entered. All the staples were there—toilet paper, paper towels, and a dust mop—along with a number of boxes. “What’s in those?”
“Whatever Adam needs. Everything from printer paper to circuit boards, and probably stuff I couldn’t name if I had to. There’s a supply station on each floor, so for the most part, nothing in here leaves the basement. Not just Adam’s tinker toys, but the paper products and other usual suspects.”
Sophie entertained a quick and fervent prayer that rule of thumb wouldn’t apply to her. She certainly hoped she’d eventually leave…but leave what? The closet looked like any other. “Your safe is in here?”
“You’ve heard of the great fire of San Francisco? Mid-eighteen hundreds?”
He was so close, his voice rumbled through her chest. Oh dear God. “I know there were a number of fires in the city,” she said. “Eventually ruled arson.”
He nodded. “After the last one, Benjamin Steel and Nathanial Hawk expanded the business into an adjacent warehouse. The additional space was acquired for manufacturing, so the basement was never used. Eventually, it was forgotten.”
“There aren’t too many basements in California,” she said. “Aren’t they against building code or something?”
“Most people are afraid of them because of the threat of earthquakes,” he said. “But these structures predate that mindset. They’ve been reinforced and retrofitted, but no one came back to fill the holes in the ground.”
She forced a laugh. “I’m not sure if that’s good or bad, especially with all the building above us at the moment. I assume all these glass walls would also be goners in a quake?”
“If the building collapses? Count on it. But the type of glass and the method of installation will withstand an earthquake of moderate magnitude. And for what it’s worth, the structure has been reinforced beyond reason. A midgrade explosion down here wouldn’t do more than jar the upper floors.”
“That’s…just great.” His so-called reassurance had only reminded her of the explosions at Zarrenburg castle…and the suspicion he was involved. “And which one of these boxes hides the safe?”
“There.”
Sophie looked to where he pointed and saw absolutely nothing resembling a safe. “I give up?”
“There’s a door right in front of you.”
She took a step toward the back wall, seeing only the white wainscoting. She ran her fingers over it. “Do you realize even your supply closet is spotless?”
“I told you, Adam is a neat freak.”
Yeah, no kidding. “Okay, I give up. Where’s the door.”
“Allow me.”
He moved to reach past her, but apparently he was asking too much of the fifteen square feet of real estate that was open in the center of the floor. Instead of seeing the door she wasn’t entirely sure existed, she was suddenly caught against the breadth of his torso, her breath hanging in her throat and her pulse racing.
Someone should move, dammit. But she couldn’t.
Any other man would have appeared sinister in the dim light, and Edward especially should have. But the smoldering in his eyes looked a whole lot like the good kind. Where there’s smoke, there’s fire. A warning the silly, ridiculous girl in her couldn’t heed—not in the aura of this man.
She swayed.
“My apologies, Ms. Garza.” He put a hand on her arm.
The gesture, likely intended to steady her, did nothing of the sort. She sucked in a breath they probably heard all the way in Zarrenburg and stepped back, immediately losing her balance when her foot caught on something at her feet.
Edward reacted immediately, dragging her back to vertical, courtesy of the light grip he already had on her upper arm. She didn’t lose her momentum until she was flat against his chest and in his arms. She looked up at him. Got a little lost in his eyes. “Sophie,” she whispered. “Please call me—”
“Sophie.” Her name fell from his lips with angelic softness, quickly followed by a string of words muttered under his breath that sounded a lot like profanity.
And he’d yet to relent his hold over her.
She swallowed. “The door?”
The question seemed to break whatever spell they were under. He shifted, putting himself closer to the back wall, before gently releasing her. She was still staring at his broad back when a quiet click sounded and the wall in front of her swung open.
“There’s a hidden panel?”
“Yes, though hidden might be a bit ambitious. It’s just difficult to see unless you know it’s there. This door leads to the old basement under the second building.”
“Is this the only entrance to that other basement?”
“It’s the only one without a live feed on it. There’s a door that leads from the side alley into the basement, and there’s an entrance from the second building but it’s bolted shut.”
“Damn,” she muttered.
“Careful there. You almost sound like you’re on my side.”
She blew her hair out of her eyes. “I’m on the side of catching a break, and so far, my team couldn’t catch a cold.”
He gave a short laugh. “Tell me about it. You’ll need to watch your step in here. It’s effectively abandoned, and it looks it.” He led her through the door into a darkness deeper and far more vast than that of the dimly lit supply closet. The space, best she could tell, went on forever.
“Wow.”
“I have that same reaction every time I come through here. This place hasn’t been touched by time. A history buff would have a field day in here. There are so many boxes in here no one has touched in years.”
“I’m not sure I could resist the urge to look—especially if you had an actual light down here.”
He laughed. “Your eyes will adjust. Give it a minute. I haven’t dug in because, as you so astutely pointed out earlier, it’s not my place. The contents of this basement belong to Steel Hawk, and digging through abandoned boxes isn’t in my job description.”
“You’re in here, though, and you said yourself the space is forgotten. Why not?”
“It’s still not mine,” he said, though a bit wistfully.
The play of sentiment on his face fascinated her. “Any particular reason it hasn’t been opened for business purposes?”
“For starters, Adam would go nuts trying to sterilize it.”
She laughed. “I’ve seen enough of him to believe that.”
“It’s too outdated to really be of use to modern-day Steel Hawk,
but honestly, I just like the idea of leaving it like it is. I guess I’m one of those history fanatics I mentioned.”
Sophie nodded, but for once her mind wasn’t on Edward. Instead, she thought of the tell-all book written by a so-called history fanatic who nearly wrecked Steel Hawk—to say nothing of her sister’s reputation. They now knew the book had been written by the royal biographer—a woman by the name of Monique Vass—but she was in the wind. No one knew where she was, but more importantly, no one had determined who’d worked with her to put the pieces together. The biographer had an intimate knowledge of Steel Hawk—information that had nothing to do with Zarrenburg. Clearly she had an inside source—one who knew his or her way around the company’s past.
One who just might have a thing for history.
Someone who knew what to look for, and when. With a company like Steel Hawk, even the entry-level positions came with high security clearance, which meant almost anyone there had opportunity, given the motivation. The trick was in finding who had been criminally motivated, and how they’d gotten to the information to which only Adam and Edward were privy.
Sophie smoothed her hands across her pockets, comforted by the passing contact with her cell phone. She had no clue if there was any reception underground, but hope was better than nothing.
Just a couple of steps ahead, Edward reached up and tugged on a light cord. The bare bulb cast a creepy yellow glow over the already dreary space. Something scurried nearby.
“Oh God. Please tell me that’s not a rat.”
“It’s not a rat.” His response was immediate. Too immediate.
She hesitated. “It’s a rat, isn’t it?”
“Probably.”
She meant to give him a playful shove, but instead of knocking him over—as if—she ended up with a fistful of his suit jacket.
“Do you have a thing against rodents?” he asked, his voice littered with mild amusement.
“I’m allowed one irrational fear.” And dammit, why did it have to show up in front of him? She wasn’t opposed to showing weakness, but it had terrible timing to show up in a dark forgotten basement with an incredibly sexy, dangerous man.
Dangerous Illusions (Steel Hawk Book 3) Page 4