“She isn’t confused about anything,” Hale muttered. “She made it quite clear that she couldn’t wait to finish this job so she can get the hell out of Dallas and away from me. I doubt she’ll go out of her way to ever see me again.”
“Huh.” Mike seemed to consider that. “What does Karissa look like?”
“What does she look like?”
“Yeah. Describe her.”
Confused why his pack mate would care, Hale nevertheless described Karissa as best he could. “Five seven and slender with long, wavy, brown hair down to the middle of her back. Piercing green eyes, an amazing smile, and dimples.”
Hale hadn’t realized how far overboard he’d gone with his description until Mike chuckled.
“What’s so funny?” he asked almost sullenly.
“Nothing,” Mike said, still grinning. “It’s just that the woman you insist never wants to see you again was at the station house today watching you.”
Hale thought for a minute that Mike was joking, but when his pack mate didn’t laugh, he realized his friend wasn’t messing with him. He sat up straighter.
“Seriously?”
Mike nodded. “She was on the roof of the station house. I didn’t notice her until you, Trey, and Carter had taken off after the van, but I get the sensation she was up there the whole time.” He frowned. “I can’t believe I didn’t smell her. Or hear her, for that matter. But from the look on her face, it was obvious she was worried about you.”
Hale did a double take. He opened his mouth to say Mike had to be imagining that but closed it again. While he doubted Karissa was worried about him, he did wonder why she’d been at the police station. Maybe Tamm and his crew were involved with the hit on Patterson. But then why go after gang members, mobsters, and shoot up a club?
“What do you think I should do?” Hale asked. “About Karissa, I mean.”
Mike didn’t say anything for a long time. Then he reached into the pocket of his uniform cargo pants and pulled out his wallet. Taking out a slip of paper, he stood and walked over to Hale’s desk. “All I can tell you is that if Karissa isThe One, don’twaste time screwing around and messing it up or you’ll regret it.”
It sounded like Mike was speaking from personal experience. But before Hale could ask, Mike tossed the piece of paper on his desk. It was an address.
“This is the hotel where Karissa is staying,” he said. “It’s one of those big extended-stay places near Market Center. Go talk to her.”
Hale picked up the paper, staring at the address as Mike walked out of the bullpen, leaving him alone with his thoughts and the perplexing question of whether he should follow his pack mate’s advice or not.
Chapter 7
“Cameras and sensors are all clear,” Deven’s voice announced over Karissa’s earpiece. “I’m not seeing any unexpected movement anywhere along the top four floors.”
“Sounds good,” Karissa said, slowly scanning the large ballroom and all the expensively dressed people filling the space. “I’m still going to take a walk through the food prep area in the back, and then one floor down to the kitchen and service level. I don’t expect the hit man to make a move in a place like this, but if he does, he’ll have to come through there.”
“You’re not getting one of your feelings, are you?” Deven asked, and she could hear the worry in his voice. “Should we get Patterson to the safe room?”
Karissa looked across the ballroom, where Patterson and his son were chatting with several men and women of the wealthy variety. They were chatting and smiling without a care in the world, though she noticed that both he and Glenn would occasionally glance over to make sure she was still nearby.
She shook her head only to remember that herbrother was sitting in a security room all the way down on the first floor of the hotel where tonight’s society gala was taking place and therefore obviously couldn’t see her.
“No need for that,” she said, heading for the nearest exit to the ballroom. “I’m merely being cautious.”
Glenn must have caught the move because he immediately looked at her in alarm. She smiled and shook her head again, making a hand gesture she hoped was reassuring. The moment she was out of the ballroom, she turned to one of the plainclothes security guards posted there.
“I’m going to do a security sweep of the service floor. Keep eyes on Mr. Patterson,” she told him. “Don’t let him leave the ballroom without at least three guards escorting him. Understood?”
The man nodded, then turned his attention back to his area of responsibility, watching the ebb and flow of at least fifty people milling around the grand atrium in front of the ballroom. Karissa slowly made her way through the crowd, bypassing the elevators and the food prep area she’d mentioned to Deven, heading instead for the stairwell in the far southwest corner of the hotel, letting her instincts tell her which direction to go.
Karissa had gotten a strange feeling about the gala the moment she’d seen it on the agenda. She found it difficult to believe the hit man wouldmake a move in a place this crowded, stuffed to the gills with rich, powerful people and their security guards. But something had told her she needed to be here tonight. So here she was, dressed to the nines in a fancy pantsuit, her throwing knives carefully hidden away in little pockets sewn into the jacket, trying to figure out what her instincts were telling her to do.
Reaching the stairwell, Karissa paused for a moment, glancing up toward the steps that led to the roof. The emergency exit up there had been secured, monitored by three different sensors and alarms. If someone had somehow gotten onto the roof without anyone actually seeing them and had tried to come in that way, Deven would have known.
Still, Karissa found her feet taking her that way, heading up the stairs even as she told herself it was a waste of time. Thirty seconds later, she breathed a sigh of relief after confirming that the emergency exit to the roof was still locked tightly, the seal across the door showing no signs of tampering.
