by Beverly Long
He intended to make that light. “Hang on.”
He made the turn just as the light went from yellow to red.
And let out a breath when the car behind him got stopped by cross traffic. But since there were only a couple of cars, Ethan knew it was a brief reprieve.
He pressed down on the accelerator, wanting to put distance between the two vehicles.
Then he took a quick right, drove one block, turned left, left again, then right, doing a haphazard zigzag. He saw what he thought might work and turned into a parking lot. It was some type of industrial building and there were lots of fresh tracks in and out of the parking lot. There was a road that led behind the building. It was plowed. Ethan took it.
And suddenly they were behind the brick building, effectively hidden from any traffic that might wander by.
He turned off the engine. Once again, the only sound in the truck was Molly’s breathing.
After a minute, Chandler turned to him. “Well, that was fun,” she said, her voice cracking at the end.
More than ever, he appreciated her spirit.
“I’m sure I didn’t recognize anybody in the store,” she said. “And the only person in the store who seemed to pay any attention to us was looking at you, not at me.”
Chapter Eleven
“What?”
Molly whined, not used to hearing that tone of voice. He made a deliberate effort to modify it. “What did you say?” he asked.
“When we were standing in line, waiting to pay, there was a man getting checked out in the other lane. For just a second, I thought he was looking at you oddly. As if he was very angry about something. Then I figured he was mad because the cashier at his register was making a big deal about folding the one customer’s clothes just right before putting them in the bag.”
Her words made him cold. Had it been someone he’d served with? Someone who thought the rumors about him were true? Someone who really thought that he’d have sold out his fellow soldiers?
Impossible. He’d have recognized the person.
But people changed. Grew their hair out. Got contacts. Gained or lost weight.
Had Chandler been in danger because of him? Had she been in danger since the beginning because of him? Had the incident at the cabin been a violent attack against him?
Had she almost died because of him?
He’d considered the possibility, but she’d been so confident that it was because of her, he’d willingly gone down that path and kept his own demons hidden.
He should tell her the truth. Now. Tell her all the reasons why it was a mistake to get involved with him.
But he kept his mouth shut.
How could he risk losing her when he’d just found her? And he surely wouldn’t risk her executing her plan to break into Linder Automation on her own, which she’d certainly do after she sent him away. She needed backup. Someone to protect her.
He couldn’t bear it if she thought the ugly rumors were true. Ethan Moore, a traitor.
There was adrenaline pumping through his veins—maybe it was the car chase, maybe it was the suspense of not knowing who it might have been, maybe it was the look in her striking green eyes. Whatever, he felt on fire. A little reckless.
And he had a blinding need to hold Chandler tight, to claim her as his. To cement the relationship so that it couldn’t be undone by ugly accusations and vicious lies.
But he held himself in check. He thought they were safe but he wasn’t going to take a chance on the car doubling back and somehow finding them behind the building.
“Chandler?”
“Yes?”
He could hear the question in her response. The tension in the truck was palpable.
“You should probably change into your new clothes here,” he said.
* * *
CHANDLER REACHED FOR the bag that had her new clothes and her boots. She put on the new underwear, the black yoga pants and the black T-shirt. When she finished putting on her new black boots, she realized that Ethan was watching her.
“What?” she asked.
He shook his head. “Nothing.”
She could see the want in his eyes. It made her feel good. She wished she didn’t have this ugliness to deal with. Wished she and Ethan could find a nice hotel room and spend about a week there, getting to know one another. She wanted to make love to him, again and again.
But she could not turn back now. She had to finish what she’d started, what someone else had really started.
“We should go,” she said. “At Linder Automation, we work forty-five hours a week. That’s five nine-hour days with a half-hour lunch. And there are two shifts. The first shift works from eight in the morning until five-thirty at night. To allow for some crossover between shifts, the second shift starts at five in the afternoon and goes until two-thirty. Everybody has to be out of the building by three at the latest. The night cleaning crew begins work at three-thirty in the morning and is out of the building by six-thirty.”
She looked at her watch. “I thought of a way to get in. Don’t know if it will work but it’s the best I can come up with.”
“Let’s hear it.”
“From what I recall, there are usually six to eight people on the cleaning crew. More women than men. A van brings a group of them to work. A few others drive their own cars and park in a lot close to the building. Sometimes I see a few of them hanging out in the parking lot. They’re either sitting in their cars smoking or, on nice days, standing near their vehicles. There is absolutely no smoking on our property. The landlord is crazy about that.”
Ethan listened patiently, running his hand lightly across Molly’s tummy. The dog lay squarely between the two of them.
“I remembered that there is a woman about my age and my size with dark hair. I’m not sure how long it is because she always wears it on top of her head under a baseball cap. I’ve talked to her a couple times. Small talk. ‘Hi, how are you.’ That kind of thing. Her name is Lauren.”
“You must know her pretty well if you know her name.”
