Secure Location - By Beverly Long Page 0,63
is going to happen between here and there.”
She walked down the hallway, took the elevator to the next floor, and was fifteen feet away from Scott’s office when a door opened and a man stepped out. She saw his eyes first. They were dark and cold. She saw the gun next—it was black and deadly looking.
“Keep walking, Meg,” he muttered. “Don’t make any sudden moves or I’ll shoot you here. Then I’m going to shoot anybody who comes running to help.”
Chapter Nineteen
Meg’s mind scrambled to make sense of it. “What do you want?”
The man didn’t answer. Just pointed her toward the stairs.
She went. Stupid. Stupid. Stupid. It was all she could think of. Cruz would be so damn disappointed in her. He was so smart, so careful and she’d been so careless.
What would he tell her to do now?
Stay alert. Figure out who he is and what he wants. Be smart. She could practically feel heat coming off the sapphire necklace, burning her skin.
They reached the landing at the bottom. She looked up, hoping the camera would catch a good view of her face. It had been knocked down. “What do you want?” she asked again.
“Shut up,” he said. He poked her in the back with his gun. “My car is twenty feet from this door. Walk directly to it and get in the driver’s side. Don’t be stupid.”
It was a blue four-door with tinted windows. When she opened the door, the smell of smoke rolled out at her. It made her want to throw up. She swallowed hard and got in. He slid into the backseat. He tossed the keys over the seat, into her lap and pressed the gun against her neck.
“Drive. Turn left onto Bridge Street.”
Her hands were shaking so badly that she couldn’t get the key into the ignition. She took a deep breath and was immediately sorry when the horrible smell traveled farther into her lungs.
She finally got the car started and pulled out of the lot. They drove for fifteen minutes, turning this way and that on busy city streets. She tried to keep track of where she was but it was an area of the city that she wasn’t familiar with. Finally, he directed her to turn onto a street where the apartment buildings were close together and run-down. “Right there,” he said, pointing to an empty parking spot.
It was a tight fit, even for the small car. She put the vehicle in Park and shut off the engine. It was stone-quiet in the car. And the oppressive heat from outside seeped in.
She could hear him pulling off his face mask. “Get out,” he said. “We’re going into that building,” he said, pointing at a six-story structure that had several broken-out windows.
The front door of the building looked as if someone had tried to kick it in. It was dented and beat up and didn’t close quite right. She opened it and he pushed her toward the stairs. “Keep walking,” he said. On the fourth floor, he yanked her back and pointed to a door at the end of the hallway. He unlocked the door and they stepped inside a small, filthy apartment. There were dirty dishes, empty food boxes and trash everywhere. It smelled like cat urine. There was a table in the middle of the kitchen, long and narrow, with a wood top that was scratched and pitted. On it were guns, probably half a dozen, all in some half-state of assembly. There was a can of gun oil and dirty rags.
She turned to look at him. He was only a couple inches taller than her and had a slim build. He wore dirty army fatigues.
His hair was bleached blond and touched his shoulders. He had a straggly blond mustache. While there was little resemblance to the man she’d known, who had worn his dark hair and beard trimmed short and always had a pressed uniform, there was no doubt. He was Troy Blakely.
All this time, Cruz had been on the right track.
And with his hair blond and more of his bone structure visible, she saw something else that she recognized.
Her world started to go gray and she grabbed for the table behind her.
“It’s been a long time, Meg,” he said.
A very long time. “Hello, T.J.”
* * *
CRUZ BEACHED HIS CAR in the valet parking, ignoring the yells from the startled valets. He ran into the hotel, through the lobby, toward Meg’s office.
Tim Burtiss stood. “I didn’t know you were back,