Chapter 13 #2
Rather than respond, Ty only looked away, his gaze scanning the bar as though he feared someone might be paying particular attention to them.
As far as Caleb could tell, though, everyone there appeared to be occupied with their own pursuits, drinking and laughing and having a nosh, since it was right around lunchtime.
If they’d been here for a happier reason, he might have ordered a plate of nachos.
However, he had a feeling such a suggestion wouldn’t get a very positive response.
Also, they’d all had a big room service breakfast before they headed out to Kohl’s earlier, since they hadn’t known what they might be facing and had thought it would be better to lay down a good base just in case they wouldn’t be eating again for a while.
“Relax,” Caleb said in a murmur. “No one here could give two shits about us.”
“That you know of,” Ty returned in an equal undertone.
“Do you sense any demons?”
The half angel paused for a moment, as if performing a scan of the room, and then he shook his head. “No, everyone here seems to be exactly as they appear.”
“Well, then.”
Caleb relaxed against the back of his chair, although he, too, was more conscious of time passing than he would have liked.
What if Pru got caught? Sure, he had plenty of money to bail her out, but he had to believe that if she was arrested for petty larceny, her private detective license might be in danger.
He didn’t want her to get into that kind of trouble, even if she was trying to help them bust Delia out of her hidden prison.
He and Ty lapsed into an uneasy silence, each of them sipping at their drinks and trying to act as if all this was perfectly normal.
Before Caleb’s tension could ratchet up to levels where he’d start to regret all the caffeine and sugar he was consuming, Pru reappeared. Since she was wearing a big shit-eating grin, he had to believe she’d been successful in her errand.
“Got it,” she said as she slid into the booth.
“Took a little longer than I thought — I guess a bunch of people must have melted away for lunch or something. Also, I specifically wanted to lift the thing off someone who looked as if they were headed out of the building for a while. That way, we’ll have more time before they realize it’s missing. ”
It seemed as if she’d tried to cover all the angles.
“Perfect,” Caleb said. “What’s next?”
“Well, I pulled up some blueprints of the building while we were driving over here,” she replied.
“The corporate offices are all up on the twentieth floor, so at least Sellers should be pretty far away from the scene of the crime. From what I was able to tell, it looks as if there’s a bunch of storerooms on the third sublevel, which I’m guessing is where they must have stashed Delia.
We just have to figure out which storeroom they hid her in. ”
“That does narrow it down,” Ty said. “Good work, Pru.”
A tinge of color might have touched her cheeks.
“Just doing my job,” she said lightly. “Anyway, because it’s lunchtime, there are probably fewer people roaming around down there.
The main thing I’m worried about is the security cameras.
They’re all over the place on the public levels, and I have to believe they’ve got the lower floors covered, too. ”
“That’s fine,” Ty responded at once. “I can take care of those.”
Caleb raised an eyebrow. “And that won’t mess with your code of conduct or anything?”
The half angel’s eyes might have narrowed just the slightest bit. “I’m doing this to keep us safe,” he said. “I’m not breaking any laws by making sure we’re blurred out of any footage that might capture us.”
Pru’s mouth pursed, but she must have decided to leave it alone, since she only commented, “Then it sounds as if we have all the bases covered. Let’s do this thing.”
They all got up from the booth, and Caleb laid a twenty-dollar bill down on the table even though their entire tab had only been a little more than half that.
Still, they’d been taking up a prime seat while they conducted their business, and he thought it only fair to leave a little thank-you for the wait staff.
After all, it wasn’t their fault they worked for an organization that apparently was headed by a demon in disguise.
Since Pru appeared to have memorized the layout of the casino, they let her take the lead. She guided them to a regular elevator and descended one level, and then gestured for them to follow her through a door at the end of a corridor that appeared to have some restroom facilities but nothing else.
As they went — after pausing so she could tap her stolen key card against the lock next to the door — she sent a significant glance up at a reflective half-globe on the ceiling, a covering that obviously concealed a camera.
