Chapter 5 - When the Lights Went Out
Darkness swallowed the eighty-eighth floor.
Penny screamed.
Willa dropped instantly, wrapping both arms around the child.
"Down!"
A gunshot cracked somewhere near the elevators.
Then another.
Glass shattered.
Men shouted.
Titan erupted into the darkness with a roar that sounded almost inhuman.
Willa couldn't see Kendrick.
"Kendrick!"
"I'm here."
His voice came from somewhere to her left.
"Stay down."
Emergency lights should have activated.
They didn't.
That meant this wasn't a normal outage.
Someone had disabled them.
Someone prepared this.
Barrett.
A hand grabbed Willa's shoulder.
She struck blindly.
Her elbow connected with a face.
A man cursed.
Not Kendrick.
Willa twisted away.
"Penny, hold onto me!"
Small arms locked around her waist.
Another gunshot.
Then a body hit the floor.
Titan barked.
A man's scream followed.
"Kendrick!"
"Move toward my voice."
Willa crawled.
Penny clung to her back.
Her fingers brushed a shoe.
Then a hand closed around her forearm.
She almost attacked again.
"It's me."
Kendrick.
He pulled them behind a marble column.
"Are you hurt?"
"No."
"Penny?"
The child shook violently.
"She's okay."
Kendrick's hand found his daughter's head.
"Sweetheart."
Penny immediately grabbed him.
For several seconds, father and daughter clung together in darkness.
Willa heard Kendrick breathe against Penny's hair.
Then his voice hardened again.
"Barrett!"
No answer.
Kendrick cursed.
Emergency generators suddenly engaged.
Dim red lights illuminated the corridor.
The scene looked like a nightmare.
One guard lay unconscious near the wall.
Another clutched his shoulder.
A third man Willa didn't recognize was pinned beneath Titan.
The mastiff's teeth hovered inches from his throat.
Barrett was gone.
Kendrick stood.
"Where is he?"
The injured guard shook his head.
"I lost sight of him."
"Seal the elevators."
"They're already locked."
"Stairs."
"Guarded."
Willa looked toward a narrow service door.
It stood open.
"Not all of them."
Kendrick followed her gaze.
The staff passage.
Willa had used it during events.
It connected the kitchens, private service elevators and maintenance corridors.
Barrett knew the building better than most guests.
Probably better than Kendrick realized.
Kendrick reached for his phone.
No signal.
"They killed internal communications."
Willa's stomach twisted.
"This wasn't improvised."
"No."
His gaze fell to the stranger beneath Titan.
"Get him up."
Titan refused to move.
"Easy," Willa said.
The mastiff glanced at her.
"Back."
To everyone's surprise, Titan obeyed.
Kendrick noticed that too.
The stranger tried to stand.
Kendrick grabbed him by the jacket.
"Who sent you?"
The man's eyes moved toward Willa.
Then Penny.
He smiled.
That was enough.
Kendrick slammed him against the wall.
"If you look at my daughter again, you'll spend the rest of your life regretting it."
The stranger spat blood onto the marble.
"You already lost one woman."
Kendrick froze.
The man smiled wider.
"You're going to lose another."
Willa felt the words land.
Not wife.
Another woman.
Her.
Kendrick's grip tightened.
"Where is Barrett?"
The man laughed.
Then his jaw moved strangely.
Willa recognized the motion.
"Stop him!"
Too late.
The man bit down.
Seconds later, his body convulsed.
Kendrick stepped back.
"Poison capsule," Willa whispered.
One of the guards checked his pulse.
"Dead."
Kendrick stared at the body.
"Barrett has been preparing for this longer than tonight."
Willa looked toward the open service door.
"Maybe much longer."
They moved Penny into an interior security room while doctors treated the poisoned maid.
She survived.
Barely.
The substance had been a concentrated heart medication.
Enough to kill a child within minutes.
The apron had been planted.
The cameras had been disabled seventeen minutes before the serving cart reached Penny's suite.
Barrett's access card had opened the maintenance level earlier that morning.
The evidence was overwhelming.
And Barrett had vanished.
By noon, every known Ashford property was being searched.
Nobody found him.
Kendrick stood inside his office watching city surveillance feeds.
Willa entered carrying coffee.
He looked at the cup.
"I have people for that."
"I know."
"Then why are you bringing it?"
"Because you haven't eaten, haven't slept, and have been threatening computers for four hours."
"I wasn't threatening them."
"You told one monitor you'd throw it through a window."
"It froze."
"Understandable."
Despite everything, Kendrick almost smiled.
Then he looked at her wrist.
A bruise was forming where someone had grabbed her during the blackout.
"Who did that?"
"I don't know."
His expression sharpened.
"I'm fine."
"I didn't ask whether you're fine."
"Then don't ask questions you don't want answered."
Kendrick stared.
Willa set down the coffee.
"Any sign of Barrett?"
"No."
"You have hundreds of people."
"Which is the problem."
She understood.
"If he controlled security..."
"He knows everyone I might send."
