"Yeah." Kerry closed in behind her and put a hand on Dar's back. "I found this little creep in your office."
"My office?" Dar pressed harder. "Get the lights on."
"Dar, they're controlled by computer." Kerry reminded her.
"You're an IT professional." Dar gritted her teeth. "So go hack them."
"Yeesh. Okay." Kerry ducked into Dar's office, disappearing from view.
Her captive began to struggle, attempting to throw Dar off her. "Let me go, or you'll be sorry!"
Dar wasn't sure what was more painful, the cliché or the ache in her foot. The woman got an arm free and swatted at her. Dar blocked the blow with her forearm, then she grabbed hold of the other woman's shirt and swung around, slamming her opponent against the opposite wall.
"Bitch! You're so going to regret this!" The woman growled, grappling with Dar and trying to kick her.
"Not as much as you're going to regret this, or I'm going to enjoy it." Dar wrenched her arm free and took a step back, setting herself before she let loose with a right cross. It smacked into the woman's jaw, bouncing her head against the wall and knocking her out.
Dar simply released her and allowed her to slide down the wall to the ground. She shook her hand and flexed the fingers, silence once again settling over the darkened hall. "Ker?" She called out, wanting very badly to have the lights come on so she could see if she knew the woman.
"Hang on." Kerry's voice drifted in from her office. "I hacked into the wrong subroutine. Give me a minute."
"Hmm." Dar glanced around. "What'd you hit, the music system?"
"Plumbing."
Dar winced. "Oh boy." She leaned against the opposite wall as Duks appeared from the darkness to stand next to her. "It's gonna be a long night."
"Ah." Kerry rattled a few more keystrokes in, and was rewarded by a flood of light that made her wince. She straightened up from Maria's desk and stepped around it, heading for the door to the hallway. Rounding it, she hastened to Dar's side and they stood together looking down at the intruder.
It was a woman, tall with a lithe build and short cropped dark hair, dressed in a non-descript Dickeys shirt and trousers with well worn work shoes.
"Know her?" Dar asked.
"Um...no," she replied. "She's not the usual night gal on this floor."
"Considering the night gal is a night guy, no," Dar agreed. "I don't recognize her either."
"Hmm." Kerry rubbed her jaw. "That's a cleaning staff uniform."
"Uh huh," Dar agreed. "Please don't tell me she was cleaning my office."
Kerry snorted. "Maybe, if she was cleaning your desk drawers from the inside with a flashlight." She looked around. "Where did Duks go?"
"Calling the cleaning supervisor," Dar said. "They've got some explaining to do."
They certainly did. Kerry folded her arms over her chest. "What do we do with her? She's going to come around any minute Dar."
"Call security, I guess. I don't want to tie her up, but we don't know what she's going to do when she comes around, either." She leaned against the wall with one hand, pondering their options. "You okay?" she asked suddenly, looking at Kerry in some concern.
"More or less," Kerry murmured. "You want to duct tape her?"
Dar grimaced. "I'm probably bucking a lawsuit as it is for clocking the little bastard. I'd rather not have cruel and unusual punishment added to it."
"Huh?"
"You ever had to remove duct tape from any part of your body?"
"No." Kerry shook her head, then paused. "Have you?"
"Yes."
"Hmm. How about we lock her in the cleaning closet?" Kerry suggested. "Seems appropriate, and it's close by." She pointed to one in a series of identical doorways. "I don't really want to wrestle any more tonight. I think I pulled something in my back."
"Huh." Dar tried the door and found it open. She pushed it inward, and flipped the lights on, finding nothing more exotic than a mop bucket and a stack of cleaning cloths. There was room in the closet for a cleaning cart, but the cart was missing, presumably elsewhere in the building. "Good idea. Give me a hand."
They dragged the woman's limp body into the closet, laying her down on the tile floor and backing out, pulling the door shut behind them. Dar fished in her pocket and retrieved her keyset, trying the master key on the door and grunting when it turned to a locked position with a satisfying snick. "There."
"Ugh." Kerry leaned against the wall, wincing as she stretched out her lower back muscles.
"Is that the less part of the more?" Dar limped over to her. "You scared me half to death."
Kerry shifted and leaned against Dar instead. "My knight in shining armor," she said. "Boy was I glad to hear you calling my name. I grabbed her and she got away from me."
"Ah."
"I ran after her and got the back of her shirt, and next thing I knew, I felt like I was in a wrestling exhibition."
Duks emerged from a side hallway and walked toward them. "Ah." He looked around. "Did our little friend escape?"
"We put her in the closet." Kerry pointed. "Is the supervisor coming up?"
"He is, indeed," Duks reported. "Especially since he informed me that there should be no person on this floor at this time. I have been told they start cleaning on this floor and work downwards."
Dar nodded. "Makes sense, since I usually see them before I leave."
"Yeah," Kerry agreed.
A hammering from behind the closet door startled all of them. "Let me outta here!" A voice emerged, outraged. "You little bastards! You can't do this to me!"
"Shut up," Duks hammered back. "Or we shall leave you and go get ourselves a beer."
"Count me in," Kerry added. "I was in the copy room when I heard a noise coming from your office. I went in, and there she was, rooting through everything. Who in the hell is this, Dar?"
Dar exchanged glances with Duks. "Should we call the cops?"
Duks pondered this. "Let us wait to see what the cleaning supervisor has to say. He said he...ah." Duks nodded, and looked past them. "Here he is now."
They all turned as a tall, slim man with salt and pepper hair joined them. "Ma'ams, sir," the newcomer said. "I do not understand what is going on here. I signed off on this floor two hours ago."
The hammering started on the inside of the door again. "Bastards!"
The cleaning supervisor started, and took a step back away from the door. "What is this in my closet?"
"Someone in one of your uniforms," Dar informed him. "A woman."
"I have no women on staff this evening." The supervisor protested. "Certainly, I do not keep them on this late. It is not safe. I take care of my girls. They go home no later than eight p.m." He pointed down the hallway, where a cleaning cart, being pushed by an older man was approaching. "See? There is Carlos. He is my man here tonight."
Carlos spotted all of them outside the cleaning closet and stopped, looking puzzled. "Senor?" he asked hesitantly. "Hay un problemo?"
Duks stuck his hands in his pockets and rocked back and forth on the balls of his feet. "I think perhaps we need to call the police then," he admitted. "If this person is not part of your staff, then it is an intruder, and the authorities must be notified."
"You don't want to do that!" The woman's voice inside the closet was muffled. "I'm warning you!"
Kerry put a hand on Dar's arm. "Maybe we should talk to her," she suggested. "The way she's acting is very strange, Dar. I'd expect someone to either be scared poopless, or else be asking for a lawyer."
Dar considered the thought, and had to concede she had a point. The woman's actions had been strange, and maybe there was something to be learned from her. "Okay." She addressed the cleaning supervisor, "I'm going to assume this person just stole one of your uniforms, and maybe someone's ID. I'll find out, and let you know."