Page 36 of Be Courageous

Ruby rounded on Corinna. “Did you hear that?” She resisted the urge to jump for joy. “He knew exactly what incident I was talking about.” Now all she needed was for one of the SEALs in the firing squad to back her up. Only that would involve twisting the arms of two of Tony’s teammates, who had a tendency to clam up around her.

“We gotta get out of here.”

Corinna’s anxiety diminished Ruby’s triumph. “Yeah, yeah. In ten minutes or so, once we know they’re good and gone.”

Corinna elbowed her sharply. Looking over, Ruby found her companion staring at the discreet, domed camera overhead.

“Someone could be watching us right now.” Corinna hugged her slender frame and gulped. “I can’t afford to get arrested. I’ll lose my scholarship, maybe even get thrown out of school.”

Doubt overtook Ruby’s contentment. “Well, you’re the one who insisted on tagging along. Fine,” she amended at Corinna’s outraged glance. “We’re leaving. The secret to not getting caught is to look like you belong. Shoulders back, head up. Let’s go.”

Together they marched down the hall toward the stairs the men had taken, but two silhouettes remained visible through the double-glass doors at the bottom. Both women gasped and quickly retraced their steps.

“Let’s find another way out.” Ruby marched ahead of Corinna as she searched the maze of hallways for another set of stairs.

At the back of the building, they discovered a fire exit and took it to the lower level. Their footsteps faltered as they both read the sign beside the door warning an alarm would go off if the door was opened.

Corinna whirled on her. “Great! What do we do now?”

Ruby envisioned their escape. “We’ll make a run for it. The streets are crawling with people. Who’s going to see us if we blend into the crowd?”

“Oh, help.” Corinna rubbed her forehead.

Guilt wrung Ruby for causing her sister-in-law such distress. “Listen, we had every right to be in the building, and now we’re leaving. It’s no big deal. Come on. Just follow my lead. Act casual.”

Throwing her weight into the door, she pulled Corinna out into the cold with her. In the same instant, a high-pitched wail floated from the stairwell, alerting the world to their exodus.

Ruby grabbed Corinna’s hand and towed her straight into the crowd headed toward the art museum. Corinna’s fingernails dug into the back of Ruby’s hand, but no one pursued them. No one shouted, “Hey, wait!”

“See, I told you we’d be fine.” Prying free of Corinna’s death grip, Ruby led the way past the steps toward the far side of the museum. It was there they had parked Corinna’s car, in the hotel parking garage where her boyfriend worked as a valet.

Corinna had fallen thoughtfully silent. At last, she looked over at Ruby, one slim eyebrow raised. “Let me guess. You don’t want Tony knowing anything about this.”

“Right. And if you tell him,” Ruby searched her mind for something to hold over Corinna’s head, “I won’t take you to seeHamiltonwhen you visit over Christmas break.”

Corinna’s jaw dropped and her eyes widened. “You got us tickets forHamilton?”

Well, she hadn’t done it yet, but she had every intention of buying tickets to the famed musical, which was coming to Chrysler Hall. Hopefully there were still some tickets left. “Yes.”

“Oh my gosh, you are such a great sister-in-law. Crazy but great.” Corinna grabbed up her arm as they proceeded to their destination. Her expression grew reflective. “And, by the way, that guy was totally lying when he said that story was just a rumor, wasn’t he?”

Ruby smiled thinly. “He admitted it on the way out. Now all I have to do is prove he killed that boy and his mother.” There had to be some way to get Tony’s teammates to talk.

* * *

“You hear that?” On the verge of climbing into his sleek, black Genesis G90, Len Katz stared back at the high-rise building they’d just come from.

“It sounds like the alarm’s going off.” His assistant appeared nonplussed.

“Why would the alarm be going off? We were the last ones to leave the building.”

“Maybe we weren’t.” Collum pointed toward the crowd emerging from behind the building. “Look. That’s the reporter and her intern. What if they just snuck out the fire exit?”

Searching the crowd, Len finally spotted the reporter by her bright-copper curls. He narrowed his eyes. Why the sneaky little vixen! To what purpose had she hidden in the building following their interview? Suspicion furrowed into him. Had she only pretended to empathize about the circulating rumor when, in fact, she’d eavesdropped in the hopes of hearing something incriminating? He recollected Cullum’s and his conversation on the way out.

Oh, heavens, Cullum had mentioned the leak they’d already addressed! He himself had said the word “SEALs.”

Hurling a curse at his assistant, Len shoved him in the women’s direction. “Don’t take your eyes off them! Follow them on foot and call my cell when you know which way she’s headed.” He ducked into the back seat of his car and slammed his door shut behind him. “Mason, drive straight ahead, slowly, and await my orders.”

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