"And which safe houses they'd search first."
Kendrick nodded.
"He helped build this organization."
Willa looked toward the windows.
"Then stop thinking like the organization."
"What does that mean?"
"Think like somebody who hates you."
He raised an eyebrow.
"You seem qualified."
"I've had six years of practice."
Fair.
She walked toward his city map.
"If Barrett believes you know the truth now, what does he need?"
"To survive."
"No."
She shook her head.
"Men like Barrett don't run just to survive."
"What does he want?"
"Control."
Kendrick studied her.
"He needs something that makes you move where he wants."
Their eyes met.
"Penny."
"No."
Willa answered instantly.
"He already tried killing her. If he wanted leverage, he wouldn't poison her."
Kendrick went still.
She continued.
"He needs something else."
"The key."
Willa touched her necklace.
"Possibly."
"Celeste's evidence."
"Yes."
Kendrick took the silver key from the desk.
"C-17."
They had spent hours searching Ashford property records.
No C-17.
No storage unit.
No private box.
No building designation.
Willa picked up Celeste's photograph.
Find Willow Bennett.
She knows where the first key is.
"First key," Willa murmured.
"What?"
"Maybe this doesn't unlock the evidence."
"Then what does it unlock?"
"Another key."
Kendrick frowned.
She stared at the photograph.
Celia Gray.
That was the alias Celeste had used.
C.
"Wait."
Willa grabbed a pen.
"Celia."
Kendrick followed.
"Seventeen."
"The diner."
"What about it?"
"The first time we met, Celeste asked me to choose the booth."
"So?"
"There were eighteen booths."
Kendrick understood.
"She always chose seventeen after that."
Willa's heartbeat accelerated.
"It wasn't random."
They were in the car twenty minutes later.
Kendrick drove himself.
No motorcade.
No visible guards.
Willa sat beside him wearing jeans, a black sweater and a borrowed coat.
Titan occupied the back seat.
"You really bring him everywhere?"
Kendrick glanced into the mirror.
"Apparently he goes wherever you go now."
Titan's head rested between the front seats.
Willa scratched his ear.
Her fingers stopped.
There.
A narrow scar.
Behind the left ear.
Memory slammed into her.
A rainy night.
A frightened mastiff puppy bleeding on the Bennett porch.
Caleb carrying him inside.
"Willow, get towels!"
Willa went completely still.
Kendrick noticed.
"What?"
She touched the scar again.
Titan whined.
"No."
"What is it?"
Willa turned around fully.
"Titan wasn't always yours."
Kendrick's expression changed.
"What are you talking about?"
"Where did you get him?"
"Six years ago. Barrett found him at one of our properties after the Bennett investigation."
Willa stared.
"What property?"
"A warehouse in Red Hook."
Her eyes filled.
"Caleb."
Kendrick slowed the car.
"What?"
"My brother found this dog."
Titan looked at her.
"He was maybe eight months old. Somebody had abandoned him near the river. Caleb brought him home."
Her voice broke.
"He called him Duke."
Titan's ears lifted.
Willa whispered:
"Duke."
The massive dog whined.
Then he shoved his head against her shoulder.
Kendrick stopped the car at a red light.
"You knew Titan."
Willa laughed through sudden tears.
"I stitched this scar myself."
Everything made sense.
Titan hadn't chosen a stranger.
He had found someone he lost six years earlier.
Willa buried her face briefly against his enormous head.
"You remember me."
Titan licked her cheek.
Kendrick looked away, giving her privacy.
But his own expression had changed.
If Titan survived the Bennett house...
Then someone had taken him afterward.
Someone who had been there.
Barrett.
The diner still existed.
Barely.
A handwritten CLOSED sign hung crookedly in the window.
Kendrick picked the lock.
Willa stared.
"Crime boss skills?"
"My mother made me take piano lessons. Life corrected the imbalance."
They entered.
Dust covered the counters.
Booth seventeen remained near the back wall.
Willa approached.
Her heart pounded.
"What are we looking for?"
"Anything."
She knelt.
Beneath the table, nothing.
Behind the seat, nothing.
Then Titan sniffed the baseboard.
He pawed once.
Willa crouched.
A tiny brass plate was embedded beneath the booth.
C-17.
Her hands shook.
She inserted the silver key.
Click.
A narrow compartment opened.
Inside rested another key.
Larger.
Black.
And a note.
Kendrick unfolded it.
His face changed.
Willa read over his shoulder.
Kendrick—
If Willow is with you, I was right about one thing.
You both survived long enough to find each other.
Do not trust Barrett.
Do not trust the family council.
And whatever you do, do not open Vault 9 inside Ashford Tower.
The real evidence is beneath St. Vincent's Church.
C.
Willa barely finished reading before headlights swept across the diner windows.
Three black SUVs stopped outside.
Kendrick reached beneath his coat.
"Behind me."
Willa stared at the approaching armed men.
"That's getting old."
"Indulge me."
May you like
The first window exploded.
And Titan attacked the darkness.
