Smoke and Mirrors (26 page)

Make me forget who I am and what I have to do. "Tempt me. I have a job to do. You have to let me do it."

Another truth, wrapped in another lie.

His somber look dissolved into an amused smile. "Here I stand, humbling myself at your feet, begging you to come away with me, and all you can think about is some two-cent hotel job?"

Before she could respond, the door slid open and Brent raced in. "My God, big brother, I've been trying to call you! A bomb," he panted. "At the manor."

Derek grabbed Cass's hand. "Slow down," he said levelly. "What are you talking about?"

"
San Francisco
. Bomb threat—the whole building—going to blow."

Derek turned toward her, his eyes deadly calm. "We've got to get out there. You stay here. We'll finish when I'm back."

Debilitating memories crashed around her, of another man she loved racing out the door, never to return.

Don't go,
she wanted to cry, but knew she couldn't.

"We could lose everything," Brent panicked. "Everything!"

"Let's go." Derek pressed a hard kiss to her lips. "I'm coming back, Cass."

Her heart shuttered. He knew what she was thinking. He remembered.

"Ryan," Brent rasped before he vanished into the corridor. "Don't tell Ryan."

Cass watched them go, questions racing through her. A bomb threat. It could mean a number of things, but the cop in her linked it to the transaction she'd witnessed last night. But why? A trick? A game? A contest for the upper hand?

When the phone began ringing, she ignored it. At first. Then she thought of Derek and his fierce command to stay put. Racing toward the phone, she grabbed the receiver.

"Derek Mansfield's office."

"You have thirty minutes to evacuate the
Chicago
hotel," a maniacal voice intoned. "Then you'll have nothing but a gutted heap of rubble."

Chapter 14

«
^
»

H
orror ripped through Cass like a wildfire out of control. A bomb. At the
Chicago
hotel. Years of training shoved aside debilitating emotions and sent her into high gear. A call to the station, to the bomb squad, to Gray. A call to security, the order to evacuate the hotel and all the other buildings within half a mile. Immediately.

The threat could be a prank, but that was not a risk she could take.

Her heart raced as she ran into the stairwell and took the steps two at a time. The elevator would have been quicker, but with the possibility of a bomb ripping through the building, she'd ordered
them
disabled.

The deserted stairwell didn't stay that way for long. The doors on each floor flew open, streams of panicked guests racing for safety. She helped them as much as she could, careful to keep her voice and demeanor calm.

"Easy does it," she instructed, encouraging everyone to focus on the evacuation and not their panic.

By the time she reached the ground floor, chaos had taken over. Men and women and children ran toward the doors, struggling to exit while law enforcement officers worked to keep the evacuation orderly. No sign of Gray, but she recognized a few of the boys from the station,
familiar faces from the bomb squad.

"It's been six minutes since the call," she told Bud Summers. Veteran narc, he had no reason to be there, no reason but Cass. He was the kind of man you could count on, rock solid in the face of crisis. "We've got twenty-four
left."

"Where's
Mansfield
?" the silver-haired man wanted to know.

"On his way to San Fran. There's a threat there, too."

"How convenient."

Cass's mind sharpened. "You don't think—"

"No time for thinking now." Even in a crisis, Bud wore calm about him like a white boutonniere. "Let's get these good people out of here."

She wanted to leap to Derek's defense, but she knew Bud was right. The clock was ticking.

"Cass!" Ruth pushed her way through the crowd. "Thank God! I didn't know where you were. What's going—
"

"Just get out!" Cass commanded. "Now!"

Ruth looked uncertain, but when Cass nudged her toward the door, she went without another word.

The cacophony of sirens blotted out all else. Fire trucks and cop cars, paramedics and the bomb squad. They converged on the manor, screeching to a halt and quickly going about their duty. A crowd gathered at a safe distance, drawn by the impending tragedy. Several officials shifted from manning the hotel to manning the streets.

Twenty-four minutes dwindled to twenty, fifteen,
ten
.

Cass refused to leave her post in the lobby. Duty kept her standing there, directing the evacuation.

"Everybody's out," Vince Fettici, chief of security, told her. "We've checked every room—there's no one left."

"Thank God." Relief shot through Cass. The structure may not survive, but the people would. "Go on and get out of here."

Fettici started to leave, pivoted toward her. "Aren't you coming?"

"I need to check something. I'm right behind you."

He shot her one last look,
then
strode toward the door.

"Cass, get out of here." Bud stalked toward her. "There's not much time left."

Less than eight minutes. "Have you found it yet?"

"Not a trace."

"Could be a hoax." God, she thought, please let it be a hoax.

Bud frowned. "Or well hidden." His voice was as grim as his eyes. "We've got the dogs sniffing around, but we'll have to pull them, too, if we don't find it soon."

"Let me just—"

He took her arm. "Just nothin', Cass." They'd known each other for eight years. They'd trusted each other with their lives. "I don't want needless risks taken. Just get out and wait like the rest of us. There's nothing you can do now."

She glanced around the magnificent lobby, the massive fireplace, the towering shelves of leather-bound books, the comfortable leather sofas, the elegant hardwood floors. There was nothing she could do, she acknowledged, mourning the impending loss.

With a heavy heart she joined the throng of displaced guests outside, several hundred yards from the hotel. The shrill of sirens intensified the chaos, shoving onlookers, shouts of law enforcement officials.

"Cass!" Gray called, racing over. "Thank God you're safe."

