Tactical Advantage (19 page)

“My lab.”

“Kill the lights and hide somewhere. Turn your phone to silent. We’ve got intruders.

“I think The Cleaner is here.”

Chapter Twelve

Intruders?

Annie switched her phone to silent mode and watched the images
on the computer screen cycle by with a new print and a new
No Match
message changing with every millisecond. Ticking off the
time like the sense of impending danger closing in around her.

They were so close to identifying the man who could break the
Rose Red Rapist case wide open.

She was so close to another attempt to kill her again. To stop
her from finding out the truth.

Truth? Death?

The answer was simple.

Annie ran to the switches by the door and turned off all the
lights. The light from the computer screen blazed like a spotlight in the
darkness and she zigzagged back through the stainless-steel tables to her work
station. She spared a second to save the search before shutting down the system
and plunging the room into darkness.

The only illumination was a greenish glow from the security
lights in the hallway, streaming through the glass wall that separated the main
passage from the more sterile environs of each lab. Annie huddled beneath her
workstation for endless seconds, waiting for Nick to reach her. The only sounds
she heard were her own quick, tense breaths and the pounding of her pulse in her
ears.

The pulse beat took on an even rhythm, and for a second, she
marveled at her ability to calm herself. But her senses kicked in and she
realized she was hearing the sound of stealthy footsteps in the hall.

“Nick,” she breathed in relief, pulling her phone from her
pocket and texting his name.
Is that you?

She held her breath as the footsteps became a shadow. Then two
shadows passing in front of the windows.

Annie pressed her hand to her mouth to stifle her frightened
gasp. Black stocking masks. Black clothes. Tall. Dangerous.

She cleared the text and typed again.
They’re here.

She scanned the shadows, looking for something she could arm
herself with. Rolling chairs. Big, high-tech machines. Heavy steel tables.

The chemical cabinet caught her eye and she darted from her
hiding spot, crawling across the floor, keeping an eye on the shifting shadows.
She could hear muffled voices now, words like “Not here” and “Find them.” They
were searching for something. Or someone.

Her? Nick? That lone fingerprint? Something else?

Her phone vibrated in her pocket and she jumped, knocking into
a chair and sending it spinning. She caught the seat and stilled it instantly,
dropping to the floor as far out of sight from the two in the hallway as she
could get. The two figures outside paused. Had they heard that tiny noise?

Annie froze to the spot, ignoring the incoming message, until
they moved to an office across the hall. She heard the beep of a key card being
recognized as it swiped through the lock. They had access to the building, she
realized with a disturbing eye for details. They weren’t the explosive break-in
she’d heard down below.

She checked the incoming text from Nick, feeling at once
alarmed and relieved.
On my way. Trust no one but
me.

Impostors again. Fake cops. A man who was a mystery hiding in
plain sight. Standing right outside the door to her lab.

Once the intruders disappeared inside the office, Annie jammed
the phone into her jeans pocket and hastened to get across the room to the
cabinet before they came back out. She sorted through a couple of bottles of
possibilities before pulling out a potentially volatile mix. She grabbed a
beaker and an extension cord before crawling across the lab to the tent oven
that faced the door. If she got trapped in here, if anyone came through that
door who wasn’t Nick, she intended to make a way out for herself.

She held her breath, squinting against the toxic fumes as she
poured the concoction together into the beaker. Stretching her neck to peer over
the edge of the table she hid behind, Annie made sure the intruders were still
across the hall before she reached up and placed the beaker inside the oven
where they often used chemicals and heat to make a print appear on evidence. She
set the time and temperature she wanted but unplugged the machine. Then she
pulled the cord with her as she flattened herself and crawled underneath the
next table. She plugged the extension into the power source, held the end of
both cords in her hands and waited.

From her low vantage point she could see black booted feet
coming out of the office across the hall. She made out a few more muffled
phrases. “Split up.” “Check progress.” “Find that cop.”

