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I looked up to spot a shadow moving across the open crack in the doorway. Shit. Someone was out there.
Trying to calm my breathing and the erratic beat of my heart, I hurried around to the front of the desk and then strode to the doorway to pull it open. The latch was just clicking shut to the door that led from the outer office. I dove forward in hot pursuit, wondering who else had been slinking around after hours and seen me. It must’ve been someone else who didn’t belong, otherwise why hadn’t they confronted me and asked what I was doing?
But when I peered out into the darkened corridor, it was abandoned.
Looking one way, then the other, I frowned, sure I’d seen and heard someone. I guess it didn’t matter. I doubt whoever it’d been would rat me out to Lana, unless it was one of her minions she paid extra to skulk around the company and report things back to her.
Shit. It better not have been one of her spies.
If it was, it was too late now. I’d just tell her I was looking for something I thought I’d left behind from the other day when I’d last been in her office, where she’d bitched me out for not supporting her enough when she’d had her latest argument with Nash.
Shaking my head, I shut the door and turned back toward Lana’s office, ready to search every nook and cranny before I left this room. But a red blinking light above the entrance caught my attention.
“Motherfucker,” I hissed. She’d wired the place. No wonder why she hadn’t locked any rooms. The place was booby-trapped with an alarm. I’d probably tripped some signal, which was now sending her an alert, letting her know her private workspace had just been breached.
Time to go.
Getting the hell out of there, I left the office without looking back, lights blaring and everything. Shit. What if there’d been cameras installed and she’d just fucking watched me search her drawers? I wouldn’t be able to explain that. She’d never trust me again. She’d probably take away the keycard I had to her apartment, too, and I’d never get the chance to search there either. Hell, she might fire me from JFI altogether.
“Dammit, dammit, dammit,” I muttered, running my hand through my hair as I stormed from the building and into the cool, crisp October night.
I’d been so eager and gung-ho, I’d probably just fucked my entire mission. Kaitlynn would never receive her rightful inheritance, Lana would get away with everything, and I’d never learn the truth.
There would be no justice, no salvation, no freedom. No answers. Just more misery and a lifetime of Lana controlling everything.
Arthur was probably shaking his head in shame this very moment from inside his casket.
I’d let him down.
But then, “No,” I growled. No fucking way was Lana winning this.
Jogging to my car, I slid behind the wheel and brought the engine to life.
Whether she knew the culprit to the break-in was me or not, Lana’s first response was going to be to come down here and see what—or if anything—had been taken. That was going to leave her apartment empty for the next hour—or less, but hopefully more. This might be my last opportunity to search her place, in case she was aware that I’d been the one in her office tonight and she did demand I relinquish my keycard to her condo. So, while I still had the means to get in, I was fucking going in.
I was two blocks from Preston Estates when I met her distinctive, little red sports car streaking past, headed in the direction of JFI. In return, I doubted she would recognize meeting my nondescript tan sedan among oncoming traffic; she was in too much of a rush.
Let’s hope she didn’t, anyway.
A smile lit my face. At least my backup plan seemed to be working. Parking on the opposite side of the building from where I knew she typically parked, I pocketed my keys, hurried from my car, and entered the building from the side entrance, where I strode across the red-carpeted floor until I reached her ostentatious, rhinestone-covered door.
Tugging my wallet from the inside of my suit jacket, I slipped my keycard out from behind a credit card and slid it through the door swipe. My muscles tensed, wondering if she’d already changed the locks to deny me access, but then the door beeped and a light flashed green, letting me know I was in.
I released a relieved breath.
Good. Here we go.
I put the key away and slid my wallet back into my jacket, then glanced either way, and for some reason, I backed into the front room to keep an eye on the hallway to make sure no one saw me enter.
Shutting the door, I closed my eyes briefly, thankful this had worked, and then I turned to search the place, only to fall to a shocked halt when I saw the woman standing there in the middle of the living room, gaping at me and wearing a gold ball gown. A very familiar gold ball gown.
She looked surprised, so surprised that she couldn’t seem to even move. Or talk. Her mouth moved without forming words, and her face drained of color.
It took me a moment to recognize her with her hair pulled up into a bun and that familiar dress adorning her body. But when I realized it was Gabby, the woman from Kaitlynn’s apartment building, the one with the little brother—Miguel—or whatever relation he was to her, I froze too.
The woman I’d been daydreaming about for the past two weeks was standing right in front of me? Had I somehow willed her here with my fervent thoughts? Hell, was she even real?
Jesus, of course she was real. What was I thinking? But what in God’s name was she doing in Lana’s apartment? And more bizarre yet, why was she wearing that dress? And why was she clutching a white trash bag to her chest as if she’d just stolen something and had stashed it in there?
