Trouble in a Fur Coat (The Fur Coat Society Book 1) (18 page)

Jack glanced at the electronic watch on his arm. It had only been three minutes since they’d left the attic, but it felt like an eternity. This condo was unbelievably large, and the hallways were complex. Silver seemed to know them pretty well, but it didn’t matter how well she knew the hallways if they couldn’t find someone whose eyes would open the doors. The longer they were trapped in here, the more Jack worried. Surely, a helicopter going up in flames on a rooftop in Chicago would not go unnoticed. No doubt there were firemen, policemen, and other law enforcement agents on their way right now. Jack wanted to be far, far away from here when the dust settled on this whole situation.

Silver turned down another hallway, glancing over her shoulder to look at Jack for a moment. He could see the uncertainty in her eyes. She was worried, too.

“This hallway goes to Mr. Astor’s office,” she said. “It’s like command central for him, so there’s a good possibility he’ll be there.”

When they arrived at the office a minute later, however, the room was completely empty. The place looked like a tornado had gone through, with overturned chairs and a huge crack in the computer screen that formed the top of Mr. Astor’s desk. Silver looked around, the frustration clearly showing in her eyes.

“I was sure someone would be here,” she said.

“Looks like someone was,” Bash said. “Someone was in here tearing this room apart looking for something.”

“Well, whatever it was they probably found it, and they’re long gone,” Sawyer said. “Let’s keep moving. No sense in wasting any more time here.”

The group continued down the hall, trying their best to ignore the alarms and smoke. The uneasy feeling in Jack’s stomach grew with each passing second. This was taking too long. And why hadn’t they seen a single person? Not even a security guard seemed to be roaming the halls.

“Guys, I think everyone may have left already,” Jack finally said. “The building is very obviously on fire, so maybe everyone else already escaped.”

“Well that’s just great,” Bash said. “How are we going to get out if we can’t find someone to help us bypass the eye scanner on the door?”

“Is there somewhere we could just break through the walls?” Anderson asked.

Silver shook her head. “No, Daddy. The walls and doors are reinforced with thick metal. When I tell people this place is a fortress, I mean it quite literally. It’s not nearly as simple as just hacking through the walls.”

Jack watched Anderson furrow his brow, but the old man remained remarkably calm. Jack was impressed with the general calmness that Sawyer and Anderson seemed capable of. Even when the helicopter crashed and burst into flames with Bash trapped inside, they hadn’t panicked for a single second. Jack was beginning to see that he might have been wrong about refusing to call them in to help sooner. Sure, they were a little old school with their viewpoints on clan law. But these guys knew how to handle dangerous situations.

Bash’s face turned dark, and Jack could tell that he was struggling to remain calm. “We have to figure something out, and soon. Otherwise we’re going to burn alive in here. This entire place is obviously built to be flame resistant, but it’s not enough to combat the mass of fire currently taking over the roof.”

Jack bit his lower lip and tried to think. His only idea was to try to find rope and break through the windows, then lower themselves down. He wasn’t sure where to find rope long enough for that, though. If they couldn’t get all the way to the ground, the fire department would rescue them. But then they would have to admit to having been in the condo, and they would have a lot of explaining to do. That option seemed only marginally better than burning alive at the moment.

Suddenly, Silver snapped her fingers. “I know what to do,” she said, turning around and starting to run back in the direction they’d come from.

“Where are you going, Sil?” Jack said. “You’re heading straight back to the fire.”

“I’m heading straight toward the room Mrs. Astor uses as a closet,” Silver called out over her shoulder. “She’s still in here, I guarantee it. That woman is crazy about her clothes. She’s probably freaking out right now, trying to pack up a bunch of stuff to save from the fire.”

A grin spread across Jack’s face. “If you’re right, then we can grab her and use her eyes to get us out of here.”

“Exactly,” Silver said. “Come on, everyone, hurry up. We don’t have a lot of time. Firemen are going to be swarming this building within minutes. I’m surprised they’re not up here already.”