They were after Nick. Annie’s blood dropped to the temperature
of the cold tiles beneath her chest and stomach. If they hurt him...if he got
killed trying to save her...

The emotions that welled up inside her were overwhelming. It
felt like being caught up in that helpless wave of grief she’d gone through
after her parents had died. But Annie was no teenager anymore. And she wasn’t
facing this adversary alone.

The emotions receded and clarity returned.

“Come and get me.”

* * *

N
ICK
STILLED
HIS
RAPID
breathing after his sprint up the stairs. He
eased his Glock into a comfortable grip between his hands, then released it with
his left hand to push open the door to the third-floor hallway.

But footsteps pinging on the steel mesh stairs above him had
him instantly switching tactics. He ducked into the blind corner of the landing
and pressed his back against the concrete wall, giving himself the advantage of
seeing who approached before he gave away his position.

Black shoes, darks pants, handgun pointed down, leading the
way. Nick readied his own weapon. Tan shirt, badge on pocket.

He blew out a silent sigh of relief as he recognized the guard
from the front desk. The gun came up as soon as he saw Nick.

“Whoa, buddy.” Nick put up one hand and lowered his Glock.
“It’s me, Detective Fensom. Remember?”

“Yeah.” The guard nodded, hurrying down the last few steps to
join him. “Thank God. Have you found your girlfriend yet?”

“CSI Hermann’s in her lab. I’m on my way to her now.” Nick
glanced up the stairwell and down, worrying about the sound of their
conversation carrying to someone above them or below. “They got to your buddy in
the parking lot. Any idea how many of them we’re up against?”

“Yeah, at least one more.”

“What floor?”

The guard’s gaze darted to the number on the door. “Third.”

“Hell.” Too close to Annie. “Then let’s split up. There’s
another set of stairs on the opposite—”

The guard raised his weapon and shot Nick before he had a
chance to do more than see it coming. The bullet hit him in the left shoulder.
His gun bounced down the stairs to the next landing and Nick tumbled down along
with it. Every step was a bruised muscle or cracked rib until he hit the
concrete floor and slammed to a stop against the wall.

Fire seared through his chest. His lungs ached. He rolled onto
his back and let the pain clear his spinning head. He blinked the approaching
man into focus and blindly reached around beside him to find his own weapon.

Another fake guard—and he’d been in the building with them this
entire time. “If you hurt Annie...”

The smiling man came down the stairs one triumphant step at a
time, pulling out his phone and punching in a number as he lined his gun up with
Nick’s head for the kill shot. “I got the guy,” he reported to whoever answered.
“Find the woman. He says she’s in the third-floor lab. She’s all yours now.”

Nick grunted, pain exploding down his arm as he tried to scoot
some distance between him and the barrel of the gun pointed between his
eyes.

“Yes, ma’am.”

The guard pocketed the phone and squeezed the trigger.

With a feral roar, Nick lashed out, dislocating the guy’s
kneecap with his elbow. The shot ricocheted off the wall, spewing out chips of
concrete that clawed through his sweater as he kicked up his legs and rolled
into the stunned man. With a twist of his hips, he took the man down hard,
reversing positions so that Nick was now on top. He raised his fist to strike
another blow, but the other guy had hit his head on one of the steel steps and
was out cold.

Wincing in pain with every breath, Nick pulled his Glock from
beneath his attacker’s legs, tucked the second gun into his belt and kicked the
guard’s phone down the stairs where it shattered into pieces. Before he pulled
himself back up those stairs, Nick bent over the guard’s body. Instead of
checking for a pulse, he pressed a thumb to one eyelid and forced it open.

“Green eyes.”

The idiot out in the parking lot kiosk had blue eyes. That
meant there was at least one more brown-eyed thug somewhere in the building
tracking down Annie.

He secured his Glock in his fist and headed up to the third
floor.

The bastard would have to get through Nick first.

* * *

“S
HE
’
S
IN
HERE
.”

The shadow lurked outside her door.

