Return to Poughkeepsie (15 page)

Eve winked at Dan. “You stay right here. I’ll be back.”

As she left the love nest, her driver spoke in her ear. “Mary Ellen likes female company when she uses the restroom.”

Eve shrugged.
This woman wants to organize Beckett’s territory but needs to hold hands in the little girl’s room? Fine.

One of the other ladies joined Eve as they crossed the room. Mary Ellen smiled at them from the far side of the room as they approached. “Let me apologize, ladies. You’ll be able to get back to the party soon.”

Eve glanced around. In a few short minutes, every woman she could see had been stripped. Micki was on top of the table in front of the man who’d had her along with his appetizer, and several others had gathered. She now writhed as the men threw food at her. The first man laughed when a cracker smeared with something landed on her skin and stuck. Cash was tossed on the table.

They were betting on Micki.

Eve closed her eyes briefly and inhaled. She had to let it roll off her back. She focused on Mary Ellen, who was chattering away about how well the party was going. Every door and window was a danger. If someone was moving against this woman, this would be the perfect place to take her down. Obviously this event had been prepared in advance. Her enemies would know she was here.

The bodyguard led them down the hall to the ladies’ lounge.

“We checked it, ma’am. You’re good.” He opened the door for them and let it shut.

Eve didn’t like the set up at all. There was a sitting room with couches and plush carpets before another door that opened into the opulent marble bathroom. There was a huge, frosted-glass window that Eve was sure had their silhouettes dancing on the other side.

Mary Ellen stepped into a stall, still yammering on about the party. Eve stood just outside while the other girl fluffed her hair in the huge mirror.

A creepy feeling settled itself in Eve’s stomach. Something was off. She looked to the ceiling. It was some sort of mock texture, but looking past that camouflage, she could see drop tiles. And the one next to the heating vent was just a few centimeters askew. Trying to seem nonchalant as she swept the room, she thought she spotted at least one hidden camera. Whether it was piping feed to Mary Ellen’s people or someone else was the question.

“How many of the snipers were yours?” Eve asked suddenly.

“Excuse me?” A flush sounded as Mary Ellen opened the stall door.

Mary Ellen pushed past her to get to the sinks. She turned a gold handle as Eve watched the tile above her head move infinitesimally.

Eve made a quick choice. She didn’t know nearly enough about what was going on in Poughkeepsie to let Mary Ellen die yet. So whoever was coming from the ceiling was going down. Eve slipped a hand to her thigh and pulled out her knife. She walked to the mirror behind Mary Ellen and pretended to fix her hair. When she caught her eyes, Mary Ellen stiffened.

Eve whispered, “Hide under the sink, understand?”

Mary Ellen nodded. At least she wasn’t hysterical.

Eve kept her body directly behind Mary Ellen’s as a gloved hand appeared through the now-open tile holding a handgun with a silencer. He likely had a mirror angled for aiming. In one movement she threw her knife, which stuck in her mark—the nerves in the wrist that controlled the hand, and pushed Mary Ellen’s head down like they were playing a vicious game of Duck, Duck, Goose.

The woman scurried under the marble sink and covered her head. Eve turned and dove for the pistol. She flipped on her back as she landed and emptied it into the ceiling, sending bullets through the hole and all the surrounding tiles. She tossed the spent gun aside and motioned for Mary Ellen to stay put. The other woman had joined her below the sink. Eve heard gunfire outside the restroom as well.

She emerged to help Eve drag a couch from the sitting room to give her a boost up into the hole the attackers had made. Eve still had to jump twice to get a handhold and pull her body up. She scrambled and waited a second for the dark hole’s shapes to make sense. The tunnel was larger than an air vent should be.

There were three dead bodies and beyond them a long shaft to traverse. One of the men moaned. Eve pulled her knife from the dead man’s wrist and tucked it back in its holster. She turned and popped her head through the hole, motioning to Mary Ellen. The other woman gave her a boost, but Eve’s arm still screamed with the strain as she hauled Mary Ellen up. Then Eve popped the tile back in place.

