Chương 3
“Mara.”
“I have never seen this before.”
Bruno stood between them now.
Mara closed her fingers around the drive.
Vale extended his hand.
“Give it to me.”
“No.”
His hand remained there.
“You don’t know what you’re holding.”
“Neither do you.”
“I know someone just tried to put a bullet through you.”
“You said that before you knew this existed.”
That landed.
Vincent looked at Vale.
Mara saw the glance.
Small, quick, unmistakable.
“What?” she asked.
Vale lowered his hand.
Police radios crackled behind them.
A tow truck had arrived at the garage entrance, and someone was complaining loudly that his Mercedes had been trapped behind the crime-scene tape.
Ordinary irritation continued ten yards from where Mara’s life had apparently become unrecognizable.
Vale stepped closer.
Bruno did not growl at him.
That somehow made the distance feel more dangerous.
“The shooter wasn’t aiming at me,” Vale said.
“You already established that.”
“No.”
His eyes stayed on hers.
“I established that he was aiming at you.”
Mara’s fingers tightened around the flash drive.
“What’s the difference?”
“I knew before he fired.”
The garage seemed to lose every sound except the faint ticking of a cooling engine.
Mara looked at Vincent.
He did not contradict him.
“How?”
Vale glanced toward the police officers.
Then he looked at the flash drive in her fist.
“Because the man who tried to kill you worked for me.”
Mara took one step backward.
Bruno moved with her.
Vale did not follow.
“That’s not possible.”
“I wish it weren’t.”
“You sent him?”
Something fierce crossed Vale’s face.
“No.”
“Then why would your man shoot me?”
“That is the question keeping you alive right now.”
Mara almost told him the sentence made no sense.
Then Bruno turned toward the elevator bank and bared his teeth.
The elevator indicator changed from three to two.
Vincent’s hand went beneath his jacket.
Vale’s attention snapped toward the descending numbers.
Two became one.
Mara backed away, but Vale caught her wrist.
She jerked against him.
“Let go.”
“Not yet.”
The elevator reached the garage.
The doors began to open.
Bruno moved in front of Mara.
Vale pulled her behind him.
And from inside the elevator, Mara heard Warren Pike’s voice say her name.
Warren Pike stepped out of the elevator holding a paper coffee cup and stopped when he saw Adrian Vale’s hand around Mara’s wrist.
For one strange second, his expression was not fear but irritation, the same pinched annoyance he wore whenever somebody scheduled a meeting before ten.
Then he saw Bruno.
Then the police.
Then the blood on the concrete.
His coffee slipped from his fingers.
The plastic lid popped free, and pale brown liquid spread across the elevator threshold.
“Mara?”
Vale released her wrist.
Mara barely noticed.
“What are you doing here?”
Pike stared at her as though she had asked the question backward.
“I work here.”
“Not in this building.”
Calder Financial occupied offices across the street, connected to the garage by a pedestrian bridge on the fourth level.
Pike never parked here.
He complained about the rates at least twice a month.
His eyes moved to the flash drive in her hand.
The change was tiny.
Mara would have missed it yesterday.
Tonight, with a bullet mark above her head, tiny things had become difficult to ignore.
“Where did you get that?”
Vale turned toward him.
Vincent stopped moving.
Mara closed her fist.
“You know what it is?”
“No.”
“You just asked where I got it.”
“I’m asking why you’re standing in a crime scene holding company property.”
Mara felt something cold settle beneath her ribs.
She looked at the strip of white tape around the drive.
“My initials are on it.”
Pike swallowed.
“That doesn’t make it yours.”
One of the officers approached from behind the cruiser.
“Sir, I need you to stay by the elevator.”
Pike raised both hands slightly.
“I’m Warren Pike, Calder Financial.”
“That doesn’t answer anything I asked.”
“I came down because someone called me.”
“Who?”
Pike hesitated.
Mara watched him choose.
“My wife.”
It was such a bad lie that for a moment nobody seemed prepared for it.
Mara had spent eighteen months listening to Pike complain about his divorce.
He had once made her reschedule an entire compliance review because his attorney needed him at mediation.
“You don’t have a wife,” she said.
Pike looked at her.
“Not anymore.”
“Then she has impressive timing.”
The officer’s attention sharpened.
“Sir, step over here.”
Pike did not move.
His eyes returned to Mara’s closed hand.
“Give that to the police.”
Vale said, “That’s the first sensible thing you’ve said.”
Mara looked at him.
“You wanted me to give it to you thirty seconds ago.”
“I’ve reconsidered.”
“That fast?”
“Yes.”
Pike gave a short, nervous laugh.
“You’re taking advice from Adrian Vale now?”
“I’m not taking advice from anybody.”
“That would be a first.”
The insult was familiar enough to hurt.
Pike had spent two years making small remarks like that in rooms where Mara could not safely object.
Normally she stored them somewhere private and continued working.
Tonight she stepped toward him.
Bruno moved with her.
“You came down here because of this drive.”
Pike’s face hardened.
“Don’t be ridiculous.”
“Then leave.”
“I’m trying to help you.”
“Leave.”
“Mara.”
“Go upstairs, Warren.”
His gaze flicked toward the garage exit.
Vale saw it.
Vincent saw it too.
The officer reached Pike and touched his elbow.
Pike jerked away with more force than the contact required.
“Don’t touch me.”
“Sir.”
“I haven’t done anything.”
Nobody had said he had.
That silence seemed to reach him a moment too late.
His shoulders dropped.
“I heard there was a shooting.”
“From whom?” Mara asked.
Pike rubbed his mouth.
“My assistant.”
“Lena left at six.”
“You don’t know everybody’s schedule.”
“I approve her overtime.”
Pike stared at her.
Mara wished, absurdly, that she had not said it.
Being correct still felt dangerous even here.
May you like
Vale spoke without looking away from Pike.
“Officer, you may want to ask how he knew which garage level.”
