In a Heartbeat (17 page)

“That was different,” she said. “I don’t think you can learn to dance over the Internet.”

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In a Heartbeat

“You’ll never learn if you keep turning down invitations.”

Angie felt her lips turn up in a sneer. Little did he know. She’d jump at an invitation to dance if it was from anyone else but him. But then no one else had ever asked.

“Tell you what.” He slipped the car into drive and stared straight ahead while negotiating their way out of the lot. “How about I let you practice dancing with me. That way when a real date comes along. You won’t refuse him.”

“This isn’t a real date?” A withering sense of disappointment fluttered about her ribcage.

“We’re friends, remember?” He smiled at her quickly, then turned his attention back to the road. “I’m asking you to this dance as a friend, not a date. I don’t see how Falstaff can object to two friends supporting such a worthy cause as a museum fundraiser, but we’ll be disguised anyway, so he’ll never know. What do you say?”

She watched the fall foliage pass by the window. The contagious pop rhythm from the car radio worked its way down to her toes, tapping within her shoes. A part of her longed to accept his invitation, yet another part, the more rational and sensible part, argued that accepting would be a mistake. She glanced over to him.

“Won’t you be embarrassed when I step all over your feet? I’m serious about not being able to dance, and Halloween is in two weeks.”

“We’ll work something out.” She thought she saw his dimple deepening. “We can always try a few practice dancing sessions after work.”

“What kind of costume?” It couldn’t hurt to pretend she was going.

“Any kind you like, scary, fancy, just say the word.”

“I have a scar.” She traced the incision that bisected her chest. He reached across and took her hand.

“Don’t worry,” he said. “No one will see.” He squeezed her hand with such tenderness she feared the familiar embarrassing tears would return.

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Her heart beat so furiously she was afraid it would leap from her chest into his lap. She wanted this. She wanted it so bad. Odds were such an opportunity would never come again. If there was one thing she understood, it was odds. A shiver slipped through her at the thought of lost chances, lost dreams, lost opportunities to experience life.

Falstaff hadn’t objected to her attending this football game. Heck, he encouraged it. Would there really be a problem with her going to a dance with a client? After all, it benefited a worthy cause.

“Trust me,” he said with another squeeze.

She tried to see his eyes, but he continued to watch the road. She had already trusted several secrets to him. What was one more, more or less? She bit her lip and made a leap of faith.

“Yes, I’ll go with you.” A wave of excitement tingled through her, drowning out her previous apprehensions.

That night, her mother called. Angie answered after the first ring.

“Guess what, Mom? I’m a modern day Cinderella. I’m going to a ball!”

Raymond watched the lights come on in the empty house and noted the time in his black book. All alone in a big old house. She was almost making this too easy. Soon, very soon, he’d meet her face-to-face.

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“Are you sure about this?” Max stood in the hallway, rain from his wet coat dripped puddles on the floor. “You look entirely too cheerful to be going out in this weather, especially on some wild goose chase. It’s raining cats and dogs out there.” He glanced down at Oreo and scratched between her ears. “No offense, Oreo.”

“Germs cause viruses, not rain,” she snapped. At his crestfallen expression, she reminded herself this was Max, not Stephen or her mother. She softened her tone. “Cheer up. At least it’s not snowing.” Oreo sat at her feet, tail swishing with enthusiasm. “Sorry, girl. You can’t come with us. I doubt Max wants wet dog hair all over his car seats. You guard the place.”

She locked the front door, pulled her raincoat hood up over her hair and followed Max to his car. In truth, she had misgivings about the weather, but she had been in such a good mood since accepting Hank’s invitation that even the rain couldn’t bring her down. “Thanks for coming with me, Max. Especially as we’re off the clock.”

“I couldn’t very well let you do this thing by yourself. Ritchton Street isn’t in the safest neighborhood.” He opened the driver’s side door and slid in behind the wheel. “Although I doubt any self-respecting crook would be out in this mess.” Angie fastened her seatbelt and he turned the key, revving the motor slightly before pulling the car out on the street.

