She looked over his shoulder. “That’s a personal email address, isn’t it?”
“Sure is.”
She bit her bottom lip in excitement.
“Now we need to go through the trashed trash.” He opened up another screen that she didn’t understand, one filled with code, then clicked back and forth between that and the email page a few times.
“The trashed trash? Do you mean his emails that were cleared from the trash bin? You can get to those?”
“Maaay-be.”
While Ryder kept clicking and typing, she went to the window and parted the blinds. No activity in the parking lot. They didn’t have much time, though. Not leaving the office within fifteen minutes meant really cutting it close.
“Here’s something.”
She whirled around and, in a flash, was back at his side.
“What?”
“This email.” He pointed at it, and she read over his shoulder.
Brief, it was to an email address with no name attached to it. It talked about meeting to make “a trade,” and gave an address.
“Hm.” She frowned. “That could be about anything. When was it sent?”
He pointed at the date. “A few weeks ago.”
“Wait. That address…” It hit her. “I think I know that place. It’s a little office building. When Mr. Romano and I went to a conference together recently, he stopped there.”
“Stopped and did what?”
She shook her head. “I don’t know. I waited in the car while he went in. He didn’t have anything, and he didn’t come back with anything.”
“Could be he was checking on something.”
The weight of that settled, and Ryder slowly grinned.
“We need to get to that building,” he said.
“Yeah.” She licked her dry lips. “Can you send that email to us both and then delete any evidence of doing that?”
“Pfft. Please. Of course I can.”
“Excellent.” She checked the window again. “We need to go soon.”
“Is someone out there?”
“No.” The anxiety in her belly grew, though. “We just don’t have much time.”
“Okay… and… done.”
“Great.”
He powered off the computer. “No one will ever know we were here.”
She felt the piece of metal in the filing cabinet lock told a different story, but they didn’t have time to worry about that. Leaving the office, they locked the door behind them and jogged toward the exit.
“Let’s take the stairs.” Viv pointed at the exit stairs. “It’ll let us out by the trash, where no one ever parks. Just in case someone shows up.”
They flew down the stairs, elation filling her heart. They’d had success! There had to be something in that nondescript office building. They might not even need to break in there to find out what it was. Could be, all that was needed was an anonymous tip sent to the cops.
“Get out here, now!” Markus shouted over the walkie-talkie.
Viv slipped on a step. Her feet started to go out under her, and she caught the railing right in time.
“What?” She turned to look at Ryder, whose face was drawn tight.
“We’re exiting through the stairs on the northwest side,” Ryder said into the walkie-talkie. “What’s up?”
“Cars. Two of them.”
“They could be employees.” Viv’s voice shook.
“Do HW employees carry assault rifles?” Markus asked.
Her blood went cold.
“No,” she whispered. “No, they don’t.”
Chapter 20
Markus
“Come on,” Markus said between tight teeth.
Crouched behind the bushes near the garbage bins, he shot a glance toward the front of the building. He couldn’t see the two cars that had pulled up containing men wearing bandanas over their faces and holding guns, but they had only pulled up thirty seconds before.
The sound of car doors slamming made him cringe. Not good.
Suddenly, the door to HW’s emergency exit staircase burst open and Viv and Ryder came running out. Standing, Markus waved an arm at them.
The second they were within reach, he grabbed Viv’s hand and started moving.
“Stay low,” he said, running at a crouch through the foliage.
“That was close,” Ryder huffed.
Markus’ hackles raised. They weren’t out of the woods yet.
“How many?” Ryder asked.
“Two cars. At least five, all armed from what I could see.” He glanced over his shoulder and clocked Viv’s pale face.
“I think I’m gonna…” Instead of finishing, she vomited onto the ground.
Markus cursed. “I’ll carry you.”
“No, I’m fine.” She wiped her mouth and signaled for them to keep moving. “Morning sickness.”
“I knew this was a bad idea,” he hissed.
“We found something,” she said.
He didn’t have time to answer. A man shouted behind them.
“Run!” Markus pushed Viv in front of him.
The three of them took off, darting behind some palm trees. Bark exploded from the force of a bullet. Markus pumped his arms, everything white noise.
He had to get Viv out of there. Even if he didn’t make it, she had to.
There was more shouting, but it sounded further away. The trio ran across the empty lot in the middle of the block.
“We need to split up,” Ryder said, sucking in air as they ran.
Not slowing the pace, Markus caught his friend’s eye and nodded. They veered off, Ryder crossing the street and Markus and Viv going down the sidewalk, in the direction of his car.
“What about Ryder?” Viv asked breathlessly.
Markus unlocked his car from a distance, and they scrambled to get into it. “Don’t worry. He’s just as capable as us, if not more so.”
He didn’t bother buckling up. The second their asses were in the seats, he tore rubber. The tires clipped the curb, and an old man walking a dog stared in shock.
“Where are we going?” Viv asked, voice trembling.
He glanced in the rearview mirror. No cars.
Not yet, anyway.
“First things first, we need to lose them. You buckled?” He cut across traffic, eliciting honks from several different drivers.
After a couple blocks on a main road, he turned into a residential neighborhood that he knew had several exits and slowed to a crawl in order to blend in.
“Did you trip an alarm?” he asked.
“No.” Though they were no longer speeding, she clutched the handlebar above her head like her life depended on it. “I’ve gone in there early before. With my access card, it shouldn’t have been a problem.”
“Dagger must have had someone watching the building.” He worked his jaw. This was all his fault. He shouldn’t have let the two of them go in there.
“Maybe.” She glanced behind them. “Do you think we lost them?”
“Hard to say. There could be scouts in other areas, too.”
“Ryder found something. An email about a trade happening at a certain office building. I know where it is, too. Mr. Romano—Dagger—and I stopped there on the way to a conference a few weeks ago. I waited in the car, though.”