Ally Weaver hiked up the long skirt of her dress and took the stairs two at a time. The metal steps rattled with each fall of her sneakers, but there was no way around it. She just hoped that the noise from the party drowned out the clatter.
She didn’t have any more time to waste. Her plan had been to be in and out of Fuller’s office building in less than ten minutes, but she’d blown that timeline just trying to get her foot in the door. Fuller’s private security guys hadn’t batted an eye as she’d tucked herself into a cluster of Sacramento’s elite entering the private event together.
But the other two guys, they were a whole other story. They’d spotted her right away, and proved a lot harder to slip away from than Fuller’s usual corporate thugs. If it wasn’t for her little interlude with Mr. Sexy Pants, Ally had no doubt her butt would be landing on the pavement this very moment.
Still, she couldn’t shake the feeling that he’d managed to get rid of her pursuers a little too easily.
Not that it mattered what excuse she came up with for ditching him. She just needed to get moving. She couldn’t afford to waste any more time, especially not admiring strong stubble-lined jaws and chiseled cheekbones. Too bad. Under any other set of circumstances, Ally had a feeling she wouldn’t mind lingering by his side all night.
But not even a gorgeous pair of honey-brown eyes would save her if Fuller’s team discovered her in the building.
Ally reached the second floor and peeked through the window cut into the stairwell door, but she couldn’t make out much of anything through the narrow reinforced strip of glass.
She drew in a deep breath before she risked cracking the door. No sirens blared as it inched open. No security lights flashed.
So far, so good. She swung the door open another couple of inches and poked her head out into the hallway.
It was clear. Just rows and rows of office doors, each with a handy brass nameplate square in the center.
Good. Because other than the second floor of Fuller’s office building, Ally had no idea where she was going. She only had a name.
She rushed down the line of doors looking at the names as she went. She was all the way down at the end before she found the one she wanted.
Harvey Price. Chief of Staff.
A chill ran up Ally’s spine as she looked at the nameplate. She repeated the same vow that had been running on a constant loop in her mind all day.
You didn’t die in vain, Harvey. I’ll see this through. I swear it.
Ally tried the doorknob. It didn’t budge. She hadn’t really expected it to.
From inside her shoe she pulled a half-melted pass card. She wiped some of the excess ash away on the side of her dress and lifted it up to the reader, but not before mouthing a silent prayer.
She’d pulled in every favor she could to get the charred card, and now she was afraid to use it. Craig, her friend at the medical examiner’s office said he’d tested it and the RFID tag was still functioning. It was hard to believe that anything had survived the fire that had engulfed Harvey Price’s car.
Harvey certainly hadn’t.
One moment, he’d been talking to her on the phone, and the next he was gone. Just like that.
At first, Ally had just thought that they’d been cut off. But a few minutes later, she’d caught sight of the breaking news story on the television. A fireball on the Capital City Freeway. A burned out car. One fatality.
Ally didn’t need to hear confirmation of the victim’s identity. Deep in her gut she already knew.
She passed the remains of the card in front of the scanner, and let out a long breath as the red light turned green. A soft click sounded as the lock on the door slid back. She quickly turned the knob and stepped inside. The door automatically closed behind her.
Ally’s mouth flattened into a hard line as her gaze swept over Harvey Price’s office. Of course, the man had to have the biggest damned corner office in the damned building, other than Fuller’s, that was. There were books and papers everywhere. She spotted three computers, one large one on the desk and two closed laptops on the bookshelves behind it. This was going to be like finding a needle in a haystack.
But standing slack-jawed wasn’t getting her any closer to finding it. The information that had gotten Harvey killed was somewhere in this room. And Ally was determined to find it.
And then she was going to show it to the world.
It was the least she could do.
She couldn’t ditch the guilt that gnawed at the pit of her stomach. It didn’t matter that she hadn’t been the one to reach out to Harvey. He’d contacted her. With very important information, he’d said. Fuller’s gone too far this time. Can’t let this one go. Can’t sleep at night.
Well, now neither could she.
Ally strode over to the desk and started rummaging through the piles of documents.
She didn’t find anything. It probably would have helped if she knew what she was looking for, but Harvey hadn’t trusted her with that vital piece of information yet. He hadn’t trusted anyone.