Icy, cold rain pelted the windshield, occasionally drowning out the rock and roll playing on the car radio.

“Okay, you’ve made me wait long enough.” Max glanced at her quickly. “What happened after I left the game yesterday?”

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“What do you mean?”

“I mean, between you and Renard. You’ve got a smile about as wide as you’re tall so I’m thinking something good happened.” He winked at her.

The smile froze on her face. A rock of discomfort settled in her throat.

Was she so transparent? She hadn’t even told her mother she had an escort for the ball, letting her think instead that she was going solo. How could Max have figured it out? Her good humor vanished like the red taillights of passing cars.

“You got him to agree to additional services, right? Am I right?” In the dim dashboard light, she saw Max beaming. “That means your promotion is in the bag, right? When were you going to tell me? We should be out celebrating, not prowling around some old warehouse.”

“Well, he hasn’t exactly committed yet,” she said, scrambling to think how to keep Max from discovering her secret.

“What did he say? Man, when I think about his expression when Falstaff first introduced you, I doubt Renard would have believed you if you said rain was wet. Now he’s eating out of your hand. I bow to the master.” He tipped his head toward her. “What exactly did you say?”

“I’m…I’m not sure it’s anything specific that I said.” What could she say? And what would she say to Max if the promotion fell through? She shifted the seatbelt across her chest. She hadn’t deliberately lied to anyone but felt caught in a web of deception just the same.

“Well, then it must be something that you did.” He wriggled his eyebrows in a suggestive leer then glanced her way. “Don’t look so stricken, I’m only teasing.” He laughed. “After all those lectures you’ve given me about social involvement with clients, I know there’s nothing going on that isn’t strictly business.”

Thank heavens it was dark in the car, the tips of her ears burned from embarrassment. Max didn’t know how close he was to the truth.

“Look, there’s the exit.” Angie pointed to a lit green sign. “Maybe we better focus on the job ahead.”

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“Good idea. What exactly are we looking for?” Max asked after a quick glance in the rear view mirror.

“I’m not sure.” Angie snuggled deeper into her coat, not knowing if the rain, her discomfort at Max’s suggestions, or anxiety over this spy mission caused the icy shivers down her back. Whatever it was, she needed to focus on the present task. She took a deep breath. “Something about this direct ship business just doesn’t feel right. Maybe if I see that this is a legitimate business, I can accept Wilson’s explanations and put this audit to rest.”

“At least till we come back to do year-end work in February. Hey, if you get promoted to Audit Manager, do you think I’ll be in charge of the rest of the audit?”

Apparently, Max’s enthusiasm wasn’t entirely based on her good fortune. No wonder he wanted to celebrate. “Is that why you agreed to coming down here off the clock?”

“I figured a little advanced client knowledge wouldn’t hurt if your promotion came through.”

They turned off a well-lighted thoroughfare into a dark, dismal neighborhood. It wouldn’t improve with daylight, she thought, any more than the rain would wash away the grime and filth from the graffiti-marked walls. The car’s headlights illuminated puddles that percolated with raindrops like primeval ooze. No other car passed or followed them along the street.

They turned onto Ritchton Street. Max squinted uneasily at the windshield. “Angie, I’m not so sure this is a good idea. It’s not too late to turn around.”

“What was that address?” she asked, squinting out the side window.

“Do you see any building numbers?”

“Twenty-six, thirty-three,” Max answered. “Should be on your side.”

They drifted cautiously down the street, each scouring the old brick turn-of-the-century buildings for identification.

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“There it is.” She tapped on the window, pointing to white numbers tacked above a windowless metal door. Max pulled into the deserted truck dock, dodged some broken glass, then shifted into park.

“There’s no business sign, no identification,” Angie said. “Don’t you think that’s strange?”

“In this neighborhood?” Max studied the surroundings through the car windows. “It was probably stolen. Look,” he turned to face her, “I’m sure your brother wouldn’t want you here at this time of night. Why don’t we just go home?”

