I am slow, sleepy. “What? Who saw what video?”
Thomas takes three long angry strides toward me, towers over me, and the expression in his eyes is so terrifying I amshocked fully awake. “Heseeyou and that man from the auction. With the yellow hair.”
“Caleb. He saw the tapes?” I’m starting to fathom the problem.
Thomas grips my arms, twists me, propels me toward the front door. “He is a madman. You must go.”
“Go?”
“Or I think you die. He ismad.” Thomas, with his thick African accent, does not meanmadas in angry, I realize. The implication is more frightening than mere anger.
I am barefoot. My shoes from yesterday sit forgotten, between the front door and the library. One, on its side. The other, upside down. I right them with my toes, stuff my feet into them. Shuffle to the door, untangling my hair.
Thomas growls in his chest. “No time for shoes, no time for fixing your pretty hair.GO!”
I let go my hair, take a step toward the door, and stumble out into the hallway, into the elevator, which stands open. The key is still in, twisted to the13. Thomas, in his tailored Western suit, looks fierce and wild, the whites of his eyes flashing bright, teeth bared. Even in the Western suit, he looks like an ancient Nubian warrior. I can see him with a lion skin, a round shield, and a long spear, dancing in the dust and the baking heat of the African sun.
I blink, and it’s just Thomas again, in a black suit with a white shirt, thin black tie, a curly cord trailing down behind his ear and beneath his collar. His eyes go unfocused for a moment, and he touches a finger to the device in his ear, and then looks at me. He reaches in past me, twists the key up to thePH—penthouse—and then pulls me out of the elevator.
“Down the stairs.” He pushes open what I thought was a fire escape. Locked, equipped with a siren or something.
Just a crash bar and the markings of an emergency exit. No siren wails when I push the door open. A stairwell beyond,grayish-white walls, metal handrails, blue rubber-treaded stairs in a descending square spiral. Shoes in hand now, I run down the stairs. I trip and miss a step, hear Thomas’s voice, can’t make out the words. Lurch and stumble down the steps so fast my breasts jounce painfully. I miss another step as I reach a landing, trip, crash into the wall opposite. Pause to catch my breath, arm, elbow, and hip aching where I smashed into the drywall. Below, I hear a voice.
“She’s coming down the steps.” A male voice, nasal and unfamiliar. “Thomas alerted her, I think. Yes, sir... I’m on the way up from floor seven. Alan is on the ground floor. We’ll find her, sir, I promise. Yeah. I’ll update you when we have her. Unharmed, got it. Crystal, sir. Not a scratch.”
The voice is echoing from a few levels down and getting closer. Panic chokes me. I push through the door at the landing, marked with a black-painted10. A clean, modern corridor, pale gray walls, cream carpeting, abstract paintings on the walls. An alcove, men’s room, women’s room. I duck into the women’s restroom, grip the counter and lean, gasping for air, fighting sobs. What is happening? Why did Thomas warn me, help me escape? Does he pity me, worry for me? Where did he think I would escape to? Nothing makes any sense. And the fire escape stairwell not being alarmed puzzles me as well. Perhaps he meant only to give Caleb’s anger time to cool off. I don’t know. I just know I have to seize the opportunity that is presented. I cannot stay here any longer. Not after what I’ve experienced with Logan.
What do I do now? I glance up at myself in the mirror. I look awful. I take a deep breath, push down my panic.
Clear thought, rational decisions. Do not act out of panic or fear.
I use my fingers to free my hair from its knot, losing a few long black strands in the process. The black stretchy hair tie hasmy hair tangled around it, and my hair is a matted disaster. I comb it out with my fingers as best I can and then twist it up into a bun, gathering all the loose strands, wetting it with the sink a little to smooth it all out. Tie it back. Hand soap and water, scrub my face clean. Dab dry with rough brown paper towel from an automatic dispenser—which took me a moment to figure out.
Face clean, hair neat. I straighten my dress, smooth out the worst of the wrinkles as best as possible. Adjust my cleavage. Tug the hem down. Slip on my shoes. Deep breath.
Exit, find the stairwell, glance back, debate trying the elevator. They’re looking for me on the stairs now, I assume.
As I’m internally debating, I hear static crackle echoing in the stairwell, a male voice. I move away, follow the corridor around a left turn, slip through a glass doorway into an office. There’s a desk, ornate, polished wood. Tall potted plants in the corners, pointillist art on a wall.
A young woman with a headset sits behind the desk, facing a computer screen. “Can I help you?”
“I think I got off on the wrong floor,” I say. “Can you point me back to the elevators?”
Her eyes narrow, flick over me. She’s looking for something. “May I see your security badge, miss?”
“I—”
She touches a button in front of her. “If you could just wait a moment, I’ll have security come up and we’ll get you a temporary ID badge.”
I turn and duck out.
“Miss? You have to come back!” Her voice is loud, then quieted as the heavy glass door swings closed behind me.
Back to the elevators, touch the call button. Wait, panic rising in my gut. The elevator doors hiss open, and I step into the empty car. This is not the same elevator as stops at my door. There are buttons, dozens of them:G, a numeral one with a starbeside it, and then numbers ascending all the way up to fifty-eight. My floor, thirteen, is missing. I look twice: ten, eleven, twelve, fourteen, fifteen...
I push theG. Garage? I don’t know.
Sensation of descent. Some instinct has me press the two, and the car stops. I get out on the second floor, suppressing panic. I assume there are security cameras everywhere, that the guards are only moments behind me. I have a thousand problems ahead of me, but all I want right now is to get out of this building.