Rightfully so, it turned out.
Still, there were no files labeled Top Secret or Confidential. No red flags that she could see. She spun around to try her luck on the bookcase. She’d made it down to the second shelf when she heard the knock on the door behind her.
Ally spun around, her heart in her throat.
But she didn’t find a line of Buck Fuller’s armed thugs waiting for her. Of course, not. They wouldn’t have alerted her to their presence. They would have just shot her in the back.
Instead, Mr. Sexy Pants was leaning in the open doorway—the one she was certain that she’d closed tight behind her.
She narrowed her eyes as she straightened her spine. Just because he was damned handsome didn’t mean that she didn’t have to worry about him.
Don’t trust anyone.
How many times had Harvey told her that? And unless she wanted to end up the same way he did, she would do well to heed his advice.
“You?” she said. “What are you doing here?”
“Funny,” he said, leaning his shoulder against the jamb. Even though his body language was easy, his eyes were steady on her. “I was about to ask you the same question.”
“What does it look like? I’m ransacking an office.” She turned around and got back to work. Her time was limited. If this was the man Fuller had sent to get rid of her, there would be no talking him out of it. And if he wasn’t…well, then whatever his agenda was, he could just as well get on with it while she continued to look for Harvey’s information. “Your turn to answer the question.”
Ally heard his footsteps travel deeper into the room, followed by the door clicking closed behind him. “Following you. You disappeared down there in a hurry.”
“Yeah, well, I’m a busy woman,” she said, thumbing through a stack of manila folders.
Nothing. Ally turned around to find that Carter had stopped directly behind her.
“You want to tell me what you’re looking for?”
He was so close that Ally had to tilt her chin up to look him in the eye.
“Nope.” Ally stepped around him and toward the file cabinets on the far wall. He didn’t try to stop her, but Ally could feel the intensity of his gaze following her.
“Maybe I could help.”
“No, you couldn’t.” She threw open a drawer. “In fact, if you knew what was best for you, you’d hightail it back down the stairs.”
“That’s the problem.” His voice was close again. His breath caressed the top of her ear. “I rarely do what’s best for me.”
Ally spun around and, this time, smacked right into his chest. She put her hands out to steady herself. She could feel right through the thin material of his shirt to the brick wall underneath. Was the man a solid mass of muscle? There was no give to him. None.
Especially not with his incessant questioning.
“All right,” she said, finally getting around to pulling her hands away from his body. B
etter late than never. “Who are you?”
“I told you, Car—”
“Carter, right. I don’t care about your name.” It looked like if she wanted specific answers, she was going to have to ask specific questions. “Do you work for Fuller?”
He hesitated for a fraction of a second before he answered, long enough for Ally’s heart to jump into her throat.
“Not usually,” he said.
She took another step back…like that extra eight inches was going to save her.
“What the hell does that mean?”
He reached into his inner jacket pocket. Ally instinctually stumbled back toward Harvey’s desk at the move.
“It’s okay,” he said, shooting her a smile. He slowly pulled out his hand. Pinched between two fingers was a business card. He held it out toward her.
Ally stared at the card stock rectangle for a long moment before lifting her gaze to Carter’s soft brown eyes. “What’s that?” she asked.
He raised his brows. The what the hell does it look like was implied. He kept it held out in front of him, his arm never wavering, as she made up her mind. Slowly, she closed the gap between them. The second she was in reach, she snatched the card out of his hand and held it up.
Carter Macmillan. Macmillan Security.
She knew the card was supposed to calm her down. Carter didn’t really work for Congressman Fuller. Not really. But her heart didn’t slow down. If anything it started pounding harder.
“You’re private security?” A shake crept into her voice as she asked. “Hired just for the party tonight?”
Carter nodded. “That’s right.”
“And those men that I slipped past were yours?”
“Two of the most highly trained men in the field. Which makes you very impressive, Miss…”
Ally waved her hand, both to brush off his praise and his weak attempt to ascertain her identity. There were more important things she needed to know.
“Fuller didn’t happen to call you about this job on short notice, did he?”
Carter nodded. Slower this time. His gaze became curious. “Just this afternoon. Why do you ask?”
“Because, I hate to be the one to break it to you Mr. Macmillan, but you’re being set up. Both of us are.”
