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“We can slip past them,” Claire whispered to Paige.
“We cannot.” Paige shook her head as she stared at the desk.
The room was large and the desk was small. Claire knew all they had to do was walk along the wall, pretending to look around, and they’d be able to slip inside one of the doors easily. No one would notice.
“We’ll get caught and thrown out,” Paige said.
“We won’t,” Claire told her in a harsh whisper. “Who’s going to notice us?”
Claire jerked her chin toward the receptionist. Beads of sweat were pouring down her forehead, soaking her face and collar. Her red hair was tied back, scraped against her scalp, and her black glasses looked misty.
With no other choice, the girls linked hands and began to quietly walk around the room. Certificates hung on the walls with strange, abstract artwork. They looked at each one as they passed, trying to look deeply interested.
Claire whispered, “We’re nearly th—”
Something hard knocked into her from the side, causing her to trip over her own feet and stumble. If it hadn’t been for Paige’s hand clasped in hers, she would have gone flying.
When she had regained her feet, she stared at what had hit her: a tall, muscular woman stood in the dark doorway. The wall itself had opened up for her. She squinted at Paige and Claire, looking their bodies up and down. She made a loud tut sound. “These fucking bimbos,” she muttered under her breath. She grabbed both girls’ wrists and began to drag them into the passage.
Every part of Claire knew she should resist. She didn’t know where she was going or what she would see when she got there. The last thing she wanted was to be someone’s captive. But she had to. Her Daddy had asked her to find Lorelei. And that’s exactly what she was going to do.
She looked to Paige and nodded, encouraging her not to fight.
“We have got to sort out our security,” the woman continued angrily. “We can’t have these sluts roaming around willy-nilly. I’ve got to talk to Bonnie about this.”
Chapter thirty-three
Enter the void
VinceandDinostayedin the car for a while after the girls left. Vince needed a moment to think. Having those moody teenagers around was almost too much to handle, especially when he was trying to concentrate on rescuing his wife. There were a couple of service entrances they could sneak into, but Vince had his eye on one specifically. It was a couple of hallways away from a locker room. Vince wasn’t sure if it was a good idea to go that deep into the building, they needed an ID card to get through the layers of security.
“This isn’t going to be easy,” Vince said.
“You’re right,” Dino said, leaning his head over to look at Vince. “But we gotta do this, don’t we?”
Vince nodded. “No other way. Kate said it was serious.”
Dino side-eyed Vince. “Are you sure you can trust her?”
“Kate? Why wouldn’t I? She’s Claire’s mother.”
Dino shrugged. “I don’t got a good feeling about this,” he said slowly. “Something ain’t sittin’ right with me.”
Vince looked at his best friend. The hair on the top of his head was thinning, revealing his sunburned scalp beneath. “I know something’s not right. But we have no other choice. Lorelei’s in trouble and—”
“I know,” Dino cut him off. “We gotta go get her.”
Vince pulled his laptop from the backseat and opened it. Silence filled the car as he waited for it to boot. His heart was pounding in his chest, the sound resonating up his body until it was deep in his ears. All of the blood inside his veins was rushing through his body, filled with adrenaline. He hadn’t even begun breaking in yet and he was already shaking. This is going to be a wild ride, Vince thought.
When the laptop was ready, Vince pulled up the blueprints for the place. “We’ll go in here,” he said, pointing then trailing his finger across the screen. “And head this way to the locker room. I suspect we might get into trouble along the way but, if all goes well, we might be able to snag a couple of ID cards.”
Dino shook his head. “How is that gonna work?”
Vince pulled up a different page, showing the security system. “They’re high-tech here,” he said. “No pictures on the ID. Just barcodes to scan. No actual security guards. Just cameras.”
“That feels even worse than guards,” Dino said, sounding defeated.
“It’ll be fine if we move quickly and move unpredictably,” Vince said. “Once we’ve got the cards, we need to move through four doors to get where I think they’re holding Lorelei.”
