the eighth floor.”
“Can you come with us in case we need to get into Ms. Chu’s office?”
“I have my rounds, but—” he pulled a key from his keychain “—this is the master and it’ll get you in.”
“Thanks.” Sean took the key and pounded the button for the elevator. “One more thing.”
The security guard stopped at the door to the right of the elevators with his hand on the doorknob. “Yes?”
“Has anything unusual happened tonight? Anything out of the ordinary?”
The guard cocked his head. “As a matter of fact, yes. An emergency buzzer sounded for one of the side doors about an hour ago.”
Elise swallowed and curled her hand around Sean’s arm. “What does that mean?”
“Means someone left the building by way of an emergency exit. Who knows? Maybe it was Ms. Chu.”
“H-has she ever done that before?”
The security guard shook his finger. “That Ms. Chu likes to break the rules.”
As they rode up to the eighth floor, Elise said, “Maybe that’s it. Maybe Courtney’s not even here.”
“Maybe.”
The doors opened, and Elise tugged on Sean’s sleeve to steer him to the right. The silence enveloped them, and Elise held her breath. When they got to the door of Courtney’s office, Elise let out a breath on a whispered prayer. “Please, God, let her be safe.”
Sean tried the door handle first. Then he pulled out the key the security guard had given him and shoved it into the lock. He turned the lock and pushed the door at the same time, staggering into the small waiting room.
Elise had been in here once before and it looked the same—undisturbed. Courtney had fanned out the latest magazines on one low table and had stacked others in a holder on the wall. Two fake plants bobbed in the corners, and someone had left an indentation in one of the leather love seats.
The needy client who liked Courtney’s name?
Elise marched toward the door to Courtney’s inner sanctum, but Sean put out a steadying hand.
“Wait.”
He drew his gun from his holster and crept toward the same door. Shoving Elise behind him, he eased open the door.
More silence.
Elise’s nostrils flared and the blood thrummed in her eardrums.
Sean aimed his gun at the three closed doors off the hallway and whispered, “Which one is her office?”
The whisper sent a chill up her spine, but she shook off her fear and pointed to the first door on the left.
“Stay back.”
Sean twisted the handle of the door and inched it open. He’d stepped into the office, but Elise was no longer watching him.
A slight movement on the floor to her right caught her eye. Her gaze darted to the tile in front of what she knew was the bathroom floor.
A trickle of dark liquid meandered from the crack beneath the door. As if in a trance, Elise stepped over it to push open the bathroom door. The door swung freely and then stopped.
She heard Sean’s voice coming from the office, words she couldn’t comprehend, words coming at her in a fog.
She opened her mouth and managed a small sigh. She ran her tongue along her teeth and tried again.
This time she managed a scream, a scream so loud it echoed and bounced off the walls of the small bathroom where Courtney’s lifeless form couldn’t hear her at all.
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