“But they can’t get confirmation, so they don’t want to go in yet. They’re waiting for something…maybe.” She shook her head in frustration. “I don’t know, the adrenaline is making their minds…buzzy. Hard to read.”
I nodded. My limited experiences with telepathy had given me more than a taste of that. It was amazing she could pick out anything from the noise, in my opinion.
“What about another entrance to the hotel?” I asked. “They have to have a door for deliveries or whatever, right?”
She nodded absently, her mind working to make all the pieces fit. “Yes, I’m sure they do. But it will likely be under guard equal to this. They’re trying to make sure no one escapes.”
I edged toward the hotel for another look. “Ariane. What about a window on the side? They have all the doors blocked, but if we circled the block and came through from the other direction, we might be able to get in—”
She followed me and then shook her head. “It will take too long. And that’s additional exposure for us, wandering farther away from the hotel. Eventually the shooter may figure out that we came back here, if he or she hasn’t already.”
“What do you have in mind?” I asked. She had that look on her face now, that sharp, determined one that was also somehow empty of feeling. The one that said she’d ceased to see the human factor and simply viewed everyone and everything as obstacles to her ultimate goal.
It sent an instinctive shiver of dread through me. I wasn’t afraid of Ariane. But occasionally, I was smart enough to be afraid of what she could do.
“I don’t suppose I can talk you into staying here or going to the police on your own,” she said, her eyes trained on the activity in the distance.
“No.”
“I don’t know what will happen,” she warned. “It may end badly.” She paused. “Very badly.”
If Emerson St. John was already dead inside that building, “very badly” was pretty much my only option anyway, unless Justine had had someone else studying up on his research. “What’s the plan?” I asked, though it may have taken a bit more effort than usual to push the words free.
“Sometimes simple and direct is the best.” But that was all she’d say.
She led the way down the sidewalk toward the hotel, moving confidently.
People moved out of her way, perhaps sensing something, a potential threat, that even their conscious minds didn’t register.
I tagged along in her wake as she crossed the side street and reached hotel property. Skirting the turnaround, she kept to the road, moving around the news vans and equipment on the perimeter of the police line.
Three police officers moved around inside the cordoned-off area, talking to each other on their radios and generally just looking intimidating while blocking off the main entrance.
Ducking around the last news van, Ariane headed closer to the hotel, along the short side of the caution tape line.
No hesitation, no fear. That probably should have been a clue. But honestly, I thought she had something up her sleeve, some opening or opportunity that I’d just missed. By the time I figured out what she had in mind, it was too late for second-guessing either her plan or my decision to go along with it.
I followed her lead and then watched in disbelief as she slipped smoothly underneath the caution tape.
Damn it.
I ducked beneath the caution tape after her, my heart hammering.
But the officers were preoccupied with the people outside the tape, watching to make sure the reporters weren’t edging too close, and keeping the crowd at a safe distance.
None of them bothered to turn and look behind them. At least, not at first.
“Hey! They’re going inside!” someone shouted.
“You, stop!” That was a new voice, one filled with authority and unused to being disobeyed. Definitely a cop.
But Ariane had already reached the revolving door, so I kept moving. She pushed through, and I scrambled in after her, sharing the same glass division to save time.
It spilled us out into the lobby, which was empty, surprisingly.
Just inside, Ariane pivoted, raised her hand, and stopped the revolving door in motion as the first officer attempted to follow us in.
“The bolts,” I said quickly. “At the bottom on a couple of the sections. They lock into the ground.” I pointed, and she nodded.
A second later, they snapped into place with a solid-sounding clunk that made the glass reverberate, like someone had tapped on it with a hammer.
“That’s, um, not going to work for very long,” I said, watching the trio of officers shouting into their radios and glaring at us.
I swallowed hard.
“It doesn’t need to,” Ariane said, unperturbed. “This way.”
She moved away from the entrance, heading deeper into the lobby, her steps virtually silent on the black-and-white tile floor. Every thud of my shoes sounded magnificently loud by comparison.
Ariane stopped in the far corner of the lobby in front of the small alcove holding the elevator bank.
I raised my eyebrows. “The elevators? You’re kidding,” I said in a whisper.