Breathe. It wasn’t like he hadn’t worked overwatch on missions before. That had been his fucking job. But this time he was unarmed. If things went sideways, he couldn’t just take out the threat.
Then again, he didn’t want to shoot Garth or Roger. The guys were innocent in all of this.
Visible through Scott’s high-powered binoculars, Tara continued her charade by enlisting Garth’s help to carry the remaining trays inside the building. She had executed the plan perfectly, and the guard had fallen for it. Scott wouldn’t hesitate to tell that to Kurt on her behalf. He owed her big time, for this and everything else she’d done to help him and Valerie.
Now, she needed to get the hell out of there.
He glanced at his watch. The roving guard should be back within the next three minutes. Scott would text Valerie when Tara was gone. Until then, Valerie had to hide out at the bottom of the stairwell on the first floor, in a small space under the stairs.
From that vantage point she’d be able to hear the guard return to the main lobby, and she’d have easy access to the emergency exit.
Tara returned to her car, limping slightly—hopefully she was faking the injury—and drove away. Breathing a sigh of relief, Scott sent the text and drove the gray Accord around the edge of the parking lot, slowly approaching the building from the right side. If he arrived too soon, the guards would notice him on the perimeter cameras. Too late, and Valerie would be exposed with the alarm blaring.
He kept the car to a crawl along the front of the building, his phone glowing blue in the dark as he kept his head down. Assuming the guards were paying attention to the cameras rather than the food, he tried to look like a lost man consulting his GPS.
He stopped and unlocked the car doors, still staring at his phone as if nothing were amiss.
Valerie burst from the door followed by an ear-shattering wail.
The siren intensified as she opened the passenger door and jumped inside. As soon as her door shut, Scott whipped a U and stomped on the gas.
“Did you get it?” he asked, fishtailing as he turned onto the main road and aimed for the on-ramp to Highway 28.
She laughed, sounding a little bit hysterical, and patted her hip. “Got it.”
Traffic was light, even on the Dulles toll road, and they made it back to Dan’s apartment in Falls Church in less than half an hour. Scott made sure Valerie got into the apartment safely, and then drove the car to a crowded street about two miles away, left the keys in the ignition, and limp-walked back to the apartment, his injured leg throbbing the whole way.
The crisp air burned his lungs, and he pushed through the pain, driving out the chronic frustration and anger of the last few days in his eagerness to return to Valerie.
How, in the middle of the biggest goatfuck of his life, had he met the perfect woman?
His smile came unbidden and he breathed easier, pushing himself to move faster under the golden lamplight. All around him, families sat in their living rooms, celebrating their love for each other, sharing their gratitude.
Scott wanted that with Valerie.
After circling the apartment building to check for surveillance, he entered 9D and locked the door behind him still breathing hard.
Her computer sat on the breakfast bar, its screen dark under the fluorescent kitchen lights, but she wasn’t in any of the front rooms. His gut tingled in alarm. “Valerie?”
No answer.
He bolted to the dark bedroom where he found her curled in a ball in the far corner, staring at the floor.
“Hey.” He crouched in front of her, painfully aware of how sweaty he was. “What’s wrong?” he asked, dread etching his insides.
“The emails are gone.”
“What do you mean they’re gone?” Scott’s voice was level but grave.
God, how could she have been such a fool? Her enemy was smart. Apparently, smarter than her. She had failed herself, and worse, she’d failed Scott. “I’m sorry. The drive was completely overwritten with duplicates of a single image file.”
She cringed and shook her head.
“What?” he prompted.
Staring at her hands, she said, “It was a grainy picture of me ‘loitering’ in front of the cubicle where I hid the flash drive. Duncan must have had someone review the security tapes after I ran.”
“Or maybe he had someone watching you on the inside too.”
