The Stone Warriors: Damian (15 page)

Fuck.

She backed up and slammed the door, then turned her energy to looking like she belonged with the Effing BI.

DAMIAN HELD THE door open for Casey when she walked into the Lorenzo office building—Lorenzo being the architectural firm which had designed the building where the sniper had set up his nest, and which now occupied the top four floors. She’d wanted Damian to remain with the vehicle, but he’d refused, reminding her that their shooter had fired from the seventh floor, which was one of the floors occupied by the Lorenzo people. She’d granted the possibility that someone from that firm had helped the shooter get into place, and then get away. But when he’d taken it a step further, and suggested that some bad guys might be waiting to ambush her when she came to investigate, she’d insisted that such a scenario wasn’t at all likely. He’d agreed, but then he’d snottily pointed out that one didn’t stay alive planning only for likely threats.

And that was why he was with her, posing as her sniper specialist. They’d stopped long enough to buy him a plain, blue windbreaker of the sort FBI agents used, but it really wasn’t necessary for him to pass as FBI. He could be local SWAT, or even a civilian specialist, the latter of which wasn’t far from the truth. He was a civilian, and oddly enough, he
was
a specialist. So, as long as she played her role well enough, the part of an uptight, by-the-book FBI agent, no one would question his presence. It was all about the bluff. She hoped she was up to it.

There were two security guards in the lobby. One stood near a short hallway to the elevators, arms crossed, eyeing everyone who walked past, while the other sat behind a marble façade desk. His main job, it seemed, was to answer visitors’ questions. Casey couldn’t help but notice that there was no security checkpoint—no building ID, no metal detectors, none of the usual security precautions. It was disturbingly light security for this day and age, and it made her wonder if she’d been too optimistic when she’d assumed that the building would have security cameras.

The guard was on the phone when she walked up to the desk, so she opened her ID and held it where he couldn’t miss seeing it. His eyes widened perceptibly, and he immediately hustled the caller off the phone. He reached for Casey’s ID, but she pulled it out of his reach—close enough to read, but not touch.

“Agent Lewis, and Stephens,” she said, intentionally mispronouncing Damian’s name and introducing him in such a way that the guard would logically assume he was also an agent. She crossed her fingers, hoping he didn’t ask to see Damian’s ID. It’s what he
should
have done, but if he did it, the game was over.

The guard studied her ID then looked over her shoulder to where Damian waited with impressive patience. She’d had real doubts about bringing him this far, afraid that he wouldn’t pass inspection, and they’d be out of luck. But when she glanced back at him, he was standing there looking all formidable and vaguely pissed off, as if he was ready to send someone’s head rolling if the guard didn’t get his ass in gear and give them access to the entire building ten minutes ago.

“How can I help you, Agent Lewis?” the guard asked finally.

“Your building was the base of an active shooter earlier today, and—”

“Dear God.” The guard came half out of this chair. “Was anyone—?”

“You had no reports of gunfire from any of the building’s tenants?”

“Absolutely not, and I’ve been on shift all day except for my lunch break. But there couldn’t have been anyone injured, the police would have been. . . . Oh.”

She smiled to take the sting out of it. “You may not have been aware”—she had to peer at his name badge—“Mr. McBride, because while the shooter used your building, his target was across the parking lot just east of here.”

McBride drew a relieved breath. “Well, that’s good at least. I mean . . . no one was injured over there, were they?”

“No, but it was only good luck or bad shooting that kept it that way. In any event, your building
is
part of the crime scene, and we have two requirements. First, my colleague”—she gestured Damian’s way—“needs access to your seventh floor, so that he can investigate the shooter’s location.”

The guard glanced over her shoulder at Damian again, and then back at her. “I’m sure that won’t be a problem. The seventh floor is occupied by Lorenzo Associates. I’ll need to advise them of the situation, and have one of their reps come down to—”

“Stephens will go on up,” she interrupted, referring to Damian by his fake name. “They can meet him there.”

“Well, I guess . . . ,” he started to say, but Damian was already on his way to the elevator.

