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He left the room, pulling the door shut behind him.
She smacked her hand against the glass. “Please,” she whimpered.
After trying the door again with no success, she scanned the room. Folded up against the far wall was a metal chair. She grabbed it and marched back to the window, swinging the chair hard, but it bounced off, wrenching her arm.
“Help!” she screamed, banging on the window, knowing it was hopeless.
“Jesus, please. Not like this. Please help me.” The vents hummed to life, preparing to remove the air from the room.
“Stop. Please stop.” She slid down onto the floor, her mind full of choking fear.
* * *
Aaron didn’t know who he was more furious with, himself or Sydney. He had wanted to believe Theo’s side of the story. He wanted Sydney to be exonerated more than anything. But even though he believed Theo when he said that all Sydney ever wanted to do was help people, he couldn’t ignore the emails. It was clear beyond a reasonable doubt that her research would end up in a lab in South America, not Biotech. She was selling her work outside the country. It wasn’t Russia but that didn’t mean the Russian Mafia didn’t have connections to it. Knightly had been right. Sydney was not the woman he had known, and now he had the proof.
He should be relieved that he finally discovered the truth. He had been double-minded where Sydney was concerned, and that was finished now. But deep down he’d wanted the outcome to be different. It was time to get some distance from this job. He’d get her to tell him everything and then haul her off to pay for her crimes before putting it all behind him for a while.
In his agitation, he made record time to the lab. The sky had paled in the dusk when he lifted his badge for the guard at the gate.
After parking his car, Aaron marched into the building, ready for a fight. He steeled himself to face her, reminding himself that she was not the girl he knew.
As he passed Pallon’s office, he glanced in but it was empty.
When he turned into the hall where Sydney’s lab was, red lights flashed through the window in her door. He didn’t mind stopping her in the middle of an experiment. It might even take the edge off, knowing he’d interrupted.
He looked inside, ready to put on a smile to get her to open the door, but he couldn’t see her, so he tried the door. It was unlocked.
“Sydney?” he called out, poking his head inside. “You forgot to lock your door. That’s very unlike you.” He scanned the room. A glow came from within the smaller internal room and a soft hum indicated something was happening in there, but he couldn’t see anyone.
As he walked toward the large window, he noticed the safe was open.
“No.” He was too late. He had his phone in his hand ready to contact Knightly, when he noticed the top of a head below the window inside the little room.
It only took him a couple of long strides to reach the window and he saw her, leaning against the wall.
He knocked on the glass and she sluggishly lifted her head. Sweat poured off her face.
“Sydney?”
He rushed for the door but the locking mechanism wasn’t responding. He looked back at her. Her hand was pressed against the window.
“Move out of the way!” he yelled, but she didn’t move.
He approached the window again and knocked on it. She looked up, her eyes unfocused. He pointed at her, then at the opposite wall.
She slowly crawled across the room and Aaron pulled out his gun aiming carefully at a spot on the glass. Once Sydney was far enough away, he fired a round. An alarm sounded, but the glass didn’t break. He fired again and again until the window finally cracked and broke, sucking into the room.
He pulled a fire blanket from the wall and laid it across the broken glass, then climbed across.
Sydney had hidden herself under a table and was sucking in oxygen.
Aaron pulled her out and scooped her up.
“Hey, you still with me?”
She nodded weakly. “He tried to kill me,” she rasped.
“Don’t try to speak right now. Let me get you safe first.” He climbed back out as two guards stormed in.