“What about Lena?” Mary Ellen didn’t look as horrified as she should have at the dead bodies.

“You’re my priority. Do you know any of these guys?” Eve stole a flashlight from a still hand. After seeing each of the faces, the woman shook her head.

“Let’s go.” Eve crawled over the men, one moaning a last time, stole their weapons, and handed a gun to Mary Ellen.

After they’d crawled a short distance, they heard the gunfire.

“Were you expecting this?” Eve turned her flashlight on Mary Ellen’s face.

“I think in my line of work this is always an option.” She nodded for Eve to continue.

They reached a place where two air vents connected. Eve felt the vibration of someone else crawling in the vent.

She motioned for Mary Ellen to go up the ladder to the next level. Despite their high heels, they managed two stories before Eve tapped Mary Ellen and motioned her onto a new floor. They crawled through this much smaller tunnel until Eve found the first air grate. She pulled out her knife and used it as a screw driver. After a moment the vent dropped onto a desk below, somewhat muffled by the large amount of paper the messy person had left on their desk. The sounds of at least two men ascending the ladder echoed as Eve lowered Mary Ellen into the room.

“Hide.” Eve whispered as she jumped down after her. There was no way to reattach the grate in the time she had, so Eve backed herself into a corner to wait.

The men who entered the room were obviously not as prepared as the first crew. A huge man jumped from the vent hole onto the desk. He was dressed in complete black, almost like a SWAT team member, and the only thing that stopped Eve from killing him was the fact that he’d let her keep her knife earlier in the night. These were Mary Ellen’s men. Another man came in after him and startled at the sight of Eve.

“Ma’am?” he called, looking around.

“She’s in the closet.” Eve tried to listen for more attackers.

Mary Ellen came out and hugged the closest bodyguard before slapping his arm. “Where were you? If she hadn’t been there I’d be dead right now. What do I pay you for?”

The bodyguard started apologizing. “Everything was crazy after you left—”

Eve hushed them. “We need to get her out of here.” She unclasped her shoes and gathered her dress so she could run. She slung an AR-16 over her shoulder and stuffed the pistol in her cleavage. “Let’s go. You two bring up the rear. You have cell phones?” The bodyguards nodded. “Text for more people. Have cars as close as possible in every direction. You guys have a helicopter?” Again they nodded.

“Two, actually.” Mary Ellen smiled at Eve in the way she hated.

They were three stories off the ground. The bodyguards began texting. The fall was doable, but the snipers would be waiting for that. “Get them in the air. You never answered me. How many snipers did you have?” Eve turned on Mary Ellen.

“I believe we have six.”

“Four of them will be dead. Too obvious. Find out if you still have anyone in position.”

Mary Ellen extracted a phone from somewhere in her ensemble, and Eve tried to recall her brief view of the outside as she’d entered this sitting-duck party. There was a walkway between the two buildings on possibly the eighth floor…and that would be the first place she’d put someone to keep Mary Ellen contained if she was running the other side of this show. Even if they got to the roof, the helicopter would be vulnerable the whole time. She formed a half-assed plan and checked the hallway. The minute the door to the office opened, an audible alarm sounded.
Shit.

Eve motioned the bodyguards and Mary Ellen to the stairwell. Then she grabbed Mary Ellen’s arm and yanked her up five flights of stairs. The guards shot the security cameras as they went, and as Eve pulled Mary Ellen back into the main building, one of them kept going. She could hear glass breaking as the fire door closed. When Eve turned back to her, Mary Ellen was out of breath. “You’re bruising my arm,” she panted.

“Shut up.” Eve picked an office and shot the lock. The door popped open and she dragged the desk close to the air grate in the ceiling. This one was much larger. She let it flap open before pulling herself into it. She felt no vibrations, but at best they had only seconds with all the noise they were making. She pulled Mary Ellen up as the remaining bodyguard hoisted her. They were able to walk, though hunched over, through these larger ducts. The bodyguard pulled himself up to join them, and Eve could hear helicopters in the distance.