“Does this building have security cameras?” Casey asked, drawing the guard’s attention back her way. “I’m especially interested in exterior coverage, but if you have any here . . .” She looked around the lobby and spotted at least one camera, making a point of noting its placement before turning back to the guard. “I can get a warrant, if necessary.”

“That won’t be necessary,” a new voice announced, and Casey looked up to see someone who was clearly the man in charge bearing down on her from a door that had opened behind the desk. “David Espinoza,” he said holding out a hand. “I’m Director of Security for the Lorenzo. How can I help you, Agent Lewis?”

That he knew her name told her two things. One, he’d been not just watching, but also listening the whole time. Which meant, two, there were definitely more cameras in the lobby than the obvious one near the elevator hallway.

Casey shook his hand. “Someone was taking potshots at the parking lot behind your building this afternoon. We have a fairly narrow time frame, and I’d like to take a look at any video footage you might have. I can’t be sure of when he arrived, but he had to have exited the building shortly after the incident, at the most within the last two hours.”

Her cell phone rang. She checked the caller ID and said, “Excuse me a moment,” then stepped away. “What do you have?” she asked Damian when she answered the call. That was the other item they’d picked up when they’d stopped for the windbreaker. Damian had required no more than a ten-minute tutorial, and he was swiping right and thumb typing like a fifteen-year-old girl. It was downright frightening.

“The room he used is obvious,” Damian told her. “Our friends here were dismayed to discover the broken window, but the office was vacant, and no one seems to have noticed any strangers. On the other hand, they’re not exactly observant. They barely noticed me, and, let’s face it, I’m remarkable.”

Casey ignored that part and got to the point. “Did he leave anything?” She actually hoped the sniper had taken all of his gear with him. It was unlikely to yield anything useful if he’d left it, while, on the other hand, if he was carrying a gun case, it would make him easier to spot on the security tapes.

“Nothing worth noting,” Damian said.

“Any food wrappers? Soda cans? Anything we might get a fingerprint from?” She heard Damian’s hesitation and wondered if he knew about fingerprints. It was so easy to forget that he was still new to this reality. “Does it look like he touched anything?” she asked instead.

“He rearranged some furniture for his setup, and there’s the broken window, of course.”

Casey frowned. It was just possible that the shooter had left a print on the furniture or the broken glass, and she had a kit in her truck. But there was likely to be a huge number of prints in that office, and no way to get elimination prints from everyone who’d ever used or visited the room. Not to mention that doing so might expose her rather precarious authority in this situation.

“Okay,” she told Damian. “Come back down for now. They’ve got security footage. We can try to spot him there.”

“Yes, ma’am,” he snapped out solemnly, and she had to fight the urge to roll her eyes. He was loving this role-play shit a little too much, though she should have expected it. Now that he was free, he was all about the adventure, the challenge. Well, that and connecting with Nick to find and free his brother warriors, which was the biggest challenge of all.

Casey disconnected and turned to David Espinoza, who’d been politely pretending not to listen to her call. “My colleague is on his way down. The more eyes, the better on the video footage.”

“Excellent. We can go ahead and get you set up. McBride will show your fellow agent back to our security office when he gets here.”

An hour later, Casey was rubbing her sore eyes as she watched people come and go through the lobby. They were running the footage at an accelerated speed, which made the time literally fly by, but it also required more intense concentration to—“What’s that?” she asked abruptly, and froze the image of a man carrying a long zippered case.

Damian leaned over her shoulder, and she wanted to preen at the sheer heat and presence of the man. He had one hand braced on the back of her chair and the other on the desk in front of her, which effectively bracketed her in his arms. It wasn’t a bad feeling at all. In fact, it was a little too good. She wanted to move, to break the moment, but that would have given too much away, so she only bent forward to study the image more closely.

“Could that be a gun case he’s carrying?” she asked quietly, though they were the only two people in the room. Espinoza had gotten quickly bored and gone back to his office.

“It’s the right size and shape,” Damian agreed. “Can you make the image of the case bigger?”

Casey zoomed in and saw what he’d been looking at.

“Pelican,” he said, reading the logo on the case. “Is that—?”

