ERIC #2
“Shit!” I turn on my heel and head for the elevators.
Max is at my back about five paces later. “You think it’s Rolf?”
“He fingered Whitbread,” I say as we both race for the elevator bank. Rolf has already disappeared. I slap the button. “We just assumed he was telling the truth.”
“Goddamn it!” Max taps his phone. “Dispatch, call building security at the Engels Tower. Lobby security needs to stop Alex’s assistant Rolf…” Max falters because he doesn’t know the kid’s last name.
“Donhauser!” Alex says, pulling up the rear. “He’s 5-11, twenty-six years old. Slender. Glasses. Caucasian. God, was it really him?”
“Yes,” Max answers with more certainty than I feel. “Did he know you were meeting with Khun last night?”
“He could have,” Alex says. “I logged the reservation into my calendar when I was on the phone with Khun. God damn it. Rolf never occurred to me!”
We all pile into the elevator, my dad and Whitbread bringing up the rear. “What is happening?” Whitbread asks. “Did he steal from us?”
“It’s not clear,” Max says, studying the elevator panel. “But we have to find him. Any chance he skipped the lobby for the basement?”
“Maybe,” Alex says.
“I’ll go to the basement,” I offer. “We’ll split up.”
When the doors open at the lobby, everyone gets off except for me. And Alex. “Go with them,” I urge.
She shakes her head. “I want to help.”
I jam my finger onto the button so that the doors close again. “Dear God, let him not be in the basement,” I grumble as we descend again.
“Why? He’s not actually dangerous.”
“Everyone is dangerous when he’s cornered, Alex.” The doors part in the basement. We’re in a wide, utilitarian hallway stretching in both directions. “Do you know where the loading dock is?”
“This way.” Alex takes off toward the left.
“Would Rolf know, too?”
“Absolutely.” The corridor gets more interesting as we go along. There’s a copy center, a mail room, and a boiler room. Then it branches off to the left and right. Alex takes a right-hand turn, and I follow her toward double doors marked loading dock. She waves her security pass at the scanner.
Nothing happens.
“What? No!” she yelps. “How do I not have access?”
I study the doors. “There’s a fire alarm override.”
“But the alarm isn’t going off,” she points out.
“True.” So Rolf probably didn’t go out this way. I pull out my phone. There’s a text from Max. He’s not in the lobby. Nobody saw him. Reviewing elevator tape next. Got anything?
Not yet, I reply. Which means he might be in this goddamn basement somewhere. Unless he got off on another floor? “Alex, are there exits on other floors? A mezzanine level, maybe?”
She shakes her head.
“Why don’t I poke around down here, while you go up to the lobby? Max needs your help in the surveillance room.” In the nice, safe security office.
“Okay.” We walk back the way we came, but this time Alex stops to peek into every door along the way.
“Move along, now,” I whisper as she lingers in front of a door marked brooms. I give her ass a little swat.
She turns around, and I assume she means to tell me to keep my hands off her backside. But she beckons me closer instead. I lean down so she can whisper in my ear. “The light just went out under the door.”
Hell. He could be right there. I’m about to mouth: “Stay out here in the hall,” when Alex grabs the door handle and flings it open. Light from the hallway spills into the dark space, illuminating the tiny room just enough to show us the shadowed figure of Rolf.
And the pistol he’s aiming at Alex.
“Here’s what’s going to happen,” Rolf says in a trembling voice. “Both of you are going to step forward. Put your phones on the floor. Slowly. And then Alex and I are going out the loading dock door. Together.”
Shit. My eyes are fixed on that gun. It’s pointed right at Alex’s belly. “The alarm will go off,” I say, watching that gun.
“Yeah, that can’t be helped. Alex is going to walk with me to the Subway entrance. Once I get there, she’s free to go.”
“O-okay,” she breathes.
“You won’t hurt her,” I snarl.
“Not if I make it down into the station.” He lifts his pointy little chin. “Move forward. Both of you. And Eric doesn’t leave this room until after the fire alarm stops.”
“Okay,” I grunt.
“Come on. Tick tock. Put your phone on the floor and kick it to me.”
