Dead Wrong (25 page)

Another tingle snaked down her spine.

This is ridiculous. It looks exactly the same as during the day except for fewer cars. Get on with it! And, as long as you’ve gone this far, check the damn car. Just make it quick.

She started down the sloping drive to level two and at the bottom of the ramp paused to glance around. The vehicle entrance—with its yellow-and-black-striped guard arm—was a half-block away. Just beyond that, in a pool of a sodium-vapor streetlight, four gangbangers leaned against the concrete wall smoking and listening to a lung-vibrating boom box.

Not Seattle’s best neighborhood.

Before they noticed her, she continued down the ramp past a large ventilation vent with a noisy fan
. Loud enough to mask any screams for help
. Crap, there was no one around to hear her scream anyway. Her gut tightened.
Just pick up Tom’s folder and get out of here
. If she was lucky, the bangers would be gone by then.

At the bottom of the ramp a Cyclone fence enclosed a bicycle rack. Strange, the ceiling light was out, leaving it in deep shadows. She couldn’t remember ever seeing the light out before, and this unnerved her even more. She stopped. Crap, she’d have to pass right by it.

Turn around?

B
UCK LEWIS HEARD the woman’s footsteps before she rounded the corner on the ramp. He didn’t recognize her but assumed she was a doctor or nurse. The interesting thing was there were only two vehicles down here—McCarthy’s and an SUV. Without a word, he double clicked his transmitter, alerting Sikes to a potential situation. Her presence was too coincidental to dismiss. After all, chances were fifty-fifty she was heading for McCarthy’s Beemer. If so, she was their ticket to him. And payback.

D
ON’T BE SILLY.
Sarah was about to start walking again when the uneasy feeling became almost overpowering. As if someone was watching her.

Then a thought hit. Although she hadn’t looked specifically for surveillance cameras on the other floors, she knew probably one or two monitored the garage. Could the cameras be causing this feeling of being watched? And now that she thought about it, the police or security must be monitoring Tom’s car. Which, in a way, felt reassuring.

On the other hand, if she went to the car … Oh crap, they might follow her. Too late now. She started walking again.

Suddenly, it did feel like
someone
—not just a camera—was watching her. Instinctively, she glanced at the enclosure, but nothing seemed different than a few moments earlier. Yet …

S
IKES TOLD HANSEN, “That woman in the call room. I could’ve sworn I heard her talking before we knocked on the door.”

“But you looked inside the room.”

Sikes was thinking about McCarthy escaping through the ceiling. Maybe the fucker had climbed up there. Maybe the bitch stalled to give McCarthy enough time. Sikes started for the door. “Take me back there. Use the shortest route. Now!”

T
OM SLIPPED ON the bouffant-style surgical cap and waited a full two minutes before opening the door far enough to peek into the hall. Deserted. Fifty feet from him a green exit sign glowed above a steel fire door. He’d never used that stairwell, but Sarah assured him it went straight down to the correct floor. The question was, had she thought to make sure the latches allowed the doors to open from the stairs? All he needed was to be trapped in a stairwell like earlier. With his luck, he’d be forced to exit on the first floor directly in front of Sikes. Well, hell, he had no choice.

Besides, odds were these doors weren’t locked because, to save time, doctors routinely took the stairs, especially between only one or two floors. In this wing you could die of old age waiting for an elevator. From overhead came a page for a cardiologist he knew. It made him wonder what it was like in the normal world.

He was out of the room, moving rapidly toward the fire door when he heard two male voices from an intersecting hall. He sped up, making the exit just before the men rounded the corner. Quietly, he let the heavy door shut, then stood for a moment on the landing listening to the echoic quiet of concrete and steel before starting to move.

S
IKES BANGED ON the call-room door, got no answer, and banged again.

Still no answer.

He tried the knob and, to his surprise, found the door unlocked. Inside there was nothing but one bed rumpled as if someone had been sleeping on it. No Sarah Hamilton.

Hansen shrugged. “Don’t know what to say. It’s a call room. Maybe she was called.”

Sikes looked at the ceiling of soundproofing tiles. Nothing looked disturbed. Still. “Maybe. Maybe not.”

S
ARAH RECOGNIZED THE back bumper of a silver BMW dead ahead, the remainder of the car hidden by a concrete column. Three stalls further was a sun-faded black Blazer. She walked to the Blazer and stopped beside the driver’s door and casually groped the pocket of her coat and froze for a beat.

Wide-eyed, she glanced at the pocket, then frantically reached inside the other one. With both hands she patted all pockets, stopped, and momentarily assumed a thoughtful pose. Slowly, turning a complete circle, inspecting the oil-stained cement as if maybe she’d dropped her keys. For the next few seconds she stood, fists on hips, scanning the area around Tom’s car.

Convinced of having given an Oscar-winning performance, she headed back toward the ramp, glanced again at the bicycle bin just as a primitive fear surged through her gut. The hairs on the back of her neck stood up and her breath caught. What was that? A slight movement in the darkness? Or just a sixth sense? She started running for the stairwell.

B
UCK LEWIS SAW the woman pretend to ignore McCarthy’s car. Shit, did she really think she could get away with a bullshit act like that? What a damn joke.

As soon as she started back toward him he shifted his weight to the balls of his feet, ready to spring as she passed. But then she unexpectedly took off sprinting for the stairwell.

He was up and moving, simultaneously keying the throat mike, saying, “Mother Hen, Chick One. Target identified in stairwell southwest one. Request acknowledged.” Damn bitch was quick, already through the door.

He threw open the stairwell door, heard the scramble of shoes on metal above, and hit the first stair when his knee buckled from a searing bolt of pain where McCarthy had clobbered him. Fuck it! He righted himself and pushed through the pain, his dream of payback enough to force him to sprint. Well, limp was more like it, but goddamn it when he caught McCarthy’s bitch he’d beat the living shit out of her until she coughed up the bastard’s hiding place. Then he’d break the traitor’s fucking legs one at a time before Sikes had the pleasure of terminating him.

S
ARAH HEARD THE door bang open below and footsteps coming after her. She sped up, not bothering with the second-level door. She hit the third-floor landing, flung open the stairwell door, and ran to the door to the hospital, grabbed the knob, and twisted it.
Crap!
Locked.

Exactly like it had been two minutes ago. How could she forget!