to escape the cellar that could have been her tomb, Lacey grabbed the log-reader gizmo and went, hoping she would remember where to shove the reader’s little flat plug. Wayne had shown her yesterday, but her hands had developed quite a tremor since then, and her mind wasn’t much better.
Fortunately the elevator gizmo co-operated, scrolling up a neat list of card numbers on its little screen. Wayne’s key card number, the only one she recognized besides her own, was last, as it should be. The elevator hadn’t moved because the vault door was open.
Wayne came out and closed the vault. She handed him the card reader and suppressed a shiver as the elevator doors closed her in. She hadn’t so much as remembered her old claustrophobia at lunchtime, but that was then. Deep breaths. At least it wasn’t underwater. Being trapped underwater in an enclosed space would have been her most terrifying RCMP shift come back to life.
As Lacey stepped out onto the flagstone floor of the atrium, her goosebumps receded before the balm of sunlight pouring through the south-facing wall of windows. The rattle and clunk of distant power tools displaced the vault’s preternatural silence. Voices murmured from the Langdon Theatre overhead and the Natural History Gallery across the way. Paint fumes rose from the classroom level beneath the theatre, heading for the varnished log-roof beams three storeys up. No way to feel enclosed here, overlooking the sun-kissed Elbow River with its churning, brown current that set up an echo in her stomach. She pulled her eyes from the water, willed herself to stare at the landlocked front entrance instead, and reminded herself that she had not died. If nearly a decade in the RCMP had not cracked her, she would not cave on her first civilian job because of a near miss. She was fine. She would be fine when she had to go back into that gap later today. Or tomorrow. She would be fine. Deep breaths.
Something bounced off her head and pinged against the elevator. More construction crew humour? She stepped aside.
“Hey, up there! Whatever you’re dropping, quit it.”
A baggie fluttered down, spilling triangular orange pills. From the landing half a flight up, a woman reached through the railing after it. Shaggy brown hair blurred her face. A baggy shirt and a loose skirt disguised her body. Add a droopy hat and here was the mess that had interrupted yesterday’s media event. Dee’s neighbour. What was her name?
“My pills,” Shaggy whispered. “Please.”
“You won’t want the ones that fell on the floor.” Lacey scooped up the baggie with its lone remaining pill and went up. She knew prescription speed when she saw it, and who but an addict carried Adderall in a baggie like it was trail mix?
Shaggy’s hand shook as she fumbled the little orange pill to her mouth. “Please,” she whispered again. “Call Rob.”
Gladly. Drug addicts were no longer part of Lacey’s job description. She pulled her phone and, lacking Rob’s direct number, called Wayne instead.
“There’s a woman on the west stairs above the atrium, asking for Rob. Can you let him know?”
“Will do,” he said. “Tell her to wait there.”
Lacey turned her head away. “Tell him to hurry. She’s popping ADD pills from a baggie. Long-time abuser by her shakes.” If the woman flipped out, she would have to be restrained. What legal cover did a mere security installer have if she took down an out-of-control addict? She turned, saw the woman glaring at her, and hoped her words would be forgotten as soon as the little orange upper kicked in.
Fast footsteps thumped on the glossy log stairs above them. The curator swooped down to sit beside the druggie. “Honey, you were supposed to stay off the stairs. You promised!”
Stay off the stairs? Stay off the Adderall, more like.
Shaggy leaned her head on Rob’s shoulder. “The paint fumes were killing me. The elevator didn’t come. I thought I could do it. I’m always better in summer.”
“Yes, you are,” said Rob, patting her hand. “But it’s not really summer yet, and you promised you’d be careful if I let you come around today. What’s Terry going to say to us?”
“My fault,” the woman whispered. “Take me home.”
Rob’s patting stopped. “Oh, dear. I can’t, honey. Not right away. I’ve got to head off that shipment of paintings from the Petro-Canada collection. The vault’s not going to be ready this afternoon. But maybe Ms. McCrae wouldn’t mind.” He looked up at Lacey with a pleading smile. “Jan lives just up the hill. It would be a five-minute round trip. Nice afternoon. Lovely scenery. I’ll take her van up after work.”
Jan — that was the neighbour’s name. “I’m on the clock.”
Wayne’s voice came from the foot of the stairs. “You can take her.”
Lacey swallowed her impulsive protest. Hiring her was ex-sergeant Wayne’s favour to his ex-constable, Tom, to whom she owed three weeks’ lodging, the job, and — more than once over their shared years on the Force — her life. Tom’s reputation was, in part, riding on her shoulders here. If Wayne wanted her to haul this addict home instead of doing any of the rush jobs that had to be finished by Friday, she would do it.
Rob helped Shaggy to her feet. “Jan, just tell Lacey where to go once you get into the car. Okay?” He passed her arm over Lacey’s rigid shoulders. “Hang on to the railing, honey.”
Lacey turned under the limp arm and supported Jan around the waist. Wayne came up a few steps and took the other arm. Nobody mentioned the little orange pills on the carpet, but Lacey made a mental note to go back later and make sure they were safely disposed of. Prescription speed in candy colours — just what you didn’t want scattered around a building that would soon be open to school tours.
Wayne steered them all outside and deposited Jan on a bench in the shade. “Get your car, McCrae. I’ll stay here.”
When Lacey returned, Jan was sitting up more or less straight, her back to the varnished log wall. Drugs must be kicking in. She could probably drive herself home in another five minutes, except that two former Mounties couldn’t let an obviously impaired woman operate a vehicle. Lacey got her buckled in and steered the Civic to the road, savouring the early summer scents of clean mountain air, newly leafed trees, and the glacier-fed river. After those terrifying moments in the vault, being outside was a balm, even if the task at hand was one she should have left behind with her badge.
“Where to?”
“Turn right onto the road, then left at the bridge.” Other than that, Jan kept her mouth shut and stared straight ahead. Occasionally she trembled. Lacey turned uphill past the first log-and-glass mansion. It was not flying the flaming C of the Calgary Flames hockey franchise, but the next two houses were. She hadn’t noticed them on her way downhill to work this morning. This high-end rural route was clearly a hockey neighbourhood. Did local support explain the museum’s hockey exhibit?
At a hand gesture from her passenger, she turned off the road a bit uphill from Dee’s drive, following paving stones around a modernist house that was all glass and angles. It, too, had a Flames flag hanging from a sunroom cantilevered out over the steep hillside. She stopped on an oblong of paving, as close as possible to the only visible doorway.
“I can manage now.” Jan groped for her seat belt, fumbled it open, then struggled with the door handle. Getting her feet outside took a lot of concentration, and once they were on the ground, she sat there breathing heavily.
