Final judgment

THIRTY-FIVE

Mason pulled Lari Prillman’s business card from his pocket, pleased that her office was in one of the Crown Center high-rises. He could walk there, maybe even get back before the speeches were over and sort things out with Abby.

Lari was waiting for him outside the ballroom, a fur coat slung over one arm. She held it out to him so he could help her put it on. It was a polite gesture he couldn’t refuse and a subtle reminder that this was her show, not his.

“I hope I didn’t disrupt your evening,” she said as they walked outside, the air sharp, the afternoon warmth an uncertain memory, distant stars lost in a fog of ground light.

“Not at all.”

“Your friend didn’t look too happy to see you go.”

Mason let out an exasperated breath, the cold crystallizing, then vaporizing his frustration. “How do women do that?”

“Do what?”

“I told the woman I was with-her name is Abby-that I’d talked with a lawyer, a woman lawyer, earlier in the evening about a case. She saw you stand up and look at me, and she knows you were the woman. You take one look at her and tell me she isn’t happy.”

Lari laughed. “Women pay attention to things men don’t.”

“Like what?”

“The way a man looks at a woman or tries not to look at her; the way a man talks to a woman or avoids talking to her.”

“You were paying attention, weren’t you?”

“I pay attention to everything. That’s why I’m letting you look at my files. I’ll be surprised if I’ve missed something important. If I did, I’d rather know now than after the police have their look.”

Her office was on the twenty-ninth floor, the name of her firm-Prillman amp; Associates-scripted in gold leaf on the double glass doors. She knelt to unlock the dead bolt at the base of the door. She steadied herself with one hand on the glass, nearly falling over when the door gave way before she could insert the key into the lock. Mason grabbed her by the shoulder, helping her steady herself. They stepped inside, stopping at the reception desk, listening to the silence.

“One of your associates working late?” Mason asked her.

“Not unless we’re in trial, and we aren’t.”

“Do you have an alarm?”

She shook her head. “The building is secure. You have to sign in after hours and you can’t get to our floor without knowing the security code for the elevator.”

“Maybe the last one to leave the office today forgot to lock the door.”

“That was me and I didn’t forget.”

“How much space do you have?”

“Four attorney offices. Mine is the corner office at the back. Two paralegal offices, secretarial stations, filing room, and kitchen. About twenty-five hundred square feet altogether.”

“Room to roam. Let’s call the security desk. Have them send someone up before we go wandering around.”

Lari frowned, pushed out her lower lip, and patted him on the cheek. “Don’t worry. If some creep is snooping around my office, he’s going to find my shoe up his ass.”

She dropped her fur over the back of a chair, marched past the reception desk, flipping light switches as she went. Mason glanced at the receptionist’s phone, his attention drawn by a blinking light indicating one of the lines was in use. The light blinked off.

He caught up to Lari as she was halfway down the hall, pulled her to his side, and held a finger to her lips. She opened her mouth in protest and he covered it with his hand.

“Don’t make a sound,” he whispered, biting off the words, leaving no room for argument. “Someone is back there. They were using a phone and hung up when they heard us.”

The lights she had turned on suddenly went off, plunging the corridor into darkness. The doors to the lawyers’ offices were closed, shutting out any exterior light. The entrance to the file room was directly across from them, a black abyss.

A red pinprick of light bounced off Lari’s forehead. Mason heard the muffled spit of a silencer as he yanked her to the floor in the same instant a bullet exploded above them, shards of drywall stinging their eyes.

Mason lay on top of her, his mind racing with their limited options. He raised his head to gauge the distance to the front door. Another bullet whizzed past his head, flattening him against her. Either the shooter was wearing night vision goggles or he was taking random shots. Mason lay perfectly still, trying to shrink the target. Lari didn’t move, though he could feel her chest slamming against his, her hands balled against his sides.

Lari wasn’t dressed for running, especially in a crouch while trying to evade gunfire. The shooter would assume they would run for the door and lay down fire in the hallway. It wouldn’t take long to find them if they hid in one of the offices, and twenty-nine floors was a long way down even if he could break a window. That left the file room, which would also be a trap unless it had another entrance he could use to get behind the shooter. Even if he could somehow do that, he had a better chance playing blindman’s bluff than taking out a killer with night vision.

With Mason shielding Lari’s body as best he could, they snaked into the file room, the smooth linoleum floor easing their passage. He felt for an aisle between two rows of shelves. She belly crawled ahead of him, crouching at the end of the row. He knelt next to her, their eyes adjusted to the darkness enough that they could make out each other’s faces. He touched her cheek and she held his wrist, her grip firm.

Mason heard footsteps trot down the hall, stopping where they had entered the file room. He couldn’t find another way out without giving himself away. They were trapped at the end of the aisle.

He couldn’t judge the line of sight from the hallway to their hiding place, but he could hear someone breathing; slow, steady, and controlled. A red beam danced overhead, methodically dissecting the rows of files, searching for them. They pressed themselves against the cool tile, desperate to blend into the darkness. The beam angled to the floor, fixing on a point inches from them. Mason spread himself across Lari, sweat running in his eyes, waiting for it to find them and the bullets that would follow, not moving, hating even to breathe.

Minutes passed before Mason realized the breathing and footsteps had disappeared from the hallway. He slid a thin file off the shelf and edged it toward the beam, deflecting the light without getting shot. He raised the file in the air, slowly waving it back and forth, tossing it to the floor with the realization of what had happened. The shooter had herded them into the file room so that he could pin them down and escape. The beam that had paralyzed them was probably from a laser pointer left behind, tying them up more securely than a square knot.

“Where’s the fuse box?” Mason asked.

“Inside a utility closet at the far end of the hall.”

He found the laser pointer wedged between files on a nearby shelf, leaving it alone in the unlikely event it carried the shooter’s fingerprints. He found the hallway, turned to his right, and felt his way along the wall. Once inside the utility closet, he fumbled with the circuit breakers until he found the right one, shuddering with relief when the lights came back on.

He ran back to the file room, nearly colliding with Lari as she made her way toward her office, ducking past her and continuing on to the front door. He relocked the dead bolt and did a slow circuit of all the offices. They were alone. He found Lari sitting behind her desk, an open bottle of scotch in her lap.

“It’s okay,” Mason said. “He’s gone.”

“I thought we were going to die.”

“It was our lucky day. He just wanted to get out of here without getting caught. He shot at us to force us into the file room and out of the way, not to kill us.”

“Well,” she said, hoisting the bottle to her lips and taking a drink. “He succeeded admirably.”

Mason looked around. Her office, like the rest of the offices, appeared untouched. Nothing had been ransacked, no papers tossed like confetti in a wild search for something special. The computers hummed, unharmed and unhacked.

“We must have surprised him before he could find whatever he was looking for.”

Lari set the bottle on her desk and stood, hands on hips. She was a bit unsteady, whether from fear or booze, Mason couldn’t tell. She straightened her dress, walked across her office, and took down a painting that hid a wall safe. She spun the lock to the right, then to the left, and then back to the right. The door swung open. The small vault was empty.

“I wouldn’t be so certain,” she said.