could drive like a New York City cabbie. If Flynn hadn’t seen it for himself, he never would have believed what she could make that little beige Firefly do. She’d gotten past every one of the obstacles they’d set up. It was a good thing he’d been on his bike, or she would have lost him back at Sarah’s “stalled” van.
He clipped a fake power-company ID card to his shirt pocket. “What about boyfriends?”
“No data about that so far. I could get into her prescription records and find out if she’s gone to a doctor for birth control.”
“No,” Flynn said immediately. He didn’t know why, but he didn’t like the idea of Intelligence digging quite that deeply into Abigail’s life. “I only wanted to know whether she might have company with her at her apartment.”
“Sorry, prescription records wouldn’t help you there. She has her mother, Clara Locke, listed as her next of kin. Parents live in Maryland. One older sister named Martha, a younger one named Eleanor, both married with kids.” Sarah paused. “Abigail and her sisters are named after first ladies. Seems like she’s not the only history buff in the family.”
Flynn reached the next landing just as the lights went out. The power failure didn’t startle him—evidently Specialist Gonzalez had located the main breakers in the basement and had done his job right on schedule. This was the reason Flynn was using the stairs to get to the seventeenth floor instead of the elevator. He waited where he was until the emergency light clicked on, then continued climbing.
“Vilyas has just received word from the LLA.” Redinger’s voice replaced Sarah’s. His words were even lower and more clipped than earlier—definitely a very bad sign. “They claim they were double-crossed, that he never left the ransom as he had agreed.”
“What did he tell them?” Flynn asked.
“Vilyas said he left the money but it was picked up by a schoolteacher.”
Flynn increased his pace, taking the stairs three at a time. Great. If the terrorists hadn’t followed Abigail from the museum, they’d be able to find her for sure, anyway, now that Vilyas had told them the ransom was picked up by a schoolteacher. They wouldn’t need the resources of Delta Force to be able to trace which schools had field trips at the museum today, all they’d need would be a telephone. It was only a matter of time before they narrowed it down and decided to come after Abigail and the money themselves.
“Wasn’t anyone with him when he took the call?” Flynn muttered. “Couldn’t they have stopped him from talking?”
“He was advised not to say anything, but the LLA put his son on the line and then struck the child. When Vilyas heard his son scream, he disregarded our instructions.”
Flynn felt a surge of adrenaline. The LLA had abused a helpless child. They would stop at nothing to get what they wanted. They wouldn’t care how many innocent people were hurt or how much collateral damage they did in the process.
Miss Abigail Locke, who turned thirty today, with her three library books and her little beige car was a sitting duck. He had to get the money away from her—or get her away from the ransom—as soon as possible.
“Is the kid okay?” Flynn asked.
“We have no way of knowing,” Redinger replied. “All we know is that he was alive and conscious ten minutes ago.”
“How long do you estimate I have before the LLA gets here?”
“We’re keeping our units in place to gridlock the traffic in the immediate area, so best-case scenario, you’ll have thirty minutes.”
He didn’t need to ask what the worst-case scenario was, Flynn thought, hearing footsteps in the stairwell below him. He waited until he could be sure the footsteps were retreating—probably one of the building’s tenants, nervous about the power failure. He placed his hand on the door to the seventeenth floor. “What’s the latest from the electronics in the pack?”
“The pack is stationary, somewhere in her apartment.”
“Has she opened it?”
“Unlikely. The mike didn’t pick up any sound to indicate the buckle was being unfastened.”
“Did it pick up anything?”
“Only a phone call from her mother. They’re expecting her for dinner.”
“Maybe I should wait until she goes out.”
“The LLA won’t wait if they find her first.”
“Right. What’s she doing now?”
“Nothing on the mike except some shuffling sounds. Probably trying to find her way around in the dark.”
“Okay. Keep me posted. I’m going in.”
Abbie balanced on one foot to put on her shoe as she peered through the peephole in the door. She tried to make out the features of the man who stood there, but the beam from the emergency light at the end of the corridor didn’t reach this far. All she could see was a tall, broad-shouldered figure with some kind of tool belt strapped around his hips.
“Who is it?” she called through the door.
“I’m with the power company, ma’am.”
She buttoned her blouse and tucked it into her skirt, thankful that she’d finished her shower before the lights had gone out. The bathroom had no window, so it had been pitch-black, but at least there had been enough light from the dusk filtering through the other windows for her to find some clothes. “That was fast,” she said.
“There’s a problem with the wiring in the building. We’ve traced it to a circuit in your apartment. I need to check it out.”
Water dripped from the ends of her hair onto her shoulders. “What?”
“Do you mind letting me in?”
She opened the door to the limit of the security bar. “Do you have any identification?”
There was a rustle of fabric as he reached for something on his chest. “Here’s my I.D. card.”
She squinted at the card, but all she could make out was a pale rectangular blur. “Sorry, I can’t—”
“Hang on.” He took a flashlight from his belt, clicked it on and directed it toward the card. “This should help.”
The suddenly bright beam made her blink. She looked at the printing on the card. Flynn O’Toole. Sure enough, he was an employee of the power company. She glanced at the small color photo in the corner. Her grip on the door tightened.
Who had ID photos that turned out like that? Even the stark head-on flash couldn’t hurt that square jaw and those high cheekbones. A picture like that should be gracing an ad for designer cologne, not an identification card for the electric company. She raised her gaze to his face.
The photo wasn’t that good after all. He looked far better in the flesh.
Good Lord, but he was gorgeous. Not in a pretty, cover-boy way, but like a man. All man. Those deep-set, thick-lashed blue eyes gleamed with quiet male confidence. His nose was bold and straight, his lips framed by twin lines that etched their way down from the hollows of his cheeks. His hair was black, curling over the tips of his ears and the back of his collar in a way that invited a tousling. In his plaid flannel shirt and his snug-fitting jeans, he looked rugged but approachable, a natural-born heartbreaker.
Abbie wanted to slam the door in his face.
“Ma’am? Would you like to call my supervisor? He’ll verify my ID for you.”
“No, I—” She cleared her throat, thankful for the lack of lighting so he might not notice how she was staring. On the other hand, a man who looked like that would be accustomed to attracting plenty of female attention. Yes, he probably reveled in it, drawing women like mindless, doomed moths to a flame.
It