“A well-known long gun case,” she told him. “I suppose it could be something else, but what are the odds?” She dicked with the image some more, then
tsk
ed in exasperation. “I can’t get his face on this angle. Let me try . . .” She’d become quite familiar with the security setup by now and switched deftly to a different angle, speeding through the footage until she found the right time stamp. “There,” she said, pointing.

“Do you recognize him?” he asked her.

She stared at the man’s face, trying to see it in a different setting. She nodded. “He was there. At the house, when I recovered the Talisman.”

“All right,” he said, “We have his face. How does that help us?”

She smiled grimly. “Turns out the Lorenzo folks are quite the voyeurs. They have cameras everywhere. Let’s see if I can follow our guy to the parking lot.”

“Cool,” he said, and it was everything she could do not to laugh at that word coming from his mouth.

She switched angles again, bringing up all six exterior cameras and advancing them to the relevant time frame. The gun case made it easy to spot their guy after that, and they followed him to his vehicle, which was the ubiquitous white cargo van. There was a reason bad guys chose those vans. There were so many of them on the road, they simply blended into the scenery. But this one had a license plate, and that she could use. She zoomed in on the plate, then brought up a searchable database on her cell phone and inputted the number.

“The car is registered to a George Smith,” she read off for Damian’s sake. “No stolen vehicle report. The name’s obviously a fake, but there’s an address about an hour from here. That’s worth checking out. It’s legally registered, which means this might actually be a valid address.”

“Why would Sotiris do that? It’s too easy to follow.”

“It’s not Sotiris himself. He hired an agent to purchase the Talisman for him, and we know that agent had a house nearby, because that’s where I stole it from in the first place. So, maybe the sniper lives around here, too.”

“Are we going there now, or waiting for tonight?”

Casey considered it. There was always a danger that the bad guys might move, just disappear into the darkness. On the other hand, she was reminded of the other night, and how the defenses on the house had been hardened so much more than she’d expected. With just the two of them, they’d have to know exactly what they were getting into. They’d expect her this time, which would make it even more dangerous, and considering the last attempt had left her running from hellhounds
and
getting shot. . . . Let’s just say she wanted to be prepared.

“We’ll head to the safe house first. I want to research the location, at least check out the neighborhood and surrounding streets. I might even be able to get an up-to-date satellite image of the property.”

“Research,” he said glumly. “I’d like to say it’s a waste of time, but unfortunately I think you’re right. We’ll be outnumbered and outgunned. The only thing you’ll have going for you this time is superior knowledge . . . and, of course, me.” He grinned at her. “So how far to this safe house?”

“It’s in the same direction as the target
,
which is convenient. Just a little farther from the city.” She pointed at the map on the cell phone’s screen. Damian leaned forward as if memorizing it, and then glanced at her and jerked his chin upward, before stepping back. Taking the chin jerk—such a guy thing—to mean he’d seen everything he needed to, she logged out of the database on her phone, and then closed all of the video files she’d had open on the Lorenzo system, and erased all trace of her activities there. She hadn’t done anything that was strictly illegal, but Nick always stressed that they should keep their FBI affiliation on the down-low, and she decided that was especially important on a case like this, when she’d used her FBI ID to gain admission under somewhat false circumstances.

She handed Damian her keys. “You should go ahead to the truck. I’ll deal with Espinoza and join you.”

“Does this mean I’m driving?” he asked, a teasing glint in his eyes.

“No,” she said firmly and would have grabbed the keys back, but Espinoza had stepped out of his office, and the spectacle of her trying to get the keys from Damian wouldn’t have done much to reinforce her image as a no-nonsense FBI agent. She leaned closer to Damian and hissed, “If you damage my truck, I’ll stab you in your sleep.”

He just laughed.

“I’ll wait for you outside,” he said loudly enough for Espinoza to hear.

Casey gave him a final warning glare, which only made him grin harder. Great. With every day he spent in this reality, he was becoming more and more confident in his surroundings. What little control she’d had over him was slipping away by the hour.

“Did you find what you were looking for?” David Espinoza asked from behind her.

She turned to face him, aware of Damian opening the door to the lobby on his way out to the parking lot. It struck her suddenly that the only sound had been the door itself. For such a big man, he moved almost silently.