I have to do something. Now.
Then Alden caught a glimpse of movement in the well of the staircase, behind Craig.
Alden kept his gaze focused on the unhinged assistant while counting down in his head. “Can you stop it?”
“I could, but why would I?”
Alden took a step toward the desk.
“Oh no you don’t,” Craig snapped, lifting the gun into firing position.
Forty-nine … forty-eight … forty-seven …
And that was when Roz stepped up from the stairs at the other end of the room and called, “Craig?”
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Roz wasn’t sure she understood what was going on, but when she entered the side door on the lower floor of the garage building, poised to climb to Craig’s apartment, she was ready if things went south. Or at least she thought she was ready. Strength in numbers, right? And strength in the device in her hand.
She looked up the stairs. Voices drifted down to her, but she couldn’t make out the words. She couldn’t see much, just the ceiling of the apartment.
As she crept up the steps, the light abruptly changed, pulsating red. She blinked. Nope, it wasn’t just her. It really was flashing red. Craig wasn’t holding a rave. And there wasn’t an ambulance parked up there. So what was going on?
She stopped just shy of the top and peeked through the short railing, taking in the cluttered apartment and the two men in the middle. Alden’s brow scrunched with concern as he faced Craig.
“Can you stop it?” he asked Craig, whose back was to her.
Stop what?
“I could, but why would I?” Craig told him.
This was the guy who went to bomb tech school. Who knew all the ways to kill someone as the researcher for Enolia’s books. Roz didn’t know what “it” was, but it probably wasn’t good. So as Craig snapped again at Alden, she climbed the last couple of steps and called out.
“Craig?”
Craig spun toward Roz.
That’s when she saw the gun. And time slowed as several things happened at once, flickering like an old movie, but in red thanks to the po-po-style spinning beacon on the table.
Alden jumped forward and went for Craig’s wrist from behind, pushing up the hand holding the gun, and it fired: BANG!
A puff of dust drifted down from the ceiling.
As Craig struggled with Alden, Roz ran forward a few steps, lifted Enolia’s Taser, aimed and pulled the trigger.
The wires shot forward, punching barbs into Craig’s chest.
He stiffened in an instant, and his eyes glazed over. He groaned, dropping the gun. Then he fell, his head slamming into the table on his way down to the floor.
“Get out, Roz!” Alden shouted.
“What? Why?”
“This whole place is going to blow in, like, thirty-five seconds!”
Her heart flipped. “Can you stop it?” The same question he’d asked Craig.
Alden glanced down at the computer. “I don’t know how. We’ve gotta go!”
