Page 26 of Etched in Stone
The whole stereotype irked Jesse, but this was not the time for a social crusade. This was Operation Figure Out What the Assholes Were Up To.
Getting into the building was easy enough. No one looked twice as she headed in right behind a group of three other cleaning people, and no one questioned her as she got in the elevator and hit the button for the twenty-sixth floor.
They'd agreed it was safer to take the stairs up to the last floor. The elevator might alert someone getting out on the floor, but it was less likely they had also rigged the stairs.
Up the stairs, she listened at the fire door for any sounds. Everything seemed quiet.
“How is it going?” Ray whispered in her ears.
“I'm not there yet, hold your horses.” Jesse opened the door and peeked out. No one in sight. So far so good. She was in a hallway with four doors, each one labeled with a neat little plaque.
“Shit. There are four of them. How am I supposed to know which one is the right one?” There was silence over the headphones. Great. She looked at the four plaques. The first one sounded like a law firm. It was almost too boring. But maybe that’s what they were supposed to sound like.
The second was Bright Inc., the third Compass Unlimited, and the finally one was Smith Industries. She read the titles out loud to Ray.
“Compass. Compass Rose,” he repeated. “If it’s a travel agency, it’s the perfect cover. Go with that one.”
Jesse nodded out of habit, even though she realized that he couldn’t see her. It sounded logical enough. She ran the card through the lock and like magic, it opened. Ray had given her the card and told her it would open nearly any card lock on the planet. She’d taken it with a grain of salt since he’d been so proud of inventing it, but sure enough it clicked open.
Jesse pushed the door open and entered a rather nondescript office. There was a receptionist’s
desk and a few impersonal cubicles, but none of them sported any personal pictures or calendars with dates. It was as if a bunch of robots filled those seats and worked in the boxes. Of course, the company could have a no personal stuff policy, but there wasn’t so much as a potted plant to spice up the place.
“This is the place,” Jesse said after studying the office for another minute.
“You are sure?”
“Really. I’m staring at a roll of red ribbon. You know. Like the one used to wrap the box that I was given.”
She pulled out her phone and started taking snapshots. Perhaps there was something in office that she could use. She circled around to the other side of the desk. In the chair, there was a large package envelope wrapped with red ribbon. But that’s not what caught her attention.
“Oh. Shit.” She grabbed the envelop just to make sure. It was definitely addressed to her. It even had a little neon green sticky note on it.
“What?” Ray asked.
“He knows.”
“Who knows what.”
“Pablo knows I’m here. He left a package here for me. There’s a note on it. It says, ‘Jesse, I hope you reconsider my offer.’”
“Time to go.”
Jesse’s mind was whirling, but she definitely agreed. It was time to get the heck out of dodge.
Screw the stairs, she was grabbing the elevator.
It seemed like a lifetime as she waited for it to ding and open. She headed straight down to the lobby. From there, she’d only be a few steps away from Ray and a quick getaway.
The elevator dinged and stopped on the seventeenth floor. She looked down and pretended to fiddle with her cleaning supplies, hoping her curly mop of a wig would hide her from the man whose identity was clear. Mint green was today’s theme, and the white slim tie made Jesse want to reach out and strangle him with it.
“So have you?” he said as soon as the doors closed. It was clear that he knew exactly who she was, who she’d been the whole time.
“Why should I when you tried to kill me?”
“You took the envelope. And it was pretty clear you weren’t actually going to die, wasn’t it? If I wanted you to die I would have slit your throat.”
“All the details are in the envelope?” she asked.