His body went stiff, his shoulders squaring. Now he even looked like a brick wall.
“What are you talking about?” His voice was all business now. Not a lick of that sexy drawl remained.
Unfortunately, Ally didn’t have time for soothing his injured pride. If Fuller was running the same game he had back in Rome that meant he was desperate to get rid of her. She had mere minutes to find where Harvey had hidden his secrets. Maybe not even that long. She started pulling files off the shelves, praying that something would literally jump out at her.
“Three years ago, Fuller was with a delegation of congressmen in Rome when an investigative reporter started asking some very direct questions about secret dealings between Russian oil companies and Fuller’s old company, Allied Dynamics. Fuller said the claims were baseless, and that he’d quit the board years ago, but the reporter insisted he had proof that Fuller had profited directly from the transaction,” Ally explained as she dug into another pile. “That night, Fuller went to a gala thrown in the delegation’s honor. He insisted on extra security, which his aide hired that morning. Two hours later the reporter was shot dead in the upper level of the palace.”
A second of silence ticked by as Ally moved on to the next pile.
“What does that have to do with us?” Carter asked.
“Everything,” she said with an exasperated sigh. “Fuller claimed the reporter had snuck into the palace and the over-eager security force had been the ones to take him down. But there was no sign of forced entry, and everyone who worked for the security firm swore they never saw the man, let alone shot him.”
Ally glanced up to see Carter leaning against the wall. His arms were crossed in front of his chest and he had a far away look in his eye, like the pieces were falling into place in his mind.
“Fuller used the supplemental security team as a scapegoat,” he said.
“The perfect scapegoat.” Now that he was up to speed, Ally turned back to the job in front of her. “He even made sure to match the firearms and bullets that the security firm used.”
Carter pushed off the wall and walked toward her. “That doesn’t explain who you are or what you broke in here to look for.”
“I’m this year’s model of pesky reporter,” she said. “I am looking for evidence of how much of a monster Fuller really is.”
“Russian oil dealings?”
Ally shook her head. “I don’t think so.”
“Don’t think?” Carter propped his arms on Harvey’s desk. “You’re in here risking your life, and you don’t even know what you’re looking for?”
Ally straightened her spine. Two could play at this indignant game.
“Two days ago, I received a call from Harvey Price, Fuller’s Chief of Staff. He said he had some very big information to spill. He said it was terrible, worse than anything that Fuller had ever tried to get away with before. Harvey told me that if anyone found out he was the leak, he was a dead man.”
“The same Harvey Price whose car exploded on the freeway this afternoon?”
“I was on the phone with him when it happened.”
Some of the hardness seeped out of Carter’s expression. “I’m sorry.”
“So am I,” Ally said, and got back to rummaging. “I can’t help him now, but for his sake, I can keep looking. I can try to make it so the poor man didn’t die for nothing.”
“Did he say anything about what kind of information he was going to hand over?”
“No,” Ally said, shaking her head. “Just that it was huge. He said that once the story broke, Fuller would be going to jail for a very long time.”
To her surprise, Carter pulled a few files his way and started flipping through them.
“What are you doing?” Ally stared at him with wide eyes. “I told you, you and your whole team are in danger. You need to round them all up, and get out of here fast before Fuller tries to pin anything on you.”
Carter didn’t look up, but cocked a single brow. “And I told you, I’m no good at doing what I’m told.”
Ally threw her hands up. What the hell? He was an adult. He could make his own decisions. And if they ended up being idiotic, that was none of her business. After all, it wasn’t like she was capable of physically pushing him out of the room.
“Your funeral,” she muttered under her breath.
“Did Harvey say anything strange before the bomb went off?” he asked, as if he hadn’t heard her…or didn’t care. “Anything that could have been a clue?”
Ally thought back. There were the usual warnings not to trust anyone, the pleading that no one could know, that his life was in danger even talking to her. And…
“There was one weird thing,” she said. “When I asked him if the information was in a safe place, he said it was, that he’d hidden it well.”
“That doesn’t sound too strange.”
“It was the way he said it.” Ally shook her head as she tried to recall Harvey’s exact words. “He said, ‘People see only what’s in front of them. They don’t look low enough.’ Low enough. Not deep. That’s an awkward phrase.”
