what’s your status?” Selena asked her.
Allison didn’t answer. Dripping, she took a few steps into the hall, and then a few more, jerking when the man with the trash can reentered the door behind her. He was with a young woman carrying a flowered umbrella. She was dressed in a puffy down jacket and skintight jeans.
“I’ll get my stuff,” he told her. “I have to tell Andy they didn’t empty the damn Dumpster again. I swear.”
“Hurry,” she pouted prettily, running a hand through her blond hair. “The movie starts in twenty minutes.”
Had the woman driven that car into the alley? If so, that was excellent news, because she was harmless. Allison turned and walked up to her.
“Did I block you?” she asked her in a friendly, relaxed manner.
“Yeah, but it’s no problem,” the woman said. “We’ll be backing out.” She smiled questioningly at Allison’s coat, then at Allison. “Get caught in the rain?”
“Yeah,” Allison said, arranging the coat over her shoulders. “I probably look like a drowned rat.”
“Kinda,” the woman replied, wrinkling her nose.
“Hey, dude, what is your problem?” the same protesting voice yelled above the noise. “Shut the damn door!”
“What’s going on?” Jeans asked Allison, craning her neck. “It’s not the cops again, is it? Man, Bobby gave one girl with a fake ID a beer, and—”
It might be that. Or “Dude” might be looking for her.
Allison pushed around the woman and flew back out the door like a shot. The light from the door spilled over the alley, against a metal door ten feet away cut into the large Quonset hut. She hurtled herself at it, grabbed the knob and jerked. It opened. She darted inside and shut it after herself, feeling for a locking mechanism, finding none, moving on into the darkness.
She smelled oil, dust and dirt; her hand brushed against something serrated that felt like a large saw. The building was some kind of storage facility for machinery parts. She crept forward carefully, trying to keep herself moving in a straight line. Most buildings had two doors, an entrance and an exit. If she could find the way out…
“Allison, where are you?” Selena said in her ear.
Allison disconnected her and put the earpiece in her coat pocket. There was nothing Selena could do for her right now except distract her.
She snaked her arms through the coat sleeves as she tiptoed on the balls of her boots through the darkness. Her ears were primed for footfalls, voices, but she heard only the rain and the occasional clink when she ran into something. Dark shadows formed from darker shadows, retinal artifacts of her heightened anxiety and nothing more. Half a dozen times, she grabbed at objects as her knees or elbows or her briefcase collided with them, shutting her eyes tight, holding her breath.
With a pang of regret over her Glock, she tried to remember if she had taken everything else of value out of her car, if she had collected all the prepaids when her briefcase had fallen onto the floor.
It seemed an eternity before the toes of her boots pressed against the opposite wall of the building. She felt with her hands for a door, moving methodically to the right; then a sliver of light drew a line across the tips of her shoes.
Target acquired.
As she found the doorknob, an image of her mother flashed through her head. Allison had never meant to see the morgue photos, but she had by accident, and they’d been gruesome. Marion Hart Gracelyn had not died well. Fear rose inside her. She didn’t want to die like that.
Then Morgan’s face filled her mind, laughing exuberantly when she beat him at tennis. He rarely laughed. She doubted he would be laughing now.
She took a deep breath and turned the knob as soundlessly as she could. The door cracked open, the pressure making a soft puh that reminded her of a silencer. Rain sheeted down ping-ping-ping like spent cartridge casings.
Then she heard a noise behind her. Someone else had just entered the building. If they had a flashlight and a gun, she was in trouble.
She crossed the threshold. Stopped. Took stock, shivering beneath the downpour as she edged past the doorway, preparing to take out whoever walked through the door.
Then she realized she wasn’t alone in the alley.
A stuttering streetlight strobed the scene, allowing Allison to piece together her surroundings.
Damn it.
Drenched by the rain, a tall, husky man loomed at the right end of the alley. He was wearing a bulky coat over a suit. He looked straight at her…and then past her, toward the other end of the alley.
She slid her glance to the left.
Equally tall, the man there was heavier, and bald, and dressed in an overcoat as well.
Bareheaded in the downpour, they began walking toward her. Adrenaline raced through her veins. She stayed light, got ready.
A flashlight flared from the exit of the Quonset hut. The man carrying it was at least six-four and darkskinned, and his eyes were hooded as he saw her and held up a wallet. He must be showing her his ID, but she couldn’t make it out in the dim light.
He said, “Allison Gracelyn, we’d like to speak to you.”
“You are?” she asked steadily, not at all surprised that they knew her name. FBI? CIA? NSA? Echo’s lackeys?
“CIA. We just have a few questions. Come with us, please.”
Her heart jackhammered. No way.
She gazed left and right as the two other men continued striding toward her, blocking her escape routes. She wondered if their heavy coats concealed weapons.
“We can talk here,” she said. Her skin sizzled with anxiety as her body prepared itself for flight or fight. “What would you like to know?”
“We just have a few questions,” he answered smoothly. “It’s nothing unusual.”
The bald man reached her first. His heavy hand clasped her shoulder.
“Please, Ms. Gracelyn, let’s go.”
She kept her bicep loose as she said to the man facing her, “Unless you’re FBI, and you have a warrant, you have no jurisdiction here.” She glared at the bald man. “And I can have you arrested for battery.”
“We only want to talk to you,” the dark-skinned man repeated.
The hand on her shoulder dug in then. Her mind raced through possible moves to take all three of them out as quickly and efficiently as possible. If they were field agents, they had some martial arts training. Given the shape they were in, she probably had more. But her karate master had warned her to never, ever underestimate her opponent.
Then the bald man surprised her. He circled behind her, and the hard pressure of a weapon indented her back.
“This