“I don’t even have mine,” Alex says tightly. “It’s upstairs on my desk.”
“Whatever. I want the jock’s. What’s your pass code?”
I raise one hand in the air and slowly reach for my phone with the other. “My passcode is my father’s birthday. April 20, 1943.” I put it on the floor and kick it toward him.
Holding my gaze, he begins to reach for it.
“But the phone is traceable, man. Just saying. They might be listening to us right now.”
Rolf blinks. He’s a man who’s making this shit up as he goes along, and this bit of information throws him off.
And that’s the hesitation I’d been waiting for. The point of the gun dips, so that now it’s aimed at Alex’s thigh.
That’s the opening I’ve been waiting for.
My right hand closes around one of the brooms hanging on the wall beside me. With a snap of my wrist, the handle slices through the space between Rolf and Alex, catching Rolf’s gun hand and bouncing it off the nearby wall.
The pistol falls right to the floor before Alex even has time to scream.
I lunge forward, grabbing Rolf and shoving him chest-first into the wall. His hands are behind his back a microsecond later. “You stupid fuck. You point a gun at my girl, and I’ll break you in half.”
He lets out an angry cry. “It’s not loaded!”
“You are still a stupid—” I bounce his face off the wall. “—Fuck.”
He lets out a sob. “He gave me money. I put my grandma in a nicer nursing home.”
“Who did?” I demand, tightening my grip on his arms.
“Xian Smith!”
“Did you know he was going to kill people?”
“No! I swear. He just said he wanted to get closer to Alex. For business. He wanted to curry favor.”
“What did you give him?” Max asks from the doorway. “How much does he have?”
“The visitor’s pass. And the schedule,” Rolf stammers. “Her home address. He said he wanted to send flowers.”
“Flowers!” Alex shrieks. “He broke into my apartment to hack my phone.”
“I didn’t know! And when I told him I was done, he threatened me.”
“Of course he did,” Max says with a sigh. “You really are a stupid fuck. Eric, don’t break his arms.”
“Here’s a zip tie!” my father says, pulling one out of his pocket. Some families carry tissues and gum. We carry restraints.
“Are we handing him to the police?” I ask.
“I haven’t decided,” Max says, fitting the tie around Rolf’s wrists. “Got him.”
As soon as I can step back, I duck out of the room to find Alex in the hallway. She’s leaning back against the wall, breathing deeply. Like a person trying to get a grip. “Eric,” she says breathily.
“Yeah, baby?”
“I’m sorry I opened the door when you were going to tell me not to.”
“It’s okay now, baby.” I fold her into my arms.
“I can’t believe Rolf is a traitor. Good assistants are hard to find. This is a disaster.”
I laugh against her cheek. “One thing at a time, honey.”
“There was a gun.” She swallows hard.
“I’ll bet he doesn’t even own the bullets. That thing looked like a stage prop.”
“Still. Is it awful that I could be hungry right after someone points a gun at me?”
“That’s just biology, honey. Could you maybe knock off early? Let me take you home and feed you.”
“I was going to take you out to lunch.”
“Another time. We have time, right? I’m not going anywhere.”
“True.” She shifts, looking me dead in the eye. “I love you, Eric Bayer.”
“Aw. That’s just the adrenaline talking,” I tease her. “It’s only real if you say it when you’re not drunk on fear.”
“No, really.” She leans her forehead against mine. “I love you. Thank you for rescuing me from my hundred-pound assistant and his unloaded gun.”
“Now you’re just fucking with me.” I kiss her quickly.
We’re nose to nose and smiling at each other when my brother drags Rolf out of the broom closet and hauls him past us.
“Good luck without me,” the little twerp spits. “Ten bucks says you can’t get through the day without someone to bring your coffee and fetch your dry cleaning.”
“That’s what I’m for,” I say. “Told you I was really the boyfriend.”
He makes an angry noise before they drag him out of sight.
Alex sighs. “That was pretty hot what you did with the broomstick.”
“Hockey, baby. And my family thinks stickhandling is not a useful skill.”
“They’re wrong,” she whispers. “Dead wrong.”