Chapter 13 #3
Dane ran down an alley along the left side of the warehouse building and found the door at the end of the building.
He didn’t have a key, but Toly had said he could shoot the lock.
Of course if he did that, he might as well get a trumpet and announce his arrival.
Instead, he pulled a pick from his wallet and got busy.
This was an old building and the door was original—so was the lock. He was glad he didn’t need to go to the backup plan and jimmy the door off the hinges. Or try to break the big old fortress in with his foot—he’d have likely ended up with a broken leg.
He snicked the lock open and turned the knob, then pocketed his pick and wallet.
He pushed the door open slowly to a dark office.
It was empty. He could see the whole twelve-by-twelve interior from where he stood.
As Toly promised, there was another door on the opposite side of the room leading to a back hall with several more offices and a storeroom on one side and the big open warehouse on the other side.
It was time to play a game of guess what’s behind door number one.
He moved across the room and went through the opposite door into the back hall.
It was lit by low-wattage ceiling lights at insufficiently intermittent distances unless you happened to be a mole.
Dane stood still and let his eyes adjust and he listened.
For anything. Not a peep. No moaning, no shuffling, no screaming, no breathing, no commotion or movement of any kind. He’d bet his life the place was empty.
He moved forward on that bet.
He closed his eyes and slowed his breathing and tried to slow his heart, regulate it, and give himself the calm to open the first door.
He stood to the left side, reached out, turned the doorknob and pushed it open.
He listened—nothing. He entered, switched the light on, and saw the room was empty.
It was an office. The next room was the same.
The third door was the last door. He pushed it open and found a kitchen with a couch.
On it laid a woman who sat up when she saw it was him.
She looked scared. She looked like Paulette.
Dane went to her, scooped her up, conscious of the clock ticking for Anatoly’s men. Then there was the FBI ASAC waiting back at David’s office. He carried Lara out the way he’d come and once they got outside he put her down and held onto her wrist—he didn’t want her to bolt.
“Your grandfather sent me to get you and bring you back. Where’s Spartak?”
“I don’t know. How do I know my grandfather sent you?
I don’t know who you are.” She yanked on her arm to pull away.
This would go a lot easier if she was cooperative.
It occurred to him it would go a lot better if Shana were here and he tried a little mental telepathy to get her from the car—then gave that up and gave her a call on his phone.
“Is the coast clear?”
“So far no sign of Anatoly’s men, but there’s an unmarked car with a couple of suits inside that looks suspiciously like the feds.”
“Have they seen me yet?”
“I don’t know—hard to tell. Do you have the girl?”
“Yes. We’re on our way.” He ended the call and looked at Lara, then sighed and dropped her wrist.
“Okay. Sorry for manhandling you. I’m a private investigator and I was hired by Father Donahue to protect Paulette—”
“Paulette—is she all right? Where is she? Does—”
“Take it easy. She’s safe. She’s far away from here. We need to get you back to your grandfather’s place. Are you with me?”
She looked at him for a beat and then nodded.
He took her hand this time and led her back out to the street staying as low as possible and angling back toward the car, keeping to the shadows and out of sight of the FBI car.
He was still undecided on where exactly he was going to take Lara.
He was torn. He didn’t owe the feds, but he owed David. And he owed Toly.
Well, maybe not, but Father Donahue owed Toly. And Dane worked for Father Donahue, he reminded himself. And the governor had got Dane into this mess so he could straighten things out with David Young.
They reached the car and he cracked open the door to let Lara slip in. Shana took off as soon as Dane shut the door behind himself. She made a neat u-turn and got them into the stream of traffic and back to Storrow Drive without incident.
“How do you know where we’re going?”
“Back to Anatoly’s place—right?”
“We were supposed to meet with David Young at his office in Government Center first.”
“Do you need me to turn around?” She was serious. She’d have probably done a u-turn on Storrow Drive—to hell with the fact that it was a divided highway.
“No. We’ll conference him in from Toly’s place. Maybe we can Skype. That’ll make him feel better if he can see us, see Lara.”
“What’s this about the FBI?” Lara said.
“They want to have a talk with you—about your cousin Spartak.”
She considered that for a beat while he watched her from his vantage point in the front seat.
“I can do that—but I need to get my baby back and make sure she’s safe first.”
“I agree.”
There was nothing he agreed with more and time was wasting.
They needed to get back to that helicopter and to the Vineyard before Spartak got to Paulette.
Because he was pretty well convinced at this point that that’s where the man was headed—and he apparently had taken all his men with him.
He hoped to hell Spartak had no idea where to look and he hoped to double hell that Cap had his place covered—better yet that he’d moved Paulette and Sassy out of there.
He needed to call Cap, but he couldn’t place that call in front of Lara.
He took out his phone and did something he hated doing, hated counting on—he texted Cap to tell him to make sure the baby was out of the beach shack.
He needed vocal confirmation. No telling who was on the other end of a text message.
The stupidest form of communication ever invented.