Getting around them all would be a problem. She could probably get past the first monitor using the State's override code, but the monitors guarding the immediate crime scene usually had specific codes. The general override code wouldn't work on it. Jack could probably have managed to get past, but she'd never had his aptitude for hot-wiring. But someone else did. Either that or someone from State had given the invaders her security codes. How else could they have gotten past the heat sensors near the windows? It was only thanks to the alarm she'd installed the day after Jack had disappeared that she was alive right now.
A chill ran down her spine, a chill that had nothing to do with the cold and everything to do with fear. The stranger had said Jack was still alive.
Jack had all her old codes.
But if he were alive, why would he want to kill her? And why blow up her apartment afterwards? It didn't make sense. Nothing that had happened in the last twenty-four hours made sense.
Including her survival of a two-story swan dive out the window onto the pavement.
She looked up. Hell, she was bruised and sore all over, and her feet burned something fierce from the laser cuts. But she was basically unhurt from the fall, and that was definitely a miracle.
And it would take another damn miracle to get in and out of her apartment without being caught by the State and SIU watchdogs. With her feet burned so badly, she couldn't exactly run.
Sighing again, she wriggled her toes, enjoying the sensation of the not-so-gentle rain washing over them. But sitting in the shadows of the building across from her own, getting wetter and colder by the minute, was achieving nothing.
She had to get into that apartment and retrieve her backup com-unit — if it had survived the blast. It should have, hidden and protected as it was by the mountains of junk in her bedroom.
But Jack knew about her backup system. If her partner was alive, and if he was behind the bomb, then that too would be gone. Though she had shifted its location since his disappearance, and the new alarm hadn't allowed the invaders time to look around before they'd attacked.
At least she still had the comlink bracelet she'd stolen. And they'd been developed to survive just about anything — even a bomb blast. The files would be safe, as long as Marsdan and his juniors hadn't found her bag — or, at least, bothered to look inside it.
Though just what in hell Marsdan was doing down here with such a gaggle of wet-nosed officers was another point that didn't make any sense. What was wrong with their squad?
She shook her head. She could sit here and mull on questions forever and a day. If she wanted answers, she'd have to move. Grabbing the railing lining the steps for support, she pulled herself upright. Fire leapt up her legs the minute she put any weight on her feet, and for a moment, she thought she was going to puke. Swallowing heavily, she tried to ignore the throbbing rush of pain and hobbled forward as quickly as she could.
Never before had the street seemed so damn wide. After what seemed an eternity, she reached her building's front steps and grasped the railing as fiercely as a drowning swimmer did a life buoy. Her breathing was little more than hungry pants of air, and her stomach heaved, leaving a bitter taste in the back of her mouth. Maybe her first port of call should have been a hospital. But the staff were required to report laser burns, and she'd have ended up in the hands of the State Police again.
Until she figured out just who was trying to kill her, she intended to trust no one but herself.
The churning in her stomach began to ease. After taking several more deep breaths, she resolutely hobbled up the rest of the front steps. The blue light hovering near the door became agitated, and a stern voice asked for her name and apartment number, adding the warning that she was about to enter a crime area. Like she didn't already know that. She flipped open the monitor's control box and punched in the State's override code. The sharp voice stopped, and the globe ceased its whirling. Of course, when the state boys did a link with the unit to check who was coming in and out of the building, they'd know she — or at least, someone with access to the codes — had entered. But hopefully, by then, she'd be long gone.
She edged inside the door, and quickly scanned the lobby. No one around. She limped across to the stairs and looked up. Everest had surely never seemed so high. She grabbed the handrail and began to haul herself up.
By the time she got to the first landing, the pain in her feet was so bad her legs were shaking, and her head spinning. She collapsed in a heap and stared at the rest of the steps in despair. She was never going to make it the rest of the way. Not like this. Sweat dripped down her forehead, stinging her eyes. She wiped it away with the back of her hand, and then groaned as her stomach rolled and rose. On hands and knees, she lurched towards the nearest planter pot. Luckily for the plant, she'd consumed little more than coffee over the last twenty-four hours.
Once she'd finished, she wiped her mouth with the back of her hand, closed her eyes and leaned back against the balustrade. God, she felt awful. And there was still another whole set of stairs to climb.
As she was contemplating how she was going to manage it, the softest of sounds flowed across the silence — a resonance as soothing as the whisper of silk shimmying across a bed.
She opened her eyes and looked up. A man stood at the top of the stairs, staring down at her. The warm corridor light flared strangely across his back and shoulders, almost giving him the appearance of wings as it cast his features into shadows. A dark angel, she thought, and wondered briefly if death had come to collect her.
Nah. Hell was more likely her last resting place.
He moved, and the angel image fled. What remained was a tall man, with dark brown hair, dressed in a dark gray suit. The color of choice for those in the SIU.
She groaned again. She really wasn't up to another tête-à-tête with the boys from the spook squad — if indeed he was with them.
He walked down the steps, loose limbed yet somehow graceful, then stopped near her feet and knelt down. He reached out but didn't quite touch her right foot. She sucked in a gasp of air anyway. "Don't — "
"I wasn't," he said, voice soft as he glanced up at her.
She knew those eyes. Would have recognized the odd, green-flecked hazel depths anywhere. This was the man who'd rescued her last night.
"What are you doing here?" she muttered, unable to keep the hint of annoyance from her voice. "And how did you find me?"
A dark eyebrow rose. "Haven't you heard? The SIU knows all."
So she'd guessed right — he was with the spook squad. "Let me see some ID."