“Not well, but I introduced myself once. And then she introduced herself.”
“She probably appreciated you doing that. Most people simply ignore the cleaning crew.”
“You’re right. Anyway, I think she’s a smoker. I hope she remembers that I’m a nice person because I’m going to ask her if I can use her badge and her baseball hat for a half hour.”
“Really? And you think she’ll be willing to do that?”
“I don’t know. But what I do know is that I need a badge to get into the building. I have to have something to show the guard at the front desk. I’m counting on the fact that he’ll see the baseball hat and won’t look twice.”
“Then what?”
“Once I’m in, I’m going to have to avoid the other workers. The guard and probably the supervisors can be fooled, but the coworkers who work with this woman every day are certainly going to know.”
“So the plan is to somehow get this woman to let you use her identification, get past the guard and then make yourself scarce so that nobody sees you jump on a computer.”
“Exactly.”
He lightly sucked on the corner of his bottom lip, as if he were figuring out a way to tell her that her plan was so full of holes she should call it Swiss cheese.
“I know that you’ve talked to this woman before and I’m sure she thinks you’re very nice but do you really think she’s going to hand over her identification to you? No questions asked? And risk her job?”
“No. I think she’ll be very reluctant. May tell me to go to hell.”
“Isn’t she going to want to know why you’re not using your own badge?”
“I’m sure she will. I’m going to tell her I misplaced mine and that I’m afraid to tel
l my boss because I might get fired.”
“That might get you some sympathy,” Ethan said. “Especially from somebody who works for jerks.”
“I’m also going to offer her an incentive. But I need you for that.”
He raised an eyebrow.
She smiled. “Nothing indecent. I was just hoping that you’d let me borrow some more cash. I will pay you back, I promise.”
“I’m not worried about that. How much are you thinking?”
“I’ll start at five hundred.”
He nodded. “It might work. She probably doesn’t earn five hundred a week. Now all she has to do is hand over her ID for a half hour to someone she sort of knows, probably likes.” He paused. “It’s still a long shot.”
“I know. But I don’t think there’s any other way inside. I have to have a badge. There’s no way around it.”
“What about a uniform? Does the cleaning crew wear them?” he asked.
She shook her head. “Once they are inside, everybody puts on a button-up blue smock.”
“It sounds as if you’ve got your bases covered but I still don’t like the fact that you’ll be going in there by yourself. Whether it’s Marcus White or your stepmother, they may be watching for you to try to access the property again. Because they haven’t heard from the authorities, they have to assume that you haven’t gone to them yet. If either one was responsible for the accident, he or she knows that your body wasn’t found with the car. I suspect they are watching your condo and the office.”
“Well, then I’m just going to have to get in and out fast, before they see me.”
He shook his head. “Keep thinking. We need to find a way for me to get inside, too.”
“I’m going to have to think fast. We’re ten minutes away and the cleaning crew will start arriving soon after that. I only saw her vehicle once. It was a small SUV, white.”
“Great. We’ll be on the lookout for it, while at the same time keeping our eyes open for our friends in the light-colored car to resurface or our buddies in the black Suburban to show up again.”
“This is getting complicated.” Her brother was the one who liked to play cat-and-mouse games to outsmart the enemy. Mack had been into that since he’d been a little kid.
She, on the other hand, had liked to play math games on the computer when she was a young girl and now, as an adult, she felt pretty daring when she chose the intermediate slope on her ski trips.
She didn’t court danger.
Yet in the past thirty hours, her car had been run off the side of a mountain, her cabin had been blown up, she was being pursued by at least one set of bad guys and now she was about to sneak into her place of employment so that she could get proof that somebody had committed treason.
It was unbelievable.
Almost as unbelievable as having sex with Ethan Moore. Maybe she didn’t court danger, but she wasn’t running from it, either.
* * *
WHEN ETHAN PULLED into the industrial park that housed Linder Automation, he realized that Chandler had omitted an interesting tidbit of information. The industrial park was built around a small private airport that had two nice runways, big enough for small planes to take off and land. “You never said anything about the airport.”
She shrugged. “I’m sorry. I guess I don’t even think about it anymore. Actually, this airport is how my dad met Claudia Linder.”
“Sounds like an interesting story.”
“I guess. Not one with a terribly happy ending.” She gave him a soft smile. “At least from my perspective.” She pointed her hand toward the rear of the park. “The airport was here first and then the industrial park came thirty years later. It’s attractive to those business owners who have planes. That’s how Claudia Linder ended up here. Her first husband had a plane and when he died, she decided to take flying lessons and keep his plane.”
“How does that involve your dad?”
“My dad is still tinkering with his helicopters. He found this airport many years ago. He really likes it. There’s no tower on-site, so it’s mostly small planes and some helicopters that use it. What’s really cool is that the hangars that they rent for helicopters have retractable roofs. Push a button and the roof folds up like an accordion. You can take off from inside the building. My dad loves that.”
