Unforgivable (38 page)

Mia sat at Kelsey’s desk, clenching her hands as she waited for Ric to call. Where was he? Maybe the roads were icy and he’d taken it slow, as she’d asked him to. But she didn’t really believe that, not after hearing the alarm in his voice. He thought she was in danger. Right now. And as the minutes ticked by, she was starting to believe him.

Her phone chimed, and she jerked it to her ear. “Ric?”

“You find Ralph yet?”

“I looked around some more, but I didn’t see him.”

“Is there a control room somewhere? Maybe where he monitors security cams or something?”

“I don’t know. I mean, there probably is, but I’ve never seen it.”

“Okay. Anyone else there?”

She took a deep breath. “Not that I can tell. Kelsey left hours ago, and the evidence clerk clocks out at five on weekends. There were only three cars in the lot when I pulled in.”

“Where are you?”

“The Bones Unit.” Mia’s gaze rested on the skull-and-crossbones coffee mug she’d given Kelsey last year for her birthday.

“Did you lock the door?”

“Yes.”

“Double-check for me.”

Heart pounding now, Mia got up and tried the door to the room where Kelsey and her colleagues kept cubicles.

“It’s secure,” she said. “Are you almost here?”

“I’m probably ten minutes away.”

Silence stretched out, and Mia bit her lip. “Ric, this feels wrong to me. Ralph never leaves his post.”

“Maybe he’s making rounds.”

Mia thought about that. She didn’t know the guard’s routine, but she’d never seen him anywhere besides the lobby.

“Should I call the police, maybe?” Mia had almost done it a minute ago.

“I already did, as a precaution. But I’ll probably get there before they do.” He paused. “Do you have your gun?”

A little bubble of hysteria rose in her throat. “What gun?”

“The pistol Black lent you.”

“It’s at home. I don’t have a permit.” Not that she would have felt comfortable carrying it even if she
had—although having a pistol in her hand might go a long way toward calming her nerves right about now. “Maybe I should go down to the ballistics lab, see if I can find something.”

“Is it locked?”

“Probably, but my key card might work.”

“Good thinking. Be careful, and I’ll call you when I get there.”

Cautiously, Mia left the Bones Unit and headed for the elevator. The corridor was dim and silent. What had happened to Ralph? And was she really alone in the building with someone who wanted to kill her? As she rode the elevator down, she took a deep breath and closed her eyes, reaching for that inner reservoir of calm. Ric would arrive any minute. This was nothing. The police knew who they were looking for now, so it was just a matter of arresting him. Maybe she’d even be called to ID him in a lineup. Mia pictured herself behind mirrored glass, surveying a row of suspects, all wearing bandannas and ball caps like the man who’d carjacked her. Then she pictured the same line of men, all with Band-Aids over their noses, and it was Sam standing behind the glass and pointing a pudgy little finger at one of them.

God, she wanted this to be over. She wanted her life back, the same as it had been before, only with Ric in it.

The elevator dinged open. Her footsteps echoed through the long corridor as she made her way to ballistics, where only yesterday Scott had given her a firearms lesson. The office was locked, as Ric had predicted. Mia tried her palm print and her key card, to no avail. She
cupped her hand against the window and peered inside. The entire section was dark except for the blue glow of somebody’s screen saver.

She glanced up and down the corridor. A chill settled over her and she zipped her jacket. Never in her life had she felt so alone and vulnerable.

It’s nothing,
she told herself.
Ric’s on his way.
Besides, even if someone
was
looking for her, how would he ever find her way down there in the bowels of the laboratory? The Delphi Center was enormous, and he’d have no reason to look in this precise spot unless he had a crystal ball.

Mia leaned back against the wall, slid to the floor, and hugged her knees to her chest. This was as good a place as any to wait for Ric’s call. She looked down the corridor, and a glowing red light caught her attention. It belonged to a camera mounted up on the ceiling. Ric’s words came back to her as the lens stared down at her like a giant eyeball.
Is there a control room somewhere? Maybe where he monitors security cams or something?

Mia’s throat went dry. She heard a faint rumbling noise at the other end of the hallway.

The elevator dinged.

CHAPTER 27

Jonah hovered over the crime-scene tech as he swabbed a tiny brown dot on the baseboard.

“Blood?”

“We’ll know soon. Could be more of that paint, but …”

“But?” Jonah prompted.

“I think it’s blood. Based on the spatter pattern.”

“Well, looky here.”

Jonah shifted his attention to the computer examiner, who was busy pecking away on Kurt Lane’s laptop.

“This guy likes the rough stuff,” she said. “Listen to these sites: Houseofpain.com, Hurts So Good, Beauty and the Beast. Ick.” She made a face. “I’m pretty sure I don’t want to see that one. The Coyote Lounge.”

Jonah walked to the coffee table and peered over her shoulder. “You said the Coyote Lounge?”

“Yep. That one looks like a nightclub, though.”

Jonah skimmed the list of sites in Lane’s browsing history and went back to the most recent one.

“Gil’s Garage,” he said. “Isn’t that a nightclub in Austin?”

“I think so.”

“Click on it,” he said.

“Are you sure you—”

“Do it.”

She clicked on the link, and a Web site for the nightclub filled the screen. Jonah homed in on the words “Onstage Saturday” right above a publicity photo of a beautiful blonde. His stomach plummeted.

“Holy shit.”

