Maybe upstairs.He’d glimpsed a map on his way in and now spotted an elevator.Thumbing the button, he waited, then—forget it—headed out into a hallway.
The escalator rose to the top floor, and he pushed past more security to see the party continuing on the overlook level.
He strode out onto the upper floor and glanced around the room.An ornate chandelier showered golden light over the acre of round tables topped with gold and blue flowers in glass vases.
No outside access.And yet he clearly heard wind.
And now fighting, the grunts of a struggle.
“Hang on, Emberly!”He turned and fled back down the escalator, pushed past security, and hit the door to the rooftop garden.Enclosed inside a gate, the garden edged up to a tall glass hothouse.
“Phoenix!”He shouted into the darkness and took off for the hothouse.
There, at the far edge, he spotted her, struggling, two forms in the shadows.
He shouted, but it didn’t stop them.And then?—
No!
The man lifted her up.And?—
Andtossedher over the edge.
Stein felt it in his gut, a punch that took out his breath, and he stumbled for a second.“No!”
Tomas turned, startled, then took off across the building’s edge, toward another door.
“Steinbeck, where are you?”Thorne’s voice in his ear, but he couldn’t answer.
He lunged at the edge, caught himself on the railing, and looked down.
His knees nearly buckled again.
Phoenix hung from the robotic window-washing attachment ten feet down.
Even as he watched, she swung her bare foot up to the edge and rolled onto the platform, onto her back, breathing hard.
She looked up at him.And then smiled.
“What?”He glanced away, at shouting, then back at Tomas’s retreat.
The man had disappeared.
Stein turned back to Phoenix, who now stood up and was trying to figure out the controls.The machine moved, ascending.
His entire body shook, along with his voice.He turned to Colt as he ran up.“Did you get him?”
Colt shook his head, and Phoenix breached the surface.
Steinbeck grabbed her arms, pulled her over the edge of the railing, and crushed her to himself.
“Okay, I’m okay.”She was...laughing?
He pushed her away from himself.“Are youdrugged?You could have died!”
She stared up at him, shorter now in her bare feet.“No.I’m not drugged.”She was still grinning.Then she reached into her dress front and pulled out?—
A cell phone.