The group all fell into step behind Silver, following her closely as she ran back through the hallways. The smoke was getting thicker and thicker, making it hard to see anything. Silver didn’t slow down, though. She seemed confident that she knew exactly where she was going. After a few minutes, she reached a large bedroom and burst into it.

“Where are you, Mrs. Astor?” Silver called out through the black smoke.

A surprised coughing sound came from the back corner of the room. Jack strained through the dim light to try to see. Moments later he heard an angry shriek and saw a tall, skinny silhouette rushing toward Silver.

“You skank!” the silhouette cried out. “That’s my dress! And my shoes! How dare you!”

The woman, whom Jack quickly realized was Mrs. Astor, started trying to tear Silver’s dress right off her body. Jack stepped up and grabbed Mrs. Astor, pinning her flailing arms to her side. Mrs. Astor desperately tried to escape, but Jack was far stronger than her.

“Looks like we’ve got our set of eyes,” Jack said. “Let’s move. Silver, take us to the closest exit.”

Silver nodded, then paused. “Wait. What’s this?” she asked, bending down to look at a small black object that Mrs. Astor had dropped in the middle of all of her flailing.

Jack squinted at the small black square. “Looks like a data drive,” he said. “Hold on to it in case there’s something useful on it.”

“No! You can’t have that! It’s mine!” Mrs. Astor yelled out, wriggling even harder to try to get free. No matter how hard she struggled, though, her stick-thin arms were no match for Jack’s burly biceps.

“I’d say it’s definitely got something useful on it,” Sawyer said, seeing how much Mrs. Astor was struggling. “Come on, Silver. Let’s go.”

Silver nodded and stuck the data drive into one of the small pockets on the dress she was wearing. “I thought those pockets were ridiculous and just for show,” she said. “But I guess they are actually good for something.”

She laughed, and then started running again. Jack did his best to follow as closely as he could, which proved more difficult than he would have liked. Mrs. Astor continued to struggle, and even kicked one of her high-heeled feet into Jack’s shin at one point. The stabbing pain this sent through his leg caused him to yelp and let out a string of expletives. He reached down and pulled the shoes off, throwing them aside with another long string of curse words.

“Hey, those are my favorite Louboutins!” Mrs. Astor screamed.

“Should have thought of that before you kicked me with them,” Jack hissed out, throwing Mrs. Astor over his shoulder as he struggled to catch up with the group. This woman was a piece of work.

By this time, they had reached an exit door. Mrs. Astor started laughing when she saw where they were.

“You guys aren’t going to be able to get out,” she said. “It requires an eye scan, and you’re not on the list.”

“Are you really such an idiot?” Silver asked, her patience clearly running out. “YOU are our ticket out. We’re going to scan your eyes, and get out.”

Mrs. Astor looked momentarily taken aback, but then smirked again, and squeezed her eyes tightly shut. “You can’t scan my eyes if I refuse to open them,” she said.

Silver shook her head in exasperation, then turned to the door. “Computer, open door,” she ordered.

“Eye verification required,” the computer replied back. “Please get in scanning position to confirm your identity.”

Silver looked back at Jack and nodded. He dragged Mrs. Astor, who kicked and fought the whole way up to the eye scanner. Mrs. Astor still had her eyes squeezed tightly shut, so Bash and Anderson stepped up to help Jack hold Mrs. Astor still while Sawyer and Silver each reached out to try to force the stubborn woman’s eyes open. Even when they pulled her eyelids back, though, she rolled her eyes back into her head to keep them from scanning her irises, which was the part of the eye that the scanner used to register identity. Exasperated, Jack decided to try startling Mrs. Astor. Normally, he wouldn’t raise his hand to hit a woman, even in a war type situation. But all of their lives were on the line right now, including Silver’s. And Jack would be damned if he let anything happen to the love of his life.

With a determined look on his face, Jack pulled his fist back and then brought it forward with all his might, landing it squarely in the middle of Mrs. Astor’s stomach. Her face registered a shocked look and her eyes flew open in surprise. She realized her mistake and quickly shut her eyes again, but it was too late.

