Miranda Vaughn Mystery 01.00 - Chasing the Dollar (21 page)

"
Come in," Chris said.

The door opened, and Dylan Holland walked in. His crisp white shirt was now smudged and wrinkled as if he
'd slept in it, and his normally perfect hair fell over his sunburnt forehead. His eyes held all the hate in the world. My stomach dropped at the sight.

"
Hello, Miranda," he said. "You little bitch."

Jake started to stand. He stopped when Chris Jenkins withdrew a handgun from a shoulder holster.

"Stay seated, please," he said in the same tone he'd used to offer us tea.

Chris reached into his pocket and tossed Dylan something, and I recognized the flash drive as it arced through the air and into Dylan
's fist.

"
Found this in the duffel bag. Is that going to help you get this resolved?" he asked Dylan.

Dylan smiled, and my blood ran cold. He held in his fist the only evidence of the scope of Patterson
's scheme. It was the only way for me to clear my name. Without it, I'd remain in that grey area of not guilty, but not cleared.

And Dylan
's worldwide criminal enterprise was going to go on as before. Everything we'd just gone through had been in vain.

"
That will get us back in business," Dylan said, turning to me. "There's just the small matter of the money that Miranda transferred."

Dylan and Chris conferred by the door that led to the hallway, eyeing Jake and me as they spoke in low tones.

Jake poured some tea for himself, the delicate porcelain cup dwarfed in his large hands. Unlike mine, his hands weren
't shaking and sloshing tea all over.

"
I am really starting to hate that guy," he said quietly, glancing toward the two men at the door.

I followed his gaze and silently agreed with him. What had I ever seen in that bastard?

The door opened, and a man in fatigues handed Dylan a bag, and I recognized the tan fabric of my trusted computer tote. Dylan took the bag, shut the door, and turned back to me, his eyes narrowed.

"
She says it's not Bill's computer," Dylan said to Chris.

"
Did you look at it?"

"
It's locked." Dylan walked over to the sitting area and stopped a few feet in front of me. He threw the bag at me, and I caught it awkwardly. "If it's yours, then what's the password?"

I glared at him.
"It's 'Dylan's a fucking asshole.' All lowercase, no spaces."

Dylan
's face flushed even pinker all the way to the tops of his ears. His eyes narrowed. How had I ever been attracted to him? How had I not seen the pure evil below the highly polished exterior? My stomach turned at the thought that I could have been so completely deceived, ready to commit myself to this man for life.

"
Doesn't matter. I have the backup and the files," he said. "If it were Bill's computer, it just would have saved me some trouble."

Chris put his hand on Dylan
's arm. "We've got a tech downstairs who can crack that."

He took the bag from my lap and turned to Dylan.

"Give me the flash drive—I'll have them open that, too."

Dylan hesitated, but reached into his pocket and retrieved the drive and handed it to Chris, who looked at it with interest.
"Will this do you any good without Bill?"

Dylan nodded.
"Yeah, I can make the transfers. It won't be a problem."

"
It better not be," Chris said. His voice was neutral, but his eyes were cold and flat. "I'll get these unlocked, but then you have to get out of here. And get them out of here."

He nodded toward us as if we were a couple pieces of unwanted furniture.

Dylan frowned. "What am I supposed to do with him?"

I glanced at Jake, his face a mask of glowering rage.

"That's your problem. You take care of it," Chris said.

The two of them walked out of the room, leaving by the door that led to the hallway. As soon as the door clicked shut, Jake was on his feet and across the room, trying the other door, which remained stubbornly locked in place.

I moved to the hall door that Dylan and Chris had just used and found it locked as well.

"
Now what?" I asked.

"
I need to reach Matt, but my cell phone is in the car," he said. "Check the windows, see if they'll open."

He went to one end of the office, and I went to the other, and we checked all the windows. Most were plate glass with no latches, but one overlooked the fire escape.

"Here," I said, reaching for the top of the frame.

