she certainly would when the car crashed into the basement.
Once he was done, he gathered up his tools and headed for the stairwell. Now that this was done, he needed to disappear. His only witness was the woman in the office, which concerned him some. However, when he got back to the office to check out, there was a sign on the window.
Back in Fifteen Minutes.
He signed out and left. A simple trip to the bathroom had saved the woman’s life.
By the time Sahara went to bed that night, she was comfortable with the new lines and mentally immersing herself back into the role. She was a little sad, a little bit afraid and definitely uncertain what tomorrow would bring, but it felt good to be resuming normal activities.
When her alarm went off the next morning at four o’clock, she had just enough time to shower and dress for the day before the car would arrive to take her to the set.
While she was getting ready to leave, the bomber was in the parking lot of The Magnolia watching the video feed inside the elevator car from a remote control camera, waiting to hit a button and blow her to kingdom come.
Oblivious to the impending danger, Sahara moved through the penthouse with comparative ease, opting to wear some loose terry-cloth slippers to work. Adam had just called to let her know her car arrived, so she headed out the door wearing gym clothes and a lightweight zip-front hoodie. She was carrying a small purse barely big enough for credit cards, her phone in one hand and her coffee in the other as she punched in the code to send for the elevator.
And up it went.
When the bomber saw the doors open and his target step onto the elevator, he grinned. He didn’t waste any time. He took a quick breath and detonated the bomb.
But Sahara had realized she’d forgotten the pages with all of her notes and comments for the day’s shoot and had jumped out of the elevator with her key card in hand before the doors had closed. She was already running back across the hall to get them.
She was three steps from her door when the bomb went off. It blew the elevator doors into the hall only feet from where she was standing, immediately filling the hall with flying debris and a cloud of white billowing dust.
The impact knocked her to her knees and sent the key card sailing out of her hand. She was down on all fours screaming and crying for help when she heard the elevator car fall. It slid down the shaft in a horrible screech of metal against metal, and the faster it fell, the louder the screech until it was a constant, unending scream.
Sahara had lost her sense of direction in the thick, billowing dust and smoke, and all she could hear was that shriek as she frantically crawled from one side of the hall to the other, screaming for help, trying to orient herself with where she was. When she finally felt the ornate carving on her front door, she scrambled to her feet.
The light in the hall was off, leaving her in solid darkness. When she finally felt the keypad, she sobbed with relief as she began trying to key in her code. But the feeling was short-lived, because the floor began shaking beneath her feet. The car had become its own missile, rocketing down the shaft until it passed the ground floor and smashed into the basement in a second explosive blast, filling the shaft with even more smoke and debris.
Out in the parking lot, the bomber drove away convinced he had succeeded, and while most of the other tenants thought it was an earthquake, Sahara feared it was no accident. She was ninety-nine percent sure that a second attempt had just been made on her life.
When she finally made it back into the penthouse, she locked herself inside and then sank to her knees, sobbing. Too weak to stand, she fumbled for her phone, then groaned when she realized it was somewhere in the hall, and she wasn’t going back into that choking smoke.
Slowly, she struggled back to her feet and then stumbled to the nearest bathroom, desperate to get the grit and dust from her face and eyes. Once she could see, she ran through the rooms to get to her bedroom suite, locked the door and then ran for the house phone at the end of the wet bar.
Her heart was hammering so loud she could barely think, and her hands were shaking as she called the lobby, waiting for the dear and familiar sound of Adam’s voice.
* * *
The lobby downstairs was in chaos.
Certain Sahara had gone down with that elevator car, Adam was already in tears as he dialed 911.
The driver who’d been waiting for her heard the commotion and ran inside, only to find out the woman he was supposed to pick up was inside the elevator that had crashed. In a panic, he called his boss, who immediately called Harold Warner.
* * *
Harold had business to tend to all over the city this morning and had hired a car so he could work as he traveled from appointment to appointment.
He was making a notation of a dinner meeting the day after tomorrow when his cell phone rang. He hit Save to his Notes and answered the call.
“Harold Warner.”
“Mr. Warner, this is Lou from Hollywood Limo.”
“Yeah, hello, Lou. What’s up? No problem picking up Miss Travis, I presume?”
“I’m sorry, sir, but my driver just called and said that while he was waiting for Miss Travis to come down, there was an explosion inside The Magnolia, and that the penthouse elevator came down and...crashed with her in it. I knew you needed to know. I’m so sorry to be the bearer of such news.”
Harold froze. He couldn’t believe what he was hearing.
“No! Oh my God, no!” he cried, then hung up on the limo service and called the phone in the lobby of Sahara’s building. It rang and rang, but no one answered. He hit the intercom and buzzed the driver.
“Get me to The Magnolia as fast as you can.”
“Yes, sir,” the driver said, and immediately turned them around and headed in the direction of the well-known building.
Harold was in shock. For a few moments, he couldn’t think what to do or who to call and then realized he needed to let the director know his star wasn’t going to make it to the set this morning—or any morning.
* * *
Adam had Fire and Rescue coming in the front door and the Hollywood PD outside directing traffic, plus he was fielding calls from all of the other residents of the building while trying not to break down completely at the loss of one of his favorite residents. He was a grown man who wore a weapon to work every day. He had been hired to do a job—keeping the residents of The Magnolia safe and seeing that their privacy stayed intact. But he’d known Sahara Travis for years and liked her as a person. Knowing that she’d died on his watch was tearing him up. He’d just watched a team of firefighters heading up the stairs floor by floor to escort any reluctant residents down while another crew was making its way down to the basement.
Behind him, the phone began to ring again. He sighed, blinking back tears as he reached to answer, then froze.
Seeing her name on
