Taking a peek over the edge of the open window would be unprofessional. Better to seem aloof, as in: I don’t need to watch. The moment Amy Felton cleared the window, and was suspended—frozen—paralyzed—in midair, it was on to the next task. After all, she was being watched herself.
Molly was curious, sure. She wondered about the expression on Amy’s face. Wondered if her calculations had been correct. But she cared more about what her special audience thought.
There’d be plenty of time to watch later.
On playback.
Down the hall, Jamie stared at his two-way Motorola pager. It had sat in a front pocket of his leather briefcase for over a month, unused. As far as he knew, Jamie had never turned it off.
The day before the Fourth of July, he’d received a final page from Andrea:
GET HOME NOW, DADDY
:)
Andrea’s water had just broken. She’d been pulling steaks out of the freezer, hoping to thaw them in time for a little pre-Fourth grilling session. She craved meat—big fat T-bone steaks, specifically—throughout her pregnancy, and damn it, she’d be eating steaks right up until the moment the baby was born.
As it turned out, Jamie rushed home, gathered up Andrea and the emergency baby bag she’d packed a week before, and raced—cautiously—to Pennsylvania Hospital. The steaks ended up sitting out on the counter for the next day and a half. When Jamie arrived home, delirious with joy and exhaustion, he was smacked in the face with the scent of rotting cow flesh. Welcome home, Daddy.
The pagers had been Andrea’s idea. Frustrated that she couldn’t reach her husband at will—whenever Jamie had his cell phone tucked away in his bag, the thing was hard to hear—she went Motorola on his ass. Found a sweet deal on matching Talkabout T900s. Less than a hundred dollars for the two of them. Ran on a AA battery. During the last month of her pregnancy, Andrea suggested that her husband carry the T900 at all times. She suggested it like an umpire suggests to a batter that he’s out.
Jamie’s T900 was a royal blue; Andrea’s hot pink. Totally out of character for Andrea. But pregnancy had done strange things to the woman.
So now Jamie stared at his T900, wondering if it had any juice left. He hit the power button, but no luck. The thing had lost its last volt probably right around the time the steaks had reached full ripeness.
But that was fine. All he needed was a single AA battery. And then he could text-message the cops or an ambulance or something. YEAH, OFFICER? MY BOSS JUST GOT SHOT IN THE HEAD. THINK YOU CAN SEND SOMEBODY UP? And get off this floor already.
Where did they keep batteries around here?
Amy Felton. She was always good for stuff like that.
There was a knock at the door, two quick taps, just as Molly was about to open it. She paused, then placed her hand on the sturdy silver knob. Opened the door an inch, then pressed the lock button. Then she opened it the rest of the way and quickly pressed her body into the space between the door and the frame. Whoever was there would notice the missing pane of glass, and the leather belt hanging over the ledge. The sticky August air was already flooding into Amy’s office.
Molly bumped into Jamie, who took a nervous step backwards. He looked stunned.
“Jamie.”
“God, are you okay? Is Amy in there?”
“No. She asked me to lock her office door while she went for help.”
“She did? Where?”
“Come with me.”
Molly charged down the hall, giving Jamie zero chance to refuse. He followed her, just as she knew he would. He had a crush on her.
She remembered that night a few months ago, when the staff had been out drinking. Jamie had joined them, which was uncharacteristic of him. They talked; they flirted. He offered to walk her to her car. He wanted to say good night. She pulled back slightly, and that only drew him in further. His breath smelled like beer, and his button-down shirt like a thousand cigarettes. It was difficult for her to pull back, but she did. It wasn’t the right time.
But now …
As she walked by one of the security cameras in the hall, Molly held her hands up in front of her chest. Five fingers on one hand, two on the other.
“Look at that,” McCoy said, sitting in front of a laptop screen 3,500 miles away. “Number seven. She’s going out of order. Now why would she be doing that?”
“Oh, I don’t know. Maybe because the guy knocked on the door moments after Girlfriend hung his coworker out of the window.”
“Yeah, I know that. But someone like Girlfriend could have easily handled this guy. Look at him. He’s a cream puff. I got his file around here somewhere. She was saving him for last. Like dessert.”
“Why?”
“You always take out the toughest targets first. Girlfriend identified the first woman—this Felton woman—as her most formidable target. Despite her fear of heights.”
Keene sipped his tea. He was going to have to get up to pour another cup soon. “I’ve been thinking on that. Seems like a very sloppy move to me. You have the pane of glass shattering on the street below. No telling what that may have hit. There might be six schoolchildren down there, bleeding to death.”
“Not likely. That bank of windows faces north, and there’s nothing down below but a minor street used mostly by delivery trucks. Girlfriend was thinking ahead.”
“Fine, I’ll spot you the glass. But what about the target? Surely, somebody’s going to notice a woman hanging out of a window, no matter how small the street.”
McCoy smiled. “Again, not likely. This is Philly. You ever been there? I have, and the murder rate’s out of control. Plus, the sun’s strong today. A lot of glare.”
“Be serious now.”
“Seriously? I think this is Girlfriend showing off. It was a tremendously ballsy move. Because you’re right—you can’t keep that kind of thing under wraps for long. Somebody’s going to look up and see that woman. It may take a minute. It may take an hour. But you can bet that somebody’s going to spot her and start freaking out, and boom. That’s where the clock really starts to tick.”
His name was Vincent Marella …
… and he was reading a paperback thriller. He’d found it in the changing area. Someone had left it on a table with a few other books, the idea being that other employees of 1919 Market would bring in their old books and get a swap thing going. Of course, that never happened. Only the original guy brought in books. And that was it. Vincent guessed that there weren’t many readers on the security staff.
The book wasn’t bad, actually. It was called Center Strike, and was about a gang of high-class yet tough-as-nails thieves who tried to loot the gold stored in vaults beneath the rubble of the World Trade Center within forty-eight hours of the collapse. Completely ridiculous, Vincent knew. A red burst on the cover promised that the book was BASED ON ACTUAL EVENTS. Yeah. Right.
Reading stuff like this was both exciting and unnerving. Exciting because one of the book’s heroes was …wait for it … a World Trade Center security guard, who also happened to be a Gulf War vet who single-handedly saved his platoon from a nutty Iraqi general who had held them captive in the desert.
It was unnerving because … well, Vincent was a security guard in a thirty-seven-floor skyscraper in a major American city.
He wasn’t a Gulf vet—he’d grown up between wars. Too young for Vietnam, too old for the Gulf. And he’d never had anybody hold him captive.
Still, he’d seen some action. Not too long ago, in fact.