"
Wait." Jake hurried to me and examined the window carefully, then flipped the latch open. He looked down at the courtyard below, and I followed his gaze. Our now-battered Jeep was at the edge of the parking lot, near the secured gate. Guards patrolled the perimeter of the fence.

How were we going to get out of here?

Jake put a hand on my shoulder, and I looked up at him. "We're going to have to climb down there. Are you okay with heights?"

God, I hated heights. Just the thought of climbing down the flimsy-looking metal steps made my stomach do somersaults. I took a deep breath and shook my head.
"Not really, but I'll get over it."

He took my hand and squeezed it.
"I'll go first and catch you if you fall."

I squeezed his hand and nodded, my mouth dry with fear.

Outside the door, I heard a muffled sound in the hall. Jake dropped my hand and moved across the room, standing a few feet behind the door.

I remained at the window, unsure what to do. Jake motioned to me to move toward the couch, but before I could take a step I heard the beep of the electronic key pass.

Dylan opened the door, saw me standing by the open window, and rushed forward into the room.

"
Where the hell are you go—"

Jake
's fist cut off Dylan's angry words, smashing into his jaw and knocking him to his knees. He fell to the carpet, and Jake followed him down, struggling to keep Dylan pinned to the ground. As they struggled, my paralysis vanished, and I glanced around for some sort of weapon, my gaze falling on a bronze bust on Chris Jenkins's desk. I ran to the desk and grabbed it with both hands, swung, and felt the satisfying thunk as it connected with the side of Dylan's head. His eyes rolled back, and his body went slack. Jake pushed Dylan's dead weight off his leg.

"
Find something to tie his hands with," Jake said, rolling Dylan over and searching his pockets. He pulled out the white plastic key pass, the silver handgun, and Dylan's cell phone.

I yanked the cord out of the telephone and then helped Jake use it to tie Dylan
's hands tight behind his back. Standing up, I had to fight the urge to give the unconscious man another hard kick, just for karma's sake.

"
Come on, let's go," Jake said, pulling me away from Dylan's prone body.

"
Did he have the drive on him?" I asked, looking back at the trussed-up figure of my former fiancé.

"
No," Jake said, passing the card in front of the sensor to unlock the door. "It's probably in their computer lab. Which is probably even more secure than this room."

"
But this pass might get us in there," I said. My instincts were to flee, save ourselves, get as far from the consulate as possible. But in the back of my mind there was a small stubborn voice urging me to get the drive, bring it back to the States, if there was a chance to recover it.

Jake
's lips tightened, and he nodded. "I know you want it, but we have to get out of here."

He opened the door a fraction of an inch, looked out, and pulled it open. He grabbed my hand, leading me into the hallway. It was empty and quiet, but I doubted it would stay that way. The building had security like a high-tech fortress, and I was sure that included security cameras in the halls.

As we reached the end of the hall, Jake peered around the corner and then pulled me with him down the stairs. The staircase was at the rear of the building, at the opposite side from where we had entered.

"
Look for an exit," he said. His voice was low, but echoed off the concrete walls.

A door slammed in the distance and I froze. Jake tugged at my arm, urging me forward. My heart pounded, and my knees were shaky as we took the last few steps to the first floor. The stairs opened to a hall lined with closed doors on one side and a windowless wall on the other. Jake looked in both directions, then headed toward to the right, still pulling me behind him, Dylan
's gun in the other hand at his side.

The sound of running footsteps above our heads echoed down the stairwell. Jake swiped the white plastic security card against a sensor, and the door unlocked. He opened it slowly, then yanked me around and slammed the door. I leaned against the wall in the darkened room, listening to the chaos outside. The only light in the room came from the crack under the door.

As my eyes adjusted, I could see that we were in an empty office.

Jake moved through the room while I stayed against the wall. A shrieking alarm pierced the air, and I put my hands over my ears as a red light started flashing over the door, illuminating the room in blood red. Jake whirled toward the door, the gun steady and aimed at the still-closed door.

"Get behind me," he said, and I jumped to comply.

The screeching continued as Jake pushed me behind him. Through the noise of the alarm, I could hear running and shouting past the door. Jake moved closer and listened. I followed, staying behind him, his
T-shirt gripped in my fist, as if that would keep us from getting separated.