"How could this be happening?" she asked. "How could we not have seen this coming?"

"There were no signs." He glanced at the chaos. "Don't blame yourself."

"I can't help it." Her mind raced to puzzle out the meaning of the threat.

"From what I hear," Gray said, tilting her chin toward him, "you're a real hero. Bud said you got everyone out of there in no time. Sorry I wasn't here to help."

A grim smile touched her lips. "We're a good team, you and me. Don't forget that."

He returned her smile,
then
vanished into the crowd, no doubt wanting to see what else he could do to help.

She stood there taking it all in, but a sense of surreality blanketed her. Only twenty-four hours before she'd been buoyed by the hope and conviction that Derek Mansfield was an innocent man, that soon she would prove that to the world.

She had failed. In doing so, she'd thrust all these innocent lives into danger. She took in the sea of horrified faces, men and women, guests and employees alike. The elderly couple from
Wales
, the honeymooners from
Tulsa
. The mother and daughter from
Bloomington
, the businessmen from
Dallas
. A cluster of maids stood crying.

Ryan. Don't tell him.

The forgotten words ripped through her as savagely as a bomb soon would the hotel.

Ryan.
Derek's nephew had been at the hotel. Now he was nowhere in sight. "Ryan!" Cass shoved her way through the throngs of frenzied, displaced people. "Ryan, where are you?"

He would have been on the penthouse floor, in Brent's private chambers. Had anyone realized that floor was not deserted? Had anyone gone to get him?

"Ryan!" she screamed, fighting her way toward the hotel.

"Ruth!" She ran toward her friend. "I can't find Ryan! Have you seen him?"

Ruth's eyes
filled
with horror. "No. The last I knew he and Brooke were upstairs—"

Brooke.
Another person she'd not seen. "Sweet God."

Cass shoved through the crowd and raced toward the
hotel. "You can't go in there, miss," someone called to
her.

She pulled a leather case from her inner pocket and flashed her badge. She ran, nudging her way through the
crowd, around the hotel and toward the back entrance,
where she knew the stairs would be deserted. Ryan. Derek's beloved nephew.
An innocent child.
She had to get to him, couldn't let another young life be snuffed out because she'd failed to see the writing on the wall.

Each breath she drew slashed more jaggedly than the one before, but she raced on, in the door and up the stairs. Two floors, three, four. The fifth. The sixth. Seventh. Eighth.

Her legs turned to jelly, her lungs struggled to work.

Memories of Jake's laughing face mingled with images of Ryan. Old wounds tore open. Pain pushed her forward, giving her strength when her body could find none.

The ninth flight of stairs took forever, but she raced toward the tenth, then the—

A fierce roar rocked the building. Everything swayed, rumbled. She groped for the railing, but her sweaty, trembling hands slid off the cool metal. A scream rose to her throat, but it never had a chance to escape. She thudded against the concrete wall,
then
crumpled, tumbling down the cold, hard stairs, where nothing but darkness awaited.

* * *

Spurts of smoke gave way to billowing clouds. They leaked up between skyscrapers and stained the azure sky. Derek wondered what was going on, but once he exited the I-90 and lost himself among the congested city streets, buildings obscured his view. The dark clouds came in snippets then. Smoke. Then nothing. Smoke. Then nothing. Trouble somewhere in the city, he knew, but didn't think much of it.

Too much else riddled his mind.

A bomb threat at the
San Francisco
manor. He'd raced off like a madman, but by the time he reached O'Hare, instinct had taken over. Now was not the time to leave
Chicago
. Questions could be raised, suspicions. His plan could damn well—

He turned a corner and his curiosity exploded into something far darker. He jerked his car around the taxi in front of him, ignoring the hostile honking and cursing, and bullied his way toward the manor.

The streets grew more congested, but Derek didn't let that slow his progress. He'd overlooked the obvious. He'd left her alone, unprotected, at Vilas's mercy.

An army of fire engines, police cars and ambulances greeted him, preventing him from driving within blocks of the manor. Everything clicked into brutal focus then, the reality of what he'd let happen.

Horror almost shredded him. He bolted out of his car and ran down the alley, freezing when he rounded the corner.

His grandfather's crowning glory. The source of the smoke. Broken glass. Firefighters in heavy black jackets running around. Cops barking out orders. Paramedics racing toward the entrance. Fierce, barking German shepherds.

And onlookers. Everywhere. Some pointing frantically,
others wailing
and crying, others just watching. Pedestrians and businessmen and … hotel employees.

He recognized them instantly, the concierge, the bellmen, the maids, all huddled together, staring at the manor.

It was like a scene out of some disaster movie, but worse. It was real.

Shock coiled in his gut. And he ran.

Swearing savagely, he muscled his way through the gawking onlookers. A wall of cops came next, barking out orders and fighting to hold the swelling crowd at bay.

"Let me through!" His grip on reality blurred, reducing him from tycoon to warrior.

"Cass!" She hadn't been with the other hotel employees, the onlookers, the paramedics. "Cass!" he called again, hoping against
hope
she would hear him and run into his arms.

Nothing.

"Sorry, sir," said one of the cops, this one with a look of authority about him. "No one is allowed past this point—the situation is still unstable."

"This is my hotel. What the hell is going on here?" A man approached him, a man he'd seen countless times at the manor. John Dickens, the bellman Cass referred to as Gray.

"Good question,
Mansfield
. One we'd like to ask you."