“Yeah, that’s weird,” Carter agreed.
“Maybe, I’ve been looking in all the wrong places. Harvey would never put the evidence on a shelf for just anyone to find.” Ally stepped back and bent at the waist to look under the desk. “Maybe he hid it somewhere down—”
The second her fingers hit the ground there was a loud crack, then the ringing of a thousand pieces of shattered glass falling to the floor. Instinctually, Ally lifted her head to see what the hell was going on. And immediately, she wished she hadn’t.
The large window that ran along the length of Harvey’s interior wall was gone. The long vertical bl
inds that had covered them swung violently to and fro, far enough that Ally was able to catch a glimpse of a few people scrambling in the hallway. All of them dressed in black. All of them armed.
She was out of time.
“Shi—” She didn’t even have time to get the full curse out before a long, solid mass slammed into her back, knocking her down onto the carpet.
Carter. He’d tackled her and now he was holding her down.
Well, not holding her down so much as just lying on top of her. The man happened to be so big that the effect was the same.
“What are you doing?” she asked, struggling to draw breath under his heavy frame.
“Trying to keep you alive,” he said.
Ally tried to swallow down the lump that was suddenly blocking her throat. She’d come into this party with her eyes wide open tonight, aware of the risks. But it turned out that there was a hell of a difference between agreeing with something intellectually and dodging actual bullets.
Ally twisted around as best she could underneath Carter’s massive frame. “So if they’re trying to kill me, why aren’t they shooting anymore?”
Carter rolled to the side. He kept his arm wrapped around her and dragged her deeper into the shelter of the hollow beneath the solid oak desk.
“From the sound of your story, they need to make this look like a case of one of my guys getting a little trigger happy.” He sat up as best he could in the confined space and reached inside. This time he didn’t retrieve a business card, but a matte black handgun. Ally leaned back at the sight of the deadly weapon, pressing against the side of the desk.
“That means two or three bullets at most, all tightly grouped,” he continued explaining. “The last thing they want is to spray the room with bullets. Fire fights are notoriously hard to explain away.”
It sounded like he was speaking from experience. “So what do we do?”
“We give them exactly what they’re trying to avoid.” Before she could ask exactly what that entailed, he tapped something in his right ear—a nearly invisible piece of plastic that she’d somehow missed before—and brought his wrist near his mouth. “Rhys. Jake. We have a situation on the second floor. Shots fired. Suspect Fuller’s security detail. I need cover.”
He rattled off the words quickly, efficiently. This obviously wasn’t this guy’s first rodeo.
“Your guys from downstairs?” she asked, when he lowered his arm.
Carter nodded.
“You sure you want to get them involved in this?” Ally asked.
He shot her a wicked smile.
“They’d be pissed if I left them out.” He put a hand on the bend of her knee. “Don’t worry, this is the sort of thing we’re trained for.”
She guessed that was supposed to reassure her. The truth was, Ally didn’t think she could handle any more blood on her hands. Not his. Not his friends’. Not even the guys’ out in the hall.
Apparently, Fuller’s men didn’t suffer from her guilty conscience. A second later, Ally jolted at the chime of more glass fragments falling to the floor, followed by the sound of the blinds rustling. They were going for the inside door handle. They were coming in.
Which meant she and Carter had to find a way out. All other thoughts fled Ally’s head.
She sucked in a lungful of air and held it, somehow afraid that her breath would be the sound that gave them away.
Carter gripped his gun with both hands. He leaned forward on his haunches. He waited until they heard the unmistakable creak of the door opening. Then he sprung up from under the desk. Ally covered her ears as three deafening bangs in a row echoed off the walls. Then, just as fast, Carter was back down by her side.
She stared at him with wide eyes. She tried to talk but her brain hadn’t recovered enough from the shock to form words. “D-did you k-k—”
“Kill them?” Carter shook his head once. “Just gave them some incentive to stay outside.”
“We need to find a way out of here.” Ally’s chest suddenly felt tight. She was certain her throat was closing up. She tried to breathe but her lungs seized, only allowing her tiny, quick gulps of air.
She was pretty sure Carter said something but she didn’t catch it. She was too busy hyperventilating and scanning the room for any possible escape route. It was useless. There was just the one door and the bank of shattered windows that led to the hallway. Even if they managed to get past Fuller’s thugs, there would only be more downstairs waiting for them. No matter what they did, they were doomed.