"
It's not us," he said, his head tilted toward the door. "There's something else going on."

Behind the alarm, voices rose, and the panic was unmistakable. Jake turned and tackled me, throwing both of us behind a desk. There was, at the same time, a roar—the sound of a high velocity projectile meeting tons of steel-reinforced concrete, followed closely by a concussion of an explosion that reverberated through my body. The alarm stuttered and stopped. The red light went out, and the light under the door was extinguished. And in the blackness, I detected the acrid smell of smoke.

I tried to breathe, but my nose was filled with dust and smoke, and I felt the panic rising in my chest.

"
Are you okay? Miranda, look at me!" Jake's voice came to me muffled through a thick layer of cotton in my head. I opened my eyes, blinking away grit.

"
Are you hurt?" he yelled.

Jake took my face in his hands, and I focused on his eyes, an anchor in the chaos.
"Are you okay? Where are you hurt?"

I shook my head again, the picture coming into focus finally. An explosion. A fire.

"Fire? What—" I asked, barely hearing my own voice over the chaos, and the static, and buzzing in my ears.

"
The building, probably an RPG," Jake said.

I shook my head and did a mental inventory. My head was throbbing. My ears were ringing, and though my body felt like it had been dropped off a cliff, nothing seemed broken. Jake pulled me to my feet, and we felt our way to the door.

He yanked at the door, which stuck until he put his foot against the wall for leverage. The explosion had rocked the building so hard that the doorframe had shifted, but he was able to get an opening wide enough to squeeze through. Outside the hall was empty except for an orange and brown smoke that was billowing from the front of the compound.

We hurried toward an open door at the end of the hall. Bright sunlight streamed in, mingling with the dust particles in the air, creating a beacon for us. Jake covered his mouth, and I followed suit, though it didn
't help filter out the grit in the air. As we stepped out of the building and into the bright sun, we were greeted with a ghostly sight—a half-dozen people staggering in the sunlight, covered in white dust, some bleeding. I realized Jake and I were also coated in the same grime—his dark hair was grey with dust, the same grit that turned my navy T-shirt nearly white.

I turned back to the building and saw the smoke pouring from the upper floors.

Dylan was in there
, I thought, with a pang of something that felt like guilt. Guilt over the man who had tried to kill me, who had destroyed my life. What was wrong with me? Maybe I was mourning the man I thought I had loved, that person who never even existed.

"
We need to get out of here," Jake said, grabbing my hand and leading me toward the side of the building.

A wave of people stumbled through the opening that Jake and I had just come through, helping each other step over the broken masonry in their path. One of the camouflage-uniformed men carried a body over his shoulder like a sack and I saw the hands tied behind the back. He set the body on the ground and reached down to untie Dylan
's hands, and I exhaled a long breath.

"
You know he just tried to kill us both, right?" Jake asked. At the angry tone, I turned toward him. His eyes were cold and his jaw set. 

"
Of course I do! Just because I didn't want him to die doesn't mean I don't want him brought to justice. I want him humiliated, publicly. I want him to have to live through it—everyone knowing what he did, how he did it, what a horrible sociopath he really is. I want him alive to suffer. I want him to live a long life—in prison." 

Jake paused and gave me a long stare that I couldn
't interpret then nodded. "Okay, that I can live with."

He pulled me around the huge metal trash bin and crouched low. I knelt on the ground next to him.

"Stay close to me," he said, his voice low. 

Crouching, we skirted the official vehicles in the parking lot, staying between the front of the row of SUVs and the concrete block wall of the first floor of the consulate office. Several times, Jake hissed at me to stay still, and I heard footsteps on gravel. In the distance, I could hear shouting. Nearby, the crackling of flames in the building. I held my breath until the footsteps faded and then followed Jake as we crept along the edge of the parking lot.

When we reached the last car, Jake nodded toward the Gaia Lodge Jeep a few feet away. "Stay here," he whispered, and snuck closer to the Jeep and peered in the window.