They moved along quietly until the ducts changed from a shiny silver to a dull one. Eve hoped this meant they were in the adjacent building. She found a vent and popped it out: conference room. She hopped down and checked the exits. This was definitely a different building. The guard dropped Mary Ellen down just as gunshots rang through the vent. The bodyguard returned fire. Eve grabbed Mary Ellen’s arm and ran with her as alarms raged in their ears, and the sprinklers went off, drenching them.

Eve could feel their attackers getting closer. She hoped they wouldn’t be tapped in to security in this new building. Mouse would have done that for Beckett, but not everyone had something even close to a Mouse.

Eve took Mary Ellen straight to the opposite side of the building. This hallway had a long window, and the next building over seemed crazy close. Eve shot the corner of the large pane of glass, then fired two more times until the glass crumbled. Mary Ellen finally looked as scared as she should have all along.

“Watch our backs.” Eve grabbed an extension ladder from a nearby conference room that seemed to be undergoing renovations. She swung it around and settled it on the open window. It was sturdy. And if it could span the distance between buildings, they would have a chance.

Eve took a moment to shoot out the opposing window. It shattered, glass tinkling to the ground far below. She set her pistol down and held the ladder tight while sliding it across the divide. Finally it caught, and Eve settled it on the other building’s façade. The wind was insane, whipping through the windows and ripping at their wet hair.

She motioned to Mary Ellen, then pulled out her knife and cut the woman’s skirt right off her body.

“Excuse me? What the—?” Mary Ellen tried to grab her skirt. Eve heard a door open nearby.

“It would be like a sail out there. Go.” Eve held end of the ladder. “I’ve got you.”

“I’m not going out there.” Mary Ellen crossed her arms.

They heard men shouting. “In here!”

Eve gave Mary Ellen an exasperated look. “Do it, damn it, or I’m shooting you.”

Mary Ellen climbed out onto the ladder. She shakily started across the chasm just as Eve abandoned holding their bridge steady to climb out herself. Eve turned, set her bare feet on either side of Mary Ellen, and faced the men entering the hallway they’d just departed. She fired her gun again and again, unable to see more than shadows.

The wind caught Eve’s dress and pulled her off balance. She took a knee, but still inched backward. The unusual movement shifted the ladder—one wrong move and Eve and Mary Ellen were plummeting to their deaths.

Mary Ellen crawled over the glass-strewn window ledge and into the next building. Eve stepped on the ledge and pressed her back against the façade, barely missing the ladder as it fell from underneath her.

Mary Ellen began firing, giving Eve cover as she came inside. They were running as soon as Eve had her feet on the floor.

“Call one of the ’copters and tell them to go to the roof. Tell another car to meet us in the alley.”

They ran past an elevator, and Eve slapped the down button. After what seemed like an eternity, the doors opened. Once the elevator was moving, Eve motioned to Mary Ellen’s shoes.

“Kick those off. Be ready to be under fire when these doors open. I’ll go high and cover you.”

They could hear the helicopter approaching the roof. Mary Ellen barked the orders Eve requested into her phone before sliding it back into her cleavage.

“Why are we going down?” Mary Ellen managed to look regal in just pantyhose and the top part of her dress.

“We’re buying seconds. Ready? The doors are opening.” Eve rolled her head on her neck and swung the AR-16 forward. But there was nothing. Silence. She pushed Mary Ellen forward and ran into the foyer of the fancy skyscraper. To her left she saw the red exit sign, and they ran for it just as the front door exploded with gunfire.

The alarms were still blaring, so opening the fire exit went unnoticed. Eve crammed Mary Ellen into the backseat of the waiting SUV, then jumped in and slammed the door behind her. “Go, go, go!” She slapped the driver in the back of the head.

He put the SUV in reverse and careened out of the alley. He ignored the rules of the road and took the least obvious path to the center of the city. Whoever he was, he was an excellent driver.