“Identity confirmed, Mrs. Astor,” the computer said. “Door opening.”

“No!” Mrs. Astor cried out. “You tricked me! That’s not fair.”

Jack could hardly believe his ears. “None of this is fair,” Jack said, letting go of Mrs. Astor quickly, causing her to tumble to the ground. “Especially not the way you treated Silver. If I were being ‘fair’ right now, I’d tear you to shreds. We don’t need you anymore. You’re free to go back to saving your precious clothes, if you want. I suggest you leave the building, since it’s on fire. But that’s your call. You’re on your own from here.”

Mrs. Astor started screaming something about how they were all going to pay for this, but Jack didn’t bother to reply. He quickly left the condo, following the rest of the group as they ran down the hallway. A new alarm started blaring, and the computer started sounding off a warning about how more than one person had exited the door under a single eye scan. Jack laughed at the absurdity of setting up a security scanner to lock people in. The Astors had basically turned their home into a prison. What an awful family.

Jack quickly caught up with the rest of the group, who were now standing in front of the elevator, arguing over whether or not to take the stairs.

“You’re not supposed to take an elevator in a fire,” Bash was saying. “It might not even work properly. We could get stuck and burn to death.”

“We have to take our chances,” Silver said. “Going down fifty flights of stairs is going to take way too long, even if we shift to bear form to run faster. We’re already pushing our luck. If the police catch up with us while we’re still here in this building they’ll arrest us as suspects. I guarantee you Mr. Astor is down there whining about how he has so many enemies and that the police have to stop the criminals who want him dead. We have to get far, far away from here before they can arrest us.”

“She’s right,” Jack said. “We have to take our chances on the elevator. It’s probably still working okay, since the security system seems to be still working okay.”

Bash frowned, but nodded. Silver pushed the button to call the elevator, and moments later, it had whooshed up to where they were. Jack held his breath as they all made their way inside and the door closed behind them. Silver pushed the button for the bottom floor, and the elevator started speeding downward. So far, so good. The whole group was silent as they waited the few seconds it took the elevator to reach the ground floor. Even though the elevator was top-of-the-line and extremely fast, time seemed to stand still.

Jack was relieved that the elevator was indeed going downward. It didn’t seem like they were going to get stuck in here. But he quickly realized that they were moving too fast. The elevator was a speedy one, but it should have slowed down more as they neared the first floor. A second before the impact occurred, Jack realized the elevator was malfunctioning.

“We’re gonna crash!” he yelled out, reaching to try to grab the side railing with one hand and Silver with the other. There wasn’t enough time left to properly react. The scene happened at lightning speed, but Jack felt like he was watching it play out in slow motion. He saw Sawyer and Bash grab the railing and hold on tight. Then he saw Anderson, who was standing on the other side of Silver, try to grab the railing and Silver at the same time, just like Jack had. Unfortunately, both Jack and Anderson missed, and Silver realized too late that she needed to hold on.

Thankfully, the elevator wasn’t having a complete malfunction. It slowed somewhat, but not enough to keep from throwing Silver upward as the impact with the ground floor occurred. Jack felt himself hurtling toward the roof of the elevator, but he was stopped abruptly by the strength of his one hand that had managed to grab the side railing. Silver wasn’t holding on at all, and flew straight toward the ceiling. A loud crack sounded as she made impact, and Jack felt his whole stomach twist up.

“No!” he screamed out at the same time as Anderson and Bash. Silver fell to the floor of the elevator in a crumpled heap as the elevator chamber came to a complete stop. Jack stooped down quickly to find that Silver was out cold, with a trickle of blood coming out of her nose. She was breathing and had a pulse, but he wasn’t sure the extent of the damage to her skull. His eyes traveled upward and he saw that the roof of the elevator had a crack in it. He said a silent prayer that the loud cracking had only come from the elevator’s roof, and not from Silver’s skull. Anderson was kneeling beside Silver as well, checking her pulse with eyes full of concern for his daughter’s well-being.