Ty gave her a nod in return, seeming to indicate that he was taking care of the hotel’s surveillance.
Sometimes, it was good to have friends in high places.
The hallway on the other side of the door was much less flashy, the walls painted a pale gray, the close-pile carpet underneath a darker shade of the same dull color. That was all right, though — they weren’t here for the décor.
“There’s a stairwell at the end of this hallway,” Pru said, still pitching her voice low even though Caleb guessed that Ty was making sure the security system wouldn’t pick up anything they said. “I figured it would probably be safer to take the stairs, although there’s also a cargo elevator.”
“No, the stairs are better,” Ty replied. “Less obtrusive.”
Caleb supposed that was one way of looking at it. So far, they hadn’t seen anyone else on this level, which meant Pru had apparently been correct in her assessment that a lot of the corporate employees probably took lunch around the same time.
They came to a landing with a door. Affixed to the wall next to it was a small sign that announced it opened onto Sublevel 2.
“Looks like we came to the right place,” Caleb remarked, then went ahead and opened the door.
Just beyond was another hallway that appeared to be identical to the one they’d just left.
Well, the architects and the designers had probably decided there wasn’t much point in trying to make these lower levels visually appealing when this section of the hotel was off-limits to the public.
However, he could see how the corridor made a sharp turn at either end, telling him that the stairs must have opened onto the first hallway and that there were probably more stacked beyond what they could currently see.
“Which way?” he asked, and Pru shrugged, looking uncertain for the first time.
“I’m not sure,” she said. “I mean, most of this level is storerooms, so they could be holding Delia anywhere.”
Caleb glanced over at Ty, who appeared equally flummoxed.
“I’m not sensing much of anything,” he said. “Or rather, I can tell spells of concealment have been cast down here, but it almost feels as if they’re coming from everywhere at once, so I can’t really narrow it down.”
Great. Caleb had also felt the slow pulse of some sort of energy as they descended into the bowels of the hotel, although he’d thought it was just his demon senses picking up the energy of the river, now only fifty or so yards away.
And maybe that was all it had been. He and Ty were unlike enough that it was entirely possible they would sense and react to the energies here in very different ways.
“Then I guess we just need to be methodical about this,” Caleb said. “Let’s start with the hallway in front of us, and if we don’t find anything there, then we’ll move on to the next one and so on. She’s got to be in here somewhere.”
At least, that was what he hoped. Yes, he’d heard Delia’s voice in his mind telling him she had been hidden under one of the towers at the Aquarius, but what if their assumption that it would be the same one where August Sellers had his office turned out to be wrong?
There could be an entire complex identical to this one hidden under the south tower, and they’d have to start all over again.
If the keycard Pru had stolen would even work over there.
Caleb told himself to stop borrowing trouble. It seemed far more likely that Delia was here somewhere, and that all they had to do was keep their cool and they’d eventually find her.
However, as they tried each doorway along the first corridor — it seemed Ty didn’t have a problem using his angelic powers to unlock a door, even though he drew the line at pickpocketing — they found absolutely nothing of any use.
Brand-new furniture still swathed in plastic, pallets of similarly unused plates and glasses, other rooms that held stacks and stacks of chairs, most likely for when banquets and weddings were held here, other rooms with furniture that had been sent down to storage after being deemed too banged-up to be used by the guests any longer… yeah, they found plenty of that.
But no Delia.
“On to the next,” Pru said, her tone falsely cheerful, and they went around the corner to the next hallway.
In there was only more of the same, and tension began to creep into his back and gut.
What if she really wasn’t here?
Now both Ty and Pru were beginning to look grim, and Caleb could tell they were thinking the same thing, that maybe they’d assumed way too much and that she might actually be hidden under the other tower.
But then they came around a corner…and saw Aaron Sanchez standing guard in front of a door in the middle of the next hallway.