“He does like bright, shiny objects.”
“I noticed. No more delays. Understood?”
“Absolutely. No more delays.”
Owen closed the mirror door quietly but very firmly and led the way using the flashlight on his phone to navigate.
She resisted the urge to try to defend Sebastian and herself. There was no good reason to test the patience of their rescuer, at least not while they were in the process of being rescued.
“If someone is monitoring all the exit points, how do we get out of the hotel?” she asked, determined to change the subject.
“The stairs at the far end go down to the basement. There’s a hole-in-the-wall entrance into the Underworld. I’m betting the people who are after you don’t know about it, at least not yet.”
“You’rebettingon this plan?”
“It wasn’t possible to verify every single detail. I had to work fast.”
“And you know about this tunnel entrance how?”
“I used it to get into the hotel tonight. There was a note about it on the old construction plans.”
“If that’s the case, why did you come through the door of my room?” she asked, a fresh wave of suspicion welling up. “Why not use the mirror door?”
“Three reasons.” Owen stopped at the end of the passage and started down a narrow flight of steps. “Number one, there was no way to know if that door was locked from your side. Number two, I was afraid that if I suddenly appeared in your bathroom, you would shoot first and ask questions later.” He paused. “I didn’t want to end up like the dead guy in the shower.”
“I told you, I didn’t kill him,” she said. “But you were probably right. I was hiding in there because I was expecting someone to break into my room. If you had opened that mirror door, I would have rezzed the flamer out of sheer panic.”
“The third reason was because I wanted to do a little recon.”
“Is that how you were able to, um, take out the front desk clerk?”
“Yes. Just to be clear, he’s unconscious, not dead like, say, the guy in your shower.”
“I can explain—” She broke off as a large metal canister appeared in the beam of the flashlight. “What’s that?”
“A storage tank for the hallucinogenic vapor. Looks like there’s one behind the wall of each room.” Owen paused at the top of another narrow staircase. “No more talking.”
She heard the muffled thud of heavy boots accompanied by a harsh male voice.
“Let’s go. We’ve waited long enough. They’ll be hallucinating like mad by now, begging to be rescued from the nightmare. Don’t forget your gas mask. The boss said the vapor works fast.”
“How the fuck did a simple grab-and-go job end up going to green hell?” a second man grumbled.
“We’ll be sure to ask Burley and Hoyle, if they’re still alive. But I wouldn’t count on it. We heard two mag-rez shots a few minutes ago.”
“We got bad intel on this op. No one said there was competition for the woman.”
The pounding footsteps were very close. Alice realized the two men were now directly overhead on the lobby stairs. In another couple of minutes they would open the door of her room and discover that she and Owen were gone. There was no way to know what they would do next, but it seemed reasonable to expect that they would launch a thorough search of the hotel.
Owen was right. Definitely time to hit the road.
He was already halfway down the basement stairs, the beam of his flashlight bouncing off the treads. She grabbed the rail and flew after him. Sebastian bobbed along ahead of them, the mirror gripped triumphantly in one paw. He was fluffed and cheerful. She knew that as far as he was concerned, they were playing hide-and-seek. For dust bunnies, everything was a game right up until it wasn’t. At that point they got very serious, very fast. As the old adage held,By the time you see the teeth, it’s too late.
They were halfway across the basement when the hotel’s emergency intercom crackled to life. A man’s voice came from the speaker.
“Attention, Ms. Radstone. You are in great danger. We know you’re here in the hotel and that there is someone with you. The individual is not your friend. He was hired to kidnap you with the intention of holding you for ransom. When he gets what he wants, he will kill you. My team was sent here to protect you. We’re going tostart a room-by-room search. You must believe me, Ms. Radstone. Your life depends on it.”
Alice tried to ignore the voice. This was no time for second guesses. She had made the decision to trust Owen, at least until she and Sebastian were out of the hotel and into the relative safety of the Underworld. Once they were in the psi-infused tunnels, she would have options.
