17. Knight #2
She fainted sometimes. She was pregnant, delicate, and adorable.
He could just be a random good Samaritan, helping out a person in need.
So why did the elevator change direction, going down instead of up before it got to her floor?
The buttons on the screen flickered, showing a number, twenty-eight, and then went out.
The doors opened, and he stepped out, carrying Trixie, never looking up at the camera or pushing the emergency button, or acting uncertain in any way.
It was time to freak out. I checked the cameras around the elevator bank on several floors while I stepped into one of them.
On floor twenty-eight, the feed of the hall was normal, same with twenty-seven, but on twenty-six, I got a slight buzz that made me reexamine the video.
It was cut for five seconds, enough time for the man to get off the elevator carrying Trixie and make it into the hall past the first set of cameras.
Perfect. It would be simple enough to track him based on where the feed was cut.
Why was this hotel such a maze? Because it represented Dante’s seven levels of hell.
Each group of ten represented another level.
And now I was on my personal level of hell, number twenty-six, where my precious, dearest love was in the hands of someone who could fix Carmichael’s little problem.
What room was she in? It was one of the ten on either side of this hall if the video feed wasn’t wrong.
My stomach wasn’t doing well. I needed to kill someone, not knock on doors, making noise that might spook The Bone and make him do something permanent.
My skin went clammy as I held very still, staring down that stretch of hall and a green vase with apple branches coming out of it.
I called Charles. “Names of guests on floor twenty-six, between numbers two-six-oh nine and two-six-nineteen.” Maybe there would be a clue to help me narrow down my options.
“Oh-nine is empty. Two-six-ten is a couple, the Jorgansons. Eleven is Mr. Judd Brown of Arkansas. Twelve is Daphne Phillip, fourteen is John Murphy, fifteen is Peter Jones, sixteen is Melinda Crater, seventeen is?—”
One glance from the door to the upper corner had me saying, “Visible from the next camera. Check nine to seventeen by date of reservation. More recent than three days ago, but definitely a reservation.” This was a very well-planned fix, hitting Trixie at the right moment, one person injecting her with something that knocked her out on the slow elevator while someone else was placed in there with her, someone big and strong enough to catch her and carry her briskly out of the camera’s eye.
This was so well-executed. And he’d been able to hack into both my video feed and my elevator system. He had a team, possibly someone on the inside. I’d have to look at employees who had been hired in the last three days. But not right this second.
“I need men on this floor. And keys. And…”
“They’re already en route, but the elevators are experiencing unusual delays.
Almost as if someone’s already in the system, keeping that floor quiet.
Okay, I’ve got reservation dates. For that floor, only two guests made last-minute reservations.
Mr. Brown and Melinda Crater. Rooms fourteen and sixteen, respectively. ”
I picked up the vase and walked over to 2014. I was guessing a male made the reservation. Before I could break down the door, it opened and a nice honeymoon couple came out, arguing about whether a circus would be better than a concert.
The guy saw me holding the vase like a club, did a double-take, and grabbed my shoulder. “Horse from League of Demons? Honey, this is Horse!”
She stared at me and, after kind of blushing, glanced at him and tried to tug him away. The male didn’t make the reservation. Interesting. Pity. Females made things trickier.
I smiled stiffly and waited until the couple was around the corner.
I took a running start and plowed into the door of 2016, taking it out on the first try.
I landed well, surprising the guy in the sports cap, particularly when I threw the vase at his head.
It was a solid vase, and he went down under a spray of apple branches.
I was on him in a flash, punching hard at the precise point that would render him unconscious before I whirled around to see a nervous guy in glasses who held a long needle.
He stood over Trix, where she lay on the bed.
He could stick that needle into her before I reached him.
I held very, very still, trying to stay calm. I needed reason, persuasion, conviction. “You have two choices,” I told him, my voice coming out like an announcer death. “Run now, or never run again.”
He dropped the needle and sprinted for the door while I lunged towards her, checking Trix’s pulse. Uneven. Too rapid. What were they going to do to her? Forced abortion? What drug had they used on her? Only one person I knew was an encyclopedia on drugs, legal and illegal.
I carefully scooped Trix into my arms and carried her out of the room. I was dealing with a team, and they had control of my elevators. She was their target. That meant that she was coming with me. Safety first.
I took the stairs, all thirty-four flights to my floor.
She was dead weight in my arms by the time I pushed into the hall outside my apartment.
I had a hand and retinal scan on my door.
The rest of the floor was empty, and no elevators stopped without my permission.
Except in this case, when the elevators were controlled by someone else.
“Sir? The men are on the twenty-sixth floor. They see the broken door, but there’s no one inside,” Charles said.
Right. I had on a com. And baseball cap had gotten away.
Which probably meant someone else had come in after I’d taken her.
It was a pity I’d missed whoever that was, but things would have gotten messy with me needing to protect my dragon.
I’d find him later. And then he’d find himself in pieces.
I said, “See if Trevor and Roger are in town. Send them to my room if you can get them. If not, let me know.”
I closed the door behind me, armed the apartment and then nestled her into the black king-size bed in the secondary suite that worked as a decoy before I straightened and shook my arms out with a groan. Without the super serum, that wouldn’t have been possible.
I tried not to look at her in my bed, but the image of her face against the pillow, wild curls framing the features that were almost delicate in slumber, that would haunt me for the rest of my life.
“Excuse me, sir,” Charles said in my earpiece while I failed not to stare at the woman in my bed. I was going to kill whoever had put her there, had taken away her power.
“Yes?”
“They’re at the hotel, but they’re apparently having a winning streak at the roulette tables and don’t want to leave.
“Give Roger a phone.” Roger was the sadistic doctor I didn’t want anywhere near Trixie, but he was a doctor, and Trixie might need a doctor.
I had a floor with hospital equipment, but I wasn’t trusting elevators, not until…
Well, I could work on that problem to distract me from staring at my wife. Not my wife.
I pulled out the laptop on the side and proceeded to hack into my own elevators.
Roger’s voice droned in my ear, the lazy, indolent, bored persona he wore so easily.
“Nathan, I thought you liked us throwing away money at your hotel. So rude to interrupt.”
“I would consider it a personal favor if you came up to my room with Trevor as soon as I’ve managed to hack into my elevators. Otherwise, you’d have to take the stairs. I’m on the sixty-second floor.”
He whistled, immediately sounding more interested.
“You’re saying that you’re trapped in your own hotel?
Do you have roof access? What about a balcony?
You probably have a ridiculous private roof garden and pool so you can do your laps under the stars you can’t see when you’re feeling murderously bored.
We’ll be there in a few.” He hung up. Roof access?
Were they going to base jump onto my hotel? How long would that take?
I shook my head and refocused on getting my elevators back under my control.
With Charles and his team on the other side, it didn’t take long, likely because The Bone’s team had already recalled the mission.
And now I had no idea whether Roger or Trevor would show up or die jumping out of a helicopter.
I should have my own medical staff come in here.
They were good. But they’d be curious. And not as good as Roger and Trevor.
And if someone was working from inside my hotel, who could I trust with Trixie’s life? A woman had made the reservation.