Page 158

I checked the alternate exits.

Rear lane compromised.

Side access uncertain.

Roof possible.

I turned toward Talia.

Her expression had changed.

No panic.

Focus.

She was waiting for information.

Not orders.

I remembered.

“Three males are covering the obvious exits,” I said. “We have at least one route they may not know.”

“Which?”

“Roof.”

Darev glanced at me. “There is no roof exit.”

“There is now.”

He stared.

Talia almost smiled.

Then the front door opened.

Not shattered.

Opened.

Someone had the access code.

Darev’s face went pale beneath the gray of his skin. “That is not possible.”

I drew my weapon.

The old irritation about recognition disappeared beneath something colder.

The clinic was private. Darev’s access code was private, and no one should have known I was here.

Yet footsteps entered the outer room.

Slow.

Controlled.

Searching.