Carter wrapped his hand around the nape of her neck, and tilted her head back, forcing her eyes to meet his.
“I know you’re scared, but I need you to calm down and focus. Everything is going to be fine,” he said. His voice seemed unusually calm given their dire circumstances. “I have a plan. But we have to wait for backup. Okay?”
“But—”
He pulled her face an inch closer. His eye contact intensified, and Ally managed to pull in a long, deep breath.
“Okay?” he repeated.
“O-okay.”
Carter looked into her eyes for a second longer before nodding and letting her go. “It won’t be long.”
A second later, she heard the far away sound of a door crashing against a wall. There was some shouting and then a few rounds of gunfire. Ally flinched with every shot.
“That’s our cue,” Carter said, jumping out from under the shelter of the desk. He stayed low as he moved across the room toward the window.
Ally pivoted to follow him, but as she turned her head a glint of reflected light caught her eye. It was coming right from where Carter had been, at the very bottom of the desk near the leg. She had to lay flat on the ground to get a better look at it.
There was something wedged in the gap by the desk leg.
Nobody looks low enough.
“Harvey, you crafty bastard,” Ally said.
She scraped at the object with her thumb. It didn’t budge. Whatever it was, it was wedged in there good.
“Come on,” Carter shouted from across the office.
Ally was aware that the chaos was still swirling around her—the occasional pop of gunfire, the yelling, the urgent need to escape. But she was pretty sure she’d found what she’d come for. The reason a man had died, and Ally would be damned if she was going to leave this office without it.
She clawed at the metal sliver. Slowly, it started to come loose.
“Now!” Carter called out behind her.
“One sec,” she whispered, more to herself than to him.
Ally pinched the hidden device between two fingers, tight enough to crack a nail clear down to the bed, and yanked as hard as she could. She got a little extra help as Carter’s hand wrapped around her ankle and he dragged her out from under Harvey’s desk.
The object popped free, and Ally wrapped her fingers around it tight.
“We’re all out of seconds,” Carter said, lifting her to her feet.
“Fortunately, I don’t need any more.” She opened her fingers and looked down at her hand. A small silver flash drive lay in the center of her palm.
“Is that what you came for?” he asked.
A smile spread across Ally’s face. “I think so.”
“Good. Now let’s get the hell out of here.”
Carter pivoted and picked up Harvey’s desk chair. He went over to the window that already had a single round bullet hole in the center, and hit it hard. A spider web of cracks spread out across the glass. He leaned back and smacked it again. The window splintered, raining glass down to the sidewalk below.
Ally poked her head out the window. Her knees went weak at just how far away the sidewalk was.
“That’s your plan?” She pulled her head back in and stared at him like he was a madman. “Break our legs on the fall? It has to be thirty feet to the street.”
“We’re on the second floor,” he said. “It’s more like twelve. And I’m not planning on jumping.”
“The
n what are you planning?”
He gave a pointed look at the light post. “Sliding.”
Ally sucked in a deep breath as she stared at the black square metal post that stood about five feet away from the remains of the window. It wasn’t her first choice, but she had to admit it was a hell of a lot better than jumping or going out the way she came in.
One minute of suck and you’re out of this mess. Oh, but what a sucky minute it was going to be. Still, there was nothing to do but be done with it.
Ally gathered her long skirt and tucked the hem into her neckline, exposing her thighs. She had a feeling she was going to need as much grip on that post as she could get.
Carter held her hand as she stepped onto the window ledge. His hands circled her waist, steadying her as she leaned out to grasp the pole. Ally drew in a steadying breath as she wrapped one hand, then the other, around the pole. Her body was committed now, but her brain still needed a little push.
She got it a half second later when she heard another couple of shots pinging off the hallway walls behind her. She held tight and propelled her legs forward, wrapping them around the awkwardly shaped pole. She didn’t slide as much as she inched her way down, clinging for dear life with every move. She muttered a grateful prayer the moment her feet hit solid earth.
Two seconds later, Carter was by her side. Obviously, he didn’t have the same trouble with heights. She was beginning to think that he didn’t have trouble with anything.
***