Piece of cake, she thought wryly.
Taking another deep breath, she carefully hooked her leg over the stall wall and clambered up. Luckily, whoever had designed this building had installed strong partitions rather than the usual paper-thin ones. Maybe the designer figured a building housing the SIU and State Police needed decent toilet walls, just in case officers needed to throw a suspect or two around. Which wasn't the joke it appeared to be, because she'd certainly seen Jack do it.
Once her butt was securely parked, she eased along the top of the stall until she neared the wall. Then carefully, slowly, she rose and looked through the hole.
Darkness and dust. God, just the thought of clambering up into it had sweat breaking out across her brow. She had no idea where this fear of small, dark spaces had come from. The State psych guys reckoned it was probably the result of a childhood trauma, but since she could remember zero about her childhood, that wasn't much help.
And standing here thinking about it wasn't doing the fear any good, either. She needed to escape, and this was her only method. End of story, no other choice.
She gripped the steel bracing on either side of the tile and tested it for strength. It didn't bend, but then, if it supported the guys who maintained the ducting and cabling, it was more than strong enough to support her. And this testing was merely another way of avoiding the inevitable.
She took another deep breath and pulled herself up into the darkness. Almost immediately, sweat broke out across her brow, and her stomach began to twist. She licked her lips, but otherwise ignored the fear as she waited for her eyes to adjust to the darkness. Thankfully, it didn't take long.
The void was a mess of ducts, cabling, wires, and all sorts of building rubbish. She studied the crisscrossed lines of metal supports, trying to compare them with what she knew of the building's layout. The concrete mass that was the core area wasn't that far away, since this building, like many of its era, tended to have all facilities crowded around the main core. Which meant the elevators were in the center, with the stairs and restrooms on either side of the shafts. But making her way toward the elevators wasn't a good option, as that was probably the first place they'd look once they realized she was missing again. Which left the stairs. But how did she get there? Especially when most of the offices on this floor were locked down tighter than FortKnox. She doubted the security pass she'd been given would give her access into any of them. And given that the security measures here in the SIU section of the building were far tighter than those in the State Police section, the key coder she had hidden in her boot would probably raise alarms rather than open doors.
Her gaze settled on a mass of pipes not that far away. Surely that was the men's restroom. And, like the ladies, it was close to the stair area. If there was no one in there, it might be her best bet.
She blew out a breath, drew her legs fully into the void and shifted the tile back into its position. With her one spot of light gone, the darkness seemed to close in, pressing down on her with the consistency of glue and making it hard to breathe.
She swiped at a trickle of sweat running down her face, her hand trembling. It was ridiculous, this fear. There was nothing in the darkness that could harm her — nothing but fear itself. And if she didn't move, and move now, she'd blow her chance to escape. Finley's goons would surely be wondering what the hell was taking her so long.
Besides, the enigma that was Assistant Director Stern would surely be on his way back from that meeting soon. And he'd have no doubt as to what she was doing in the restroom — he seemed to know the workings of her mind entirely too well.
With that thought to stir her on, she shifted onto her hands and knees and began to shuffle forward, trying to make as little noise as possible. It felt like she was moving with the speed of a gnat.
Sweat dribbled down her face and leapt off the end of her nose, the small droplets splattering against the grime covered metal. Every motion stirred dust, until the air was filled with a thick, choking cloud that was almost impossible to breathe. Or maybe it was simply the fear sitting like a lump in her throat that was making it hard to breathe.
She licked her lips, and concentrated on the pipes, trying to think of reaching them and nothing else. Not the weight of the darkness. Not the choking dust. Not the looming, threatening walls of the core.
When she finally neared the pipes, relief surged, and the need to get out of this darkness was so fierce it was all she could do not to rip off the nearest tile and plunge down into the restroom. Which would be absolutely stupid when she had no idea how safe it was down there. She carefully eased up the nearest tile and looked down. She was above the washbasin area. There didn't appear to be anyone in the men's, but just to be sure, she eased the tile up a little more, and listened carefully. No sound. Good.
