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“I want something more exotic for my knife this time,” Charles said, as though they were discussing the weather and not his need to kill.
A chill went through Daniel. By exotic, Charles meant innocent. “We’ll discuss it on the ground.”
“I will keep you to that, brother.” And then he went back to staring at the flight attendant with a look that caused trained combat professionals to wet themselves and cower.
This time, Daniel let him be. This was his brother’s idea of fun—terrorizing the help. Charles had no intention of killing the man; he’d already set his eyes on someone else. And yet again, Daniel had to come up with a way to redirect him.
It was how their game was played.
Chapter Twenty-Two
“Can you do that thing with your magic fingernail again and change the cameras?” Mace said.
“I’m beginning to think Friday’s idea about signing you up for basic tech lessons is a good one,” Keiko told him as she went back to the control panel and changed the feed.
“Stop.” He held up a hand.
A chill went through her. “What is it?”
He pointed to the screen in the top left-hand corner of the wall. “We’ve got incoming. Freedom fighters in the stairwell. We need to move. Elevator. Now.”
She hurried after him, and he ushered her inside.
“Where’s the security hub?” he said.
“If I remember correctly, the security hub is about here.” She pointed to the location on the communications panel inside the door.
“Take us to that spot, but on the floor above. We’ll take the stairs the rest of the way. We need to get rid of Freedom’s eyes on the building. Otherwise, they’ll always know exactly where to find us.” He thrust a tube of bruise cream at her. “Put that on your ankle while we’re moving.”
Taking the tube, she pressed in their destination—and nothing happened.
Mace watched her, his mouth set in a tight line, as she pressed the location into the panel again. It made no difference. They weren’t going anywhere.
“They’ve disabled the elevator.” Mace grabbed her hand and pulled her back into the hallway. “This one’s on a separate circuit. They’re cutting us off. We need to hide.”
“Wait.”
“Keiko, we don’t have time.”
She ignored him and studied the ceiling. Her heart was racing so fast she feared it was going to explode. “Look for a panel with three raised dots in the corner. That’s the one with access to the crawl space. The guy who fixed the AC in my office last summer told me all about it. There’s one in the ceiling of every room in all CommTECH buildings.”
She was grateful when Mace didn’t argue but started examining the ceiling panels. “There.” He pointed to one just in front of the elevator doors.
“Can you jump up and push the dots? That’ll open it.” Rubbing her sweaty palms on her stolen shorts, she kept her eyes on the corridor, waiting for the moment when Freedom would appear.
Mace bent his knees, jumped, and pressed the exact spot that Keiko would have needed a ladder to reach. The panel slid down silently. “Bingo,” he said. “You’re a genius.”
“True,” Keiko said. “Now hurry. Get in there.”
“You first.” Without hesitation, Mace grabbed her waist and thrust her through the opening into the crawl space.
Clutching the edge, she pulled herself inside and rolled out of the way to give him space to come in after her. Again, all he did was bend his knees and jump. He caught the edge and pulled himself up, angling onto his stomach fast before his head had a chance to hit the concrete above them.
Keiko reached past him and slammed her hand on the button to close the panel. A few seconds later, they were lying in the dimly lit space, flat on their stomachs, listening for movement beneath them. The area between the decorative ceiling and the concrete of the building was made up of a network of metal beams, joined together by a steel mesh that supported the panels beneath it and was strong enough to easily hold their weight. There was only one entrance to the crawl space in each room, and no way to crawl from room to room, unless access had been cut in the thick concrete walls for that purpose. Basically, they were trapped in the small space above the apartment lobby with nowhere to go.
In the dim light, she turned her head to find Mace watching her. She gave him a tremulous smile, and he winked, making her shake her head at him. Inching her hand toward him, she clasped his arm, needing the reassurance of touching him. Slowly, he lowered his head to place a gentle kiss on the back of her hand, stealing her breath as well as the panic building within her.
In his gaze, she saw promises—he wouldn’t let anything happen to her, no matter how much it cost him. She squeezed his arm and blinked back tears. Stupid tears of fear—she was afflicted with them.
