doing it, she slipped them into the waistband of her skirt, hiding them underneath her pullover sweater.
She breathed shallowly and silently, fighting a rising panic, the irresistible urge to scream or make any kind of noise that would alert the person in the basement to where she was.
Stupid stupid stupid. After all her years in L.A., all her precautions of never being caught alone in a parking lot or a deserted building—and here she’d been for weeks, alone in the basement, a total target …
She silenced the panicked voice in her head with sheer will and concentrated on listening, while simultaneously calculating the fastest route to the door.
The basement shelving was set up in a large rectangle: two long rows of about two dozen shelves on either side of the long vertical, and two shorter rows of shelving completing the rectangle at the head and foot. In the center of the rectangle was an open space with several long tables.
Laurel was at present hovering between two rows of shelves on the long right side of the rectangle. She slipped off her shoes and walked, stepping silently, to the far end of the aisle. She stopped, took a breath, and eased her head around the edge of the shelf.
The corridor against the wall was dark and empty.
She pulled her head back, and glanced behind her. No one.
Her heart was pumping out of control; she could hear the blood rushing in her ears, but she seemed to be able to see with hyperclarity.
If I run down that aisle and go right, in an L-shape, I have a straight shot to the door …
But even as she was plotting her escape, and wondering if she had the guts to actually do it, it was dawning on her that her stalker was no ordinary creep. Whoever was in the basement with her knew enough about what she was doing to lay out the Zener cards—he knew they were significant.
So what’s that supposed to mean?
She immediately answered herself. What does it matter what it means? She was alone in a dark basement with someone who was playing games with her. None of it was good.
She pressed her back against a cold metal shelf and resolved to make a run for it along the aisle. She took a breath, then took a look behind her—
And nearly jumped out of her skin.
There was a tall shadow there, hovering at the head of the aisle.
But right before she screamed, a pleading voice spoke quickly. “Sorry sorry sorry—I didn’t mean to scare you. It’s me. It’s me.”
Who the hell is “me”? she thought in a blind rush of panic, at the same time that her mind was registering the man who stood before her. It took a moment for her adrenaline-jolted brain to come up with a name: Brendan Cody, from the faculty welcome party: blue-gray eyes, curly dark hair, freckles, and all.
“What the hell?” Laurel blazed at him.
“I know, I’m sorry … ,” he started.
“What do you think you’re doing?”
Her heart was racing, even now that she knew she wasn’t in danger. Although come to think of it, there was no real reason to think she wasn’t in danger; all she knew of this guy was that he was on the faculty with her. It didn’t prove he wasn’t a serial killer. She lifted the shoes in her hand, threateningly.
He was backing away from her now, holding up his hands, an open, conciliatory gesture. “Please please please. Just let me explain.”
She was backing away from him, too, down the aisle, and he stopped in his tracks and just stood still, as if to show he was no threat.
“Look, I didn’t know it was you,” he said appealingly. “I just saw the Rhine Lab boxes out and I was so shocked that someone else was looking into them that, well, I was just going to take a look and see who it was—”
“You laid out the cards—,” she said accusingly.
“I know, I know, it was stupid. But I had no idea it was you. I was—never mind.”
“You were what?” she demanded, now advancing on him. She was aware her voice was shrill, fishwife-like, really, but she was still on the edge of panic.
“I was mad,” he said sheepishly, and for a moment he looked all of ten years old. “I was pretty well furious, actually. I’ve been busting my ass going through the files and I came down here tonight and there were all the boxes laid out, meaning