She took the tile off completely, then stuck her legs out the hole and dropped down. With her feet safely on the floor, the trembling began. She bent over and took several deep breaths. Lord, her heart was beating so damn fast anyone would think she'd just run a marathon. But at least it was over — or the worst part was, anyway. Compared to climbing through the void, getting out of the building itself would surely be a cinch.
She splashed her face with cold water, shook the dust and cobwebs free from her hair and walked across to the door. The corridor beyond was small and turned left about six paces away. Given the core layout was the same as State's section, the corridor would pass the stairs before going on to the foyer section and elevators.
The elevators dinged as she stepped out of the restroom. She froze, listening, but luckily, no one came her way. But it was warning enough that if she didn't get out of here quickly, someone would spot her. Luck had never been a long time friend, and right now, it felt like she was pushing her limits. She walked on until the stair door came into view, and she swiped the ID card through the slot. The door beeped, and then opened. The stairs were as silent and as empty as the corridor. She let the door close quietly, and then she began her run up the stairs to freedom.
* * * *
Gabriel woke in the arms of a dead man. Not the walking dead, but the dead dead. The pungent aroma of decay told him it was the corpse he'd discovered in the apartment before someone had tried caving in his skull.He shifted slightly, trying to ease the persistent ache in his ribs. But the minute he moved, every other ache began screaming for attention. Mostly, though, it was his head that hurt. And the insistent, steady thump of music some fool insisted on playing so loudly wasn't helping any. He stopped the thought and frowned. Music? There'd been no music anywhere near the abandoned building. He'd been moved, obviously.
He opened his eyes and saw only darkness. He reached out and felt the confines of his prison. His fingers brushed across warmed metal. He had maybe a foot of breathing room above his head and about the same on his left side. The dead man and a tool box of some kind shared most of the room on the right-hand side. The space near his feet was so tight he couldn't straighten his legs to relieve the cramp beginning to settle in across his thighs.
He was, he realized suddenly, in the trunk of a car, and heading God knew where. One thing was certain — he'd be as dead as the man beside him if the car reached its destination with him still locked inside. He'd seen four men, but there might have been more. Either way, it wasn't good fighting odds.
Shifting around a little, he felt for the trunk's catch. The throaty roar of the engine — what he could hear of it over the music — told him the car was one of the older models that still ran on gas rather than hydrogen or electricity. With any luck, the owners wouldn't have bothered updating to the newer thumbprint coded locks.
Luck was with him. The trunk had a key lock on the inside, which in itself suggested the owner was a vampire and also explained why absolutely no light was getting into the trunk. Obviously, it had been fitted out for emergency escapes from sunlight.
He reached down to his boot, but the sudden movement had red fingers of fire lancing through his brain. He cursed silently and waited for his vision to clear. Obviously the fools had done some serious damage when they'd tried to cave in his head. There was blood on his face — he could feel it crusting, tightening his skin. The right side of his head felt heavy, as if the hair there was weighted down. More blood, probably. Stephan was going to give him hell — especially given his warning that all missions were to be double manned.
He carefully drew the knife from his boot, flicked it open and inserted it into the lock. Several twists, and there was a soft click. It was all too easy, really. But then, if he'd been a vampire, he would have made sure any lock imprisoning him was damn easy to open in the event of a lost key or sign of trouble.
He inched the trunk open. Bitumen met his gaze. The speed at which it zipped past told him they had to be doing at least a hundred, which meant they were beyond the city limits and out on some freeway.
He opened the trunk a little more. Sunlight danced though the leaves of the gums arching over the road. The rich hint of humus, of moisture and damp earth, told him they were up in the hills somewhere, while the tree ferns huddled beneath the gums suggested it was more the Dandenong's than Macedon.
Why head up this way with the stranger's body? There were certainly better places to dispose of a corpse than the picturesque but heavily populated Dandenong ranges, and ... His thoughts came to a sudden halt as the car went into a slide. Tires squealed, and the smell of burning rubber briefly overrode the smell of death. The force of the stop smashed him into the side of the car, and for a moment, everything went red. The trunk tore from his grasp, swinging open, then crashed down again, barely missing his fingers as the car came to a shuddering stop.