“I’ve seen a few of those over the years. They’re handy.”
“Yes. Dad had kept a helicopter here for several years when he got a good buy on a second helicopter. He needed another hangar. That’s when he met Claudia Linder. She had a little Cessna in the one next door.”
“I guess I always assumed that you had introduced them.”
“Oh, no. Unfortunately, I didn’t know about it right away. Maybe I could have prevented conversations over the wings from ending up being coffee in the cockpit and afternoon rides over the city.”
“Romance bloomed on the tarmac?”
“I guess. Mack said something once about them starting their own mile-high club but I told him to shut up, that I really didn’t need to carry that image around with me.”
“Does your dad still keep his helicopters out here?”
“Just one now. Hangar 28. You can’t see it from here. It’s about a half mile to the north, near the edge of the industrial park.” She turned her head to look at him. “Now that you’re back, I’m sure he’d love to take you up. He’s got an old Kiowa, one like he used to fly in Vietnam.”
Ethan had known Baker flew Kiowas in the war. When it had come time to choose what he would fly, he could have chosen a Black Hawk or a Chinook or even been a hotdogger in one of the Apaches. He’d chosen the Kiowa and had loved every minute of it. Flying fast and low, sometimes barely above the tree line, he had gathered vitally important surveillance information and provided air support for ground troops.
There were many nights flying into enemy territory when he’d thought of Baker McCann and how the man had made similar missions over Vietnam. “That would be cool to go up with your dad,” he said. “I’m sure he’s busy, though.”
“Not too busy for you, Ethan. You were like another son to him.”
If only. He hadn’t wasted much time thinking about how his life might have been different if he’d been the one born into the McCann family rather than Mack. But every once in a while, when he’d been in high school, and he’d gone to school all day and worked all evening at the grocery store so that he’d have some money to contribute to the household and a little of his own, he had wondered.
When he’d enlisted, he’d worked harder than almost anybody. And his efforts had been recognized. He’d gotten to do the type of work that he’d loved.
Until somebody had ripped the joy away.
He turned his head to look at her. “He already has a son. And a gorgeous daughter.”
Chandler frowned at him, as though she sensed that something was wrong. “I’d be happy to show his helicopter to you sometime.”
“I imagine your dad has the hangar locked up tight. It sounds as if this helicopter holds some real sentimental value to him.”
“Of course, but there’s a keypad. I know the combination.” Chandler raised her arm and pointed at a six-story building toward the middle of the block. “That’s Linder Automation,” she said.
It was a rather nondescript office building. Redbrick. Glass front. Windows that didn’t open. Flat roof with what was probably an air-conditioning unit on top. Right now it was just a big glob of snow.
There was a large parking lot directly to the north. There were only two vehicles in the lot. Both were empty. Neither was a black Suburban, a light-colored sedan or a small white SUV. “Recognize either of them?” he asked.
Chandler shook her head. “No. Occasionally people have to travel for work. They leave their vehicles here and take the train
to the airport.”
He figured she might be right. The lot had already been plowed but it appeared as if the plow had had to work around the two cars, and that had irritated the snowplow driver. Big drifts were piled behind the rear bumpers. If Denver didn’t get a spring thaw in a couple days, the employees returning to these cars were in for a very unpleasant surprise. He hoped they had a shovel in their vehicles.
“I thought you said the supervisors get here a little earlier,” Ethan said.
“They don’t park outside. There’s some limited underground parking that the executives use during the daytime. It’s a big joke at work. If you’re a vice president, you get an office with a window and a door opener for the underground parking garage. At night, the supervisors park their vehicles there. Like I said, they like to pretend that they are big shots on all levels.”
Ethan didn’t pull into the circular drive but he did slow down slightly as he drove past. The lobby was lit up and there was a security guard sitting on a high stool behind a circular counter. He had a big round face and had lost most of his hair. He was reading the newspaper.
Ethan guessed the man’s age at close to sixty. And he didn’t look in great shape. “Is the security guard armed?” Ethan asked.
Chandler shook her head. “Nobody would trust Security Pete with a gun. I think he has pepper spray and a big flashlight.”
“Security Pete?”
“That’s how he always identifies himself. When he announces a visitor, he always says, ‘This is Security Pete at the front desk.’ Everybody in the building calls him Security Pete. Some of us,” she said, smiling, “call him SSP, for Super Security Pete.”
“I can tell you do government work—everything gets an acronym.” Ethan kept driving, picking up his speed just a little. He hadn’t been followed, he was confident of that. However, he didn’t see any value in intentionally advertising his final destination.
Chandler had been confident that the man at the store was staring at Ethan. But what if he’d really been looking at Chandler and had simply averted his eyes when Chandler happened to look his direction? That could mean that the man had known Chandler and if so, he might also know where she worked. He wouldn’t have needed to follow him and Chandler. He could have made a fairly safe bet and beat them to Linder Automation. It was possible that even right now he was watching for them.