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“This’ll take us hours,” Mac said, frustrated. He pulled the phone out of his pocket and dialed. “Patsy…we’re in the hotel. I need you to tap into the police frequency and text me anything you find out…where the police are, where they think Theo might be.”
Patsy messaged back almost immediately.
Mac read the text. “Apparently Theo phoned from inside the hotel to say she’s planted a bomb—that’s why they called the police back.”
“For the love of—” Gus erupted. “That’s just absurd! Did she just pop along to ACME and ask for a bomb so she could blow up the Road Runner?”
Mac slipped the phone back into his pocket. “Either Theo made that call under duress, or someone else calling themselves Theodosia Benton made the call.”
“But why?”
“It gives them a bit of time before the police charge in, I suppose.”
Gus cursed.
“It might mean they need to find her,” Mac said, bracing Gus’s shoulder. “We’ll have to find her first.” He looked back at the fire stairs. “Shots were fired on this floor—look for bullet damage. It might give us some idea where she was.”
They moved down the hall looking for any sign—bullet holes, damage, blood. Gus spotted the door of room 253 about halfway down the corridor, partially splintered.
He signaled Mac and steeled himself for what they might find, before he walked in. The room had obviously been turned over. “Maybe she wasn’t here.”
“The doors have been electronically unlocked,” Mac said, inspecting the door. “So this could only have been bolted from the inside.”
Gus checked the en suite, noticing then a door on the other side of the large bathroom. He walked through and opened it into a second room with twin beds rather than a king. “Mac, this is a connected room…for a family.”
Mac followed him through and out the door of the second room. “So, if she came out here, whoever’s chasing her is in the other room… Where does she go?”
“The fire stairs,” Gus said. “I’d try and make it to the fire stairs.”
“God…we’re back to not even knowing what floor she’s on.” Mac slammed his fist against the wall. His phone rang. It was Patsy.
“Mac, sweetie, I’m just watching the coverage of the siege. A woman has just come out onto a balcony on the twenty-third floor. They think she’s going to jump.”
“Right,” Mac said, moving already for the fire escape. “Patsy, get through to the police. Tell them where we are and tell them that there is no bomb.”
CHAPTER 40
They ran the twenty-one flights of stairs to the twenty-third floor, pausing for only seconds to catch what breath they could. They were too desperate to be silent, to be careful. That was their mistake. Gus had for so long refused to believe his sister had taken her own life. Had some malevolent god contrived to make him watch it this time? Well, to hell with that! He pulled open the fire door.
There was a gun to Gus’s head before Mac could even reach for his own. Two men—both armed. One wore a bellhop’s uniform. Neither was familiar.
“On your knees.”
They were frisked and disarmed.
“They’re not cops.”
Bellhop dragged them to their feet while his partner covered. He swore. “We’d better find out what she wants us to do. Fuck! This job has gone to fuck.”
Gus and Mac were marched with hands on their collars and muzzles against the bases of their neck to the suite at the end of the hallway.
They stopped outside the door, ajar due to the deactivation of the electronic locks. From within, a woman’s voice was clear, though it wasn’t raised. The voice was not Theo’s.
“There’s no other way. Jump, and we’ll be able to explain this all away. There’s no link between Theodosia Benton and Day Delos. Make us shoot you, and we’ll have to take care of your brother too—”
“Theo, no!” Gus shouted despite the gun at his head. They slammed him into the wall.
Theo stared in horror and confusion as her brother and Mac Etheridge were dragged into the room. What were they doing here? Why were they in this nightmare?