His words just sealed her commitment. “There’d be too many questions if we came during the day. Besides, as soon as we wrap up this interim work, we’ll both be assigned to new jobs. No…” She pulled on the door handle. “We came all this way, let’s get it over with.”

Max sighed and turned off the engine. With that one motion, the headlights switched off and plunged them into darkness. “Did you at least bring a flashlight?” he asked. Angela patted the bulge in her coat pocket and exited the car.

The hungry emptiness swallowed her flashlight beam.
Big help this is
, she thought. The darn thing probably illuminated her more then the path in front of her. Avoiding the deeper puddles of water, she carefully made her way to the front door and twisted the doorknob. Locked.

Max joined her with a second flashlight. “What’s the plan?”

Plan? What plan? She wasn’t sure what to look for, much less how to find it. Rain pelted her shoulders and arms and dripped off her nose. If only she could see inside the building, maybe then she’d be satisfied and they could get out of this downpour. “Let’s find a window.”

“Nothing on this side,” Max said, flashing his narrow beam of light around the front of the two-storied building. Wooden boards covered the places windows might have existed long ago. Angie pointed to an alleyway along the side. “Maybe over there.”

Fortunately, the building blocked much of the wind and stinging rain.

However, the flashlight beams bounced off the thick paint covering the bank of windows along this side of the building. Heavy security bars on 130

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the outside of the first floor windows prevented close inspection. They followed the length of the building down the dark alley littered with refuse and broken wooden pallets.

“Bingo.” Max pointed his flashlight beam to a multi-paned section about eight feet off the ground. A jagged shadow in the far middle pane suggested a broken window, at least the light disappeared into the murky interior.

“Great. But how can we get up there?” Angie trailed her light down to the base of the building and a few feet further down the alley. The beam found an industrial refuse container on the opposite side of the alley, about a foot down from the broken window. “Can we do something with this?”

“We can try.”

In spite of the intense urine and decaying trash scent, they pushed against the sticky metal, trying to move it closer to the window. They only dislodged a few fist-sized rats that skittered out from behind the container. Angie shrieked and jumped back, dropping her flashlight in the process. It rolled underneath the metal box, providing heat and light for a whole generation of rats.

“Don’t worry about it,” Max said, looking at the faint beam shining under the container. “It wasn’t helping much anyway. Besides, this isn’t working.”

She agreed, holding her sticky hands out to catch the rain before smearing them down the front of her coat. She studied the industrial-sized rat home. “Maybe if you give me a boost, I could climb on top of that thing and see through the window.”

“You? No way.” Max shook his head even as Angie continued her protests. “If anyone is climbing, it makes more sense if I do it. I’m taller and you have a bum leg.” He scanned the bin. “Look, there’s a lid. If we can get it closed, I can stand on it.” Angie grabbed two wooden planks from a nearby broken pallet, then handed one of them to Max. Together, they pushed the heavy metal lid around on its hinge until gravity pulled www.samhainpublishing.com 131

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the lid the rest of the way. Bang! The metal shuddered and belched fetid trash stench.

Max handed her his flashlight.

“Be careful,” she said with unspoken gratitude

Using a broken crate to give him some extra lift, Max hoisted his lean body to the container rim before bracing himself with the building wall.

Feeling helpless below, Angela kept her flashlight trained on the rim of the container. A can hit the pavement behind her. She spun around, swinging her flashlight beam erratically at the opening of the alley.

Nothing.

“Hey, come back here with that,” Max yelled. “Don’t leave me in the dark.”

“Sorry, I thought I heard something.” Her hood slipped back allowing a trickle of liquid ice to work its way down her back. She shivered.

“Probably a cat searching for dinner.”

“Well, he’s found the right place.” Max balanced himself precariously on the corner of the container. “Can you hand me a light?”

Angela fixed her hood, then stretched on tiptoes to give him the flashlight. He trained it on the broken window.