Sophie put the finishing touches on her lipstick and surveyed the result in her rearview mirror. Her makeup looked good tonight. So did her hair, if only it would stay that way. She gave it one last fluff before grabbing the umbrella off the seat beside her, shoving open the door, and stepping down from the Tahoe.

Right into a puddle.

“Damn it,” she hissed.

She’d worn boots tonight, luckily, but they weren’t exactly Timberlands, and she could already feel cold water seeping between her toes as she walked around to the tailgate and gathered up her CDs.

“Need a hand?”

She jumped and whirled around. A man in a baseball cap stepped out from between two cars and smiled at her.

“I’m fine, actually.” She hitched her purse up on her shoulder and tried to balance the umbrella over her head as she pulled the box of CDs from the cargo space.

“That everything?” He put his hand on the door and nodded inside.

“Oh, uh—” She looked nervously around the parking lot. It was early, so the place was still fairly empty. “I think so.”

He closed the door, then smiled again as he carefully took the box of CDs from her arms. Her instinct was to cling to it, but she didn’t want to seem rude, and she also wasn’t eager to drop the umbrella shielding her hair from ruin.

Raindrops dampened the shoulders of his tweed sport coat. He smiled again, and her wariness melted. He had a clean-cut look about him and an expensive watch.

“Thanks,” she said. “We can go inside through the back here. I’m performing tonight, so I’ve kind of got VIP access.” She led him past a loading dock that smelled like vomit, which underscored what “VIP” meant there at Gil’s Garage. The place was a dive.

“Is this all your music?”

“Yep.” She smiled again as they neared the door. “I go on at nine. Hope you’ll stay for the show.”
And buy a few CDs.

He veered left, toward the corner of the building.

“Oh, it’s okay. We can go in back here. It’s actually unlocked, so—” She stopped as he kept going toward a row of cars.

“Just need to get something out of my car.”

She watched him uneasily. Surely he wasn’t going to take off with all of her CDs? She started after him. “You know, I can take it from here. It’s really no problem.”

The taillights blinked on a black car, and the trunk popped open. He dropped the box inside. She opened her mouth to protest, and her gaze landed on the bumper sticker.

Understanding dawned. She took a step back, and he lunged toward her.

•   •   •

Ric pulled right up to the sidewalk and sprinted up the steps to the lab entrance with his gun drawn. The door was locked, as expected, and Ric practically vibrated with impatience as he waited for the guard from the gatehouse to pull his cruiser up and join him at the door.

“Tried Ralph on the radio just now,” the man said, lumbering up the stairs. “He didn’t answer.”

“Is that unusual?”

The guard looked grim. “Ralph always answers.” He finally reached the door and swiped his ID card to open it. “I notified my supervisor, and he’s on his way over. You’re to wait in the lobby until he gets here, and he’ll accompany you to locate Dr. Voss.”

“Not happening.” Ric plucked the ID card from the guard’s hand and took off for the elevator.

“Hey! You can’t roam around without an escort!”

“Guess you’ll have to shoot me,” Ric tossed back as he got into the elevator. He swiped the card against the security panel and jabbed the button for the ballistics floor, which—to his relief—lit up green. As the doors slid shut, he heard the guard yelling at someone over the phone.

The doors opened, and Ric ran down the hallway, but he didn’t see Mia. The ballistics lab was shut down. He used the guard’s ID card to open the door.

“Mia?”

Silence answered him, and his heart rate took another leap. Where had she gone? And why wasn’t she answering her phone? He called her for the third time in five minutes as he sprinted back down the hallway. The other side of the floor contained the database room, according to the sign posted near the elevator. Ric checked inside but, again, nothing.

Panic tightened his chest as he rode the elevator back up to the lobby. Was she hiding somewhere? Maybe she’d turned her phone off so no one would hear her. She had to be hiding. The alternative terrified him.

The doors parted, and he rushed back to the lobby. He needed that control room. Checking the security cams would be faster than combing each floor. But where the hell was it? He searched Sophie’s desk, hoping maybe she had a map or something to guide visitors.

Ric heard a commotion down the hallway and ran toward it. Light spilled out from an open door, and he recognized the security guard’s agitated voice.

Inside the room, a desk faced a giant video screen that had been divided into squares. The control room.

“We need an ambulance!” the guard barked into his phone as he kneeled beside Ralph. The big man was bound and gagged with duct tape and sported a baseball-size bump on the back of his head. Ric dropped to his knees and ripped the tape off his mouth as the other guard worked on the bindings with a pair of scissors.

“Where’s Mia Voss?”

Ralph wheezed and coughed and shook his head. Ric pounded him on the back, and his attention went to the video screen. It was a five-by-five matrix of ever-changing camera images, displaying feed from all over the compound. The words “Perimeter Breach” blinked under one of the squares. The view above showed the razor-wire-topped fence that surrounded the compound.

An alarm sounded. More words flashed on the other side of the matrix: “Unauthorized Exit Southwest Door.” Ric watched the screen as a shadow disappeared through a doorway.

Mia.

He turned to the guards. “Southwest door! Where is that?”

“Just past”—Ralph coughed again—“the evidence room.”

Ric jumped to his feet and looked one last time at the grainy video image.

A man in a ski mask stepped into view. Ric’s world tilted as the man yanked open the door and darted out after Mia.

CHAPTER 28

Jonah kept a heavy foot on the pedal as Ric’s brother talked with the task force from the passenger seat.