Carson nodded. “We know the way.”
The receptionist hesitated. “You can go,” she said finally.
As they turned onto a long carpeted corridor, Carson said, “Dr. Faraday?”
“His office is Eighteen South.”
“Ah.”
The wooden doors to each office were closed, muting the buzz of activity. At the end of the hall, two women were using a smaller reception area to review a presentation on a laptop. Lespasse followed Carson along a dogleg turn and soon they passed Dr. Faraday’s office.
Twenty-six South was at the end of the hall and Carson realized its windows faced the parking lot, which teemed with cars glistening in the afternoon sun. “What’s the play?” she said.
Lespasse dug into his wallet and pulled out a Technologie de Demain business card. “A cold call,” he said. “I will ask for the head of IT.”
“You think they’ll have staff here? I mean, this office is probably the biggest on this side of the building. But it’s a shell, if anything.”
“I suppose you can file a patent from a post office box. Why go to the expense of opening an office if you don’t intend to use it?”
Carson reached for the door. “Ready?”
He held up a finger. “Forgive me, but I will put on a heavy accent. Maybe it will explain why I’m so… so wrinkled.”
She smiled. “At least you’re wearing slacks. I’m in jeans and a T-shirt.”
“Yes, but your T-shirt is the same color as your boots, and no one wears jeans like you, Connie. Maybe 100 men on our flights will swear to that.” He didn’t mention the make-up she applied at the airport nor the lipstick she refreshed before they left the car.
“Well, to be safe, I’m calling you ‘boss.’”
“
Carson swung open the door, and Lespasse stepped inside.
The office was empty.
Thin wires dangled from displaced ceiling panels and a few telephone handsets sat on the floor. There was room for perhaps 10 desks, but there were none in sight. The air-conditioner had been turned off.
As Carson passed him, Lespasse switched on the overhead lights. They flickered, then glowed. “Someone paid the bill,” he said.
Carson had stepped into a private office. It too was empty, its carpet musty and soiled, its closet flung open and bare. “So much for Sindhu Power & Electric… ”
Across the office space was another closet, the kind that held paper products, out-of-date files in cardboard boxes, maybe a space for jackets and personal effects. Someone had started to clean it-probably to get the place ready to lease again.
Together, Carson and Lespasse went through it and found nothing enlightening-except for a blank label from an international shipping company she’d never heard of. She also found a discarded Post-It note:
She looked around. The blinds were drawn tight, but under the overhead lights, she could see there was dust everywhere-on the ledge below the windows, on the phones on the floor. Every door inside the suite was flung open. Except for another closet door.
“Maybe they have,” Lespasse said as he approached it, “Let’s see what we-”
As Lespasse pulled open the door, an explosion burst from the closet, rattling the building. The force flung him across the room, a fireball trailing him as the windows shattered, throwing glass and debris onto the parking lot.
Carson awoke under the flood of water raining from the overhead sprinklers. Through ringing ears, she heard sirens drawing nearer. She tasted blood in her mouth. She tried to stand to find Lespasse, but couldn’t manage. Collapsing, she lost consciousness again and dropped to the damp carpet.
5
Felicia fought to control her hammering heart, and by so doing control her racing head. She didn’t understand what her captors were saying, but she easily comprehended the body language. They were angry, but in a way that went beyond whatever prompted them to take her. Twice while the woman was on the telephone jabbering in what she assumed to be an Arabic dialect, the word
The pieces fell into place easily. They’d thought she was Charley Middleton. And why wouldn’t they? She was in Harold’s house, after all, and she and Charley were close enough in age that it would be a simple conclusion that she was his daughter.
After the bitch with the gun hung up her phone, the heated discussion with her fellow captive confused her. They seemed to have the kind of knowing-if uneasy-relationship that comes of people who have worked together before. Why, then, was Felicia bound to this man and why did he continue to speak to his captor in tones that were as cordial as they were laced with fear? Each in turn looked right at her as they spoke. Clearly, she was the focus of their disappointment.
Felicia knew she was in trouble when the woman talked directly to the driver. It was something about the way she made a tossing movement with her head, at once dismissive and definite. A moment later, the driver changed lanes and headed for an off-ramp. They were going to get rid of her.
They were going to kill her. At this point, given all that had happened, what choice did they have? Hadn’t they already killed one of their own back in Harold’s flat? Murder was murder in the eyes of the law, whether you killed one or twenty. If they were done with her-and she was certain they were-they’d be crazy
Her heart continued to slam itself into her breastbone as she weighed her options. The clarity of her thinking shocked her even as she determined that she in fact had no options.
Carson dialed back slowly into her surroundings. There was light and there was pain, though considerably more of the former than the latter. As she climbed out of the dark well that was her unconsciousness, she had the odd nonsensical thought that she was living in a bowl of red Jell-o. The light had a certain red tinge to it, so that was part of the illusion, but she could talk herself into believing that her head had been crammed with the stuff as well. Hearing was muted and her sinuses felt as if they had been stuffed with cotton.
Closer to the mouth of the well the light grew brighter still and the buzzing drone of which she’d been barely aware fine-tuned itself into voices.
“… any time now. I can’t say for certain, of course, but I don’t think-”
“I need to speak to her as soon as possible.”
Who? Who did they need to speak to? What was the urgency and why wouldn’t Man A allow Man B to do whatever the hell he wanted?
As the voices clarified, so did the pain. It was as bright and red and piercing as the light and, now, equally inescapable. It radiated from the base of her neck, down her right arm to the ends of her fingernails and inward toward her belly button. With that kind of pain, you’d think you’d have some idea where it came from. Maybe that’s what they wanted to talk to that other person about. Maybe she could tell them all why she felt as though she’d rolled in razor blades and swum in alcohol.