Annie had heard a gunshot in the distance. But she couldn’t
think about that right now. If Nick had gotten hurt—or worse—then it was up to
her now to survive and report and testify. She knew she’d make a great witness
on the stand, once she dealt with these people who wanted to erase the truth
she’d uncovered. A thumbprint from a crime scene. An accomplice’s identity if
she could only find the match. The key to arresting Rachel Dunbar’s killer and
getting him to reveal the identity of the Rose Red Rapist in exchange for a life
sentence instead of a lethal injection.

But she had to stay alive first. And one of the intruders was
right here, only a few feet from where she lay beneath the steel table.

“Take care of her. I’ll find out how we’re doing with the
computer program. Almost all the data regarding the case in the lab’s system has
been erased. Without those pictures, that CSI has nothing she can pin on us. And
if she’s gone, then she can’t even testify to what she saw in that alley. I
silenced one witness for him. We’ll silence this one, too.” The voice giving the
orders was higher pitched. A woman’s voice. “He’ll be very pleased.”

Odd. Why would a woman have any inclination whatsoever to help
a man like the Rose Red Rapist? The Cleaner was a woman?

The tall shadow passed by the windows and disappeared in the
greenish light from the hallway. The opportunity to learn anything more about
the ringleader of this late-night invasion had gone.

This fight was one-on-one now. Brains versus brawn.

Annie didn’t wait to give Muscles a chance to hurt her again.
As soon as the masked figure pushed open the door, she plugged in the two cords
she held, connecting the current to the tent oven and baking the chemicals
inside. One. Two.

Boom!

The explosion happened sooner than she’d expected. Annie curled
into a ball beneath the protective steel, flinching as shrapnel from the oven
and beaker and nearby appliances and glass shot across the room like hundreds of
tiny, deadly missiles.

The floor shook when the man hit the floor without a moan,
without a twitch.

As soon as the glass stopped falling, Annie scrambled out of
her hiding place and crawled over to the gaping hole where the door and window
beside it had been. The man lay in a sea of shattered debris, blood pooling
beneath him. Ignoring the shock of what she’d just done, she looked past the
dead man’s plump belly and pulled off his stocking mask. She recoiled from the
vaguely familiar face—blond hair, receding hairline—a match to the artist’s
sketch drawing of the man who’d impersonated Sergeant Steven Gobel on New Year’s
Eve.

So where was the man who’d attacked her in the alley? The man
with the raspy, unidentifiable voice. The man with brown eyes who’d probably
shoved her down that elevator shaft, too.

More desperate than ever to find Nick and help, Annie peeked
into the hallway. Once she was sure it was empty, she got to her feet and ran to
the elevator. She pushed the call button in a panic five times before
remembering Nick’s warning to stay put. But the other man would have heard the
explosion by now and would be coming back.

Her first instinct was to run to the stairs. She put her hands
on the exit door, but the sound of footsteps running up the other side had her
backing away, spinning, searching for another place to hide.

The light peeking from the office door at the end of the
hallway drew her like the promise of salvation. If one man was dead and the
woman had left, then logic told her the room would be empty.

She dashed down the hallway, then stuttered to a halt as the
door opened wider. Not empty. She tried to retreat. But the sleeve of a white
lab coat had already appeared in the open doorway. A head of dark brown hair
appeared next and someone peeked out in a glimpse as furtive and frightened as
she had been when she’d emerged from hiding a few moments earlier.

“Annie?”

“Raj!” Her chest nearly collapsed in relief at the sight of a
familiar face. “Get back in there. It’s not safe.”

“I heard an explosion. Is that guy—” his eyes slid across the
hall to the fractured windows and damaged lab and man lying in the middle of it
all “—dead?”

“Yes.” She started forward again, urging Raj back into the
safety of the office. “There are intruders in the building. A woman and some
men. They said something about erasing data from our computers. We need to get
inside where it’s safe. Nick Fensom is here. Help is coming.”

Instead of seeking safety, Raj took another step out of the
office. His caterpillar brows had knit together. His brown eyes were crinkled
with something like regret.