Take care of yourself . . .
She was a fucking cop, for godsakes, and she was on the job. Everything that happened here at this site was about two things: lining up evidence to arrest and prosecute everybody in charge for illegal drug trade and staying alive to deliver that evidence into the hands of the prosecutor.
So the innocent could be cleared and returned to their families and loved ones, and the wrongdoers could go to jail for their crimes.
That was it.
And now was the perfect time to get out.
With one last look at the door Luke had disappeared through . . . she wheeled away and stumbled for the back exit. As she passed by the gun rack, she threw out a hand, grabbed one of the rifles, and slung its strap over her shoulder. Snagging a box of ammo off a shelf, she went to the numbers pad.
She punched in Mayhem’s pattern from memory and the lock unlatched.
In the end, she had to glance back one last time. No more gunshots out there, and the voices had dimmed down. But who the hell knew what was happening.
The pull to change direction was so powerful.
. . . and don’t look in the rearview.
“Shit.”
On that note, she broke out into the stairwell and rushed down the fresh pine stairs, entering the code a second time and shoving the lower panel wide. Outside, the night smelled of fresh earth and coming snow.
And soot from the fire.
There was no ambient light anywhere. All she could see were shapes within the darkness: a lineup of vehicles, the soaring flank of the building, the stick-tree forest like a sketch that had yet to be colored in. As she attempted to get her bearings, her thundering heart in her chest was loud in her ears, and her lungs didn’t seem to be working—
What the hell was that clicking sound?
Oh. Her tongue in her own mouth.
Putting out the key fob, she pressed one of the buttons. Somewhere over to the left, there was a beep and a flash of orange, so she hit it again. Tracking the strobing, she found the SUV parked grille-in between a truck and a box van with no side windows.
When she tried the door handle, she realized she’d just managed to lock the thing really tight. She pushed the other buttons, raising the back end, and then—
The alarm was loud as a scream, the flashing headlights and taillights like a bad concert come to life. Shoving the fob out in front of herself, like it was a gun she could shoot the SUV with, she scrambled to—
Silence.
Looking around, she held her breath. When there were no sounds of people rushing up to her—or shooting at her—she scrambled down to the rear hatch and shut it with the fob. As the panel lowered itself automatically, she got a quick view into the back thanks to the glow of the interior lighting. The seats had all been put down, as if there had been cargo of some sort loaded in there, and the white powder residue told her everything she needed to know about what exactly had been transported.
Rio raced around and yanked open the driver’s side door. Getting behind the wheel, she locked everything up and started the engine. As the headlights exploded to life, that was when she got a proper look at the building. It was brick with cream mortar that was streaked with the grime of the ages. Rows and rows of windows stretched five stories up. And wings that seemed the size of airplane hangars flanked either side.
What the hell was this place, she thought as she put the engine in reverse.
Backing out of the spot, she hit the brakes and stared through the windshield.
Fumbling to find the right button, she lowered the window next to her and then she got out the phone and swiped up to bypass the code requirement. She took pictures of everything, including the back door she’d come out of and the burn marks on the pavement.
Then she hit the gas and kept snapping the pictures as she followed the lane down the rear of the building. Emerging from the lee of the wing on the right, she came around the front and stopped again.
“Where have I seen you,” she whispered as she took more pictures with the phone. “I know you from somewhere . . .”
The open-air porches were the thing that jogged her memory: There were open-air porches across all the levels of the wings, the center core of the building the only part that was solid.
“Go,” she told herself. “You have to go.”
As Lucan stood in front of the private quarters, he shook his head at the leader of the guard squad. “Fine, you’re going to have to shoot me if you want to get in there.”
The female seemed surprised he wasn’t following orders, even with the threat of death. But come on, like he hadn’t had countless I’m-going-to-kill-you’s in his life? She was going to have to do better than that if she wanted to impress him.