After running down the security guard, she had a name. The note had been sent over by bicycle messenger and the security guard had recognized the young man who’d brought it to him. Arik Wheeler was a frequent visitor to the foundation. She’d been told he worked for several courier services, but this time the paperwork had been from City Messenger Toronto, one of the newer companies in town. She’d tried to call, but no one had answered, the business closing early on the weekend.
This mystery would have to wait until Monday when she would go straight to the head of accounting and start unravelling whatever the hell this was. She wasn’t an accountant. She’d wanted to get a grasp on what was happening before she brought in her bosses, but this had officially gone over her head.
If she wasn’t an accountant, she damn straight wasn’t an investigator.
Frustrated, she closed up her laptop. It was getting late, much later than she’d planned on leaving. She glanced out the windows of her office and noted the street lights had come on and evening had fallen across the city. From her office, she could see the sparkling lights of Toronto.
Saturday night in the city.
She wondered if Owen was out and about, enjoying his first few nights in a brand-new town. Her lips curled up as she imagined all the women who would likely think about fainting so the handsome Scot would catch them.
She packed up and for a moment thought about falling back into routine. It was right there, the instinct to call and explain that she’d changed her mind and couldn’t do dinner this evening. She could stop at the café and grab a salad and watch the same movies for the hundredth time and fall asleep on the couch. In the morning, she would call Lawyer Larry and let him know she had a work emergency and she could spend tomorrow here, too.
It was comfortable. It was safe, this routine of being alone.
It was cowardly and not what she’d promised the woman who’d given birth to her.
With a long sigh, she vowed to try. Tonight she would be all social and sparkly and meet River and Jax’s friends. Tomorrow she would smile and see if Lawyer Larry was at least a lust match.
She put her purse over her shoulder and opened the door to leave. She stepped out into the hall and realized how quiet it was. It wasn’t like she didn’t leave after everyone else did on a regular basis. She was usually the last one left with the singular exception of the janitorial staff and Chuck, who ran night security. But there was always ambient noise. There was the hum of printers left running or the heater. Not tonight. An eerie silence filled the space, as if sound could have weight.
Becca stopped, listening for something, anything that might tell her someone else was in the building because in that moment she realized she was being watched. She could feel it, knew it as surely as a rabbit knew a wolf was around, its eyes searching for prey.
But she didn’t hear a sound. No one moved or even breathed. There was absolutely nothing that let her know that instinct deep inside her was telling the truth. She glanced around and not a damn thing moved in the wide bank of cubicles that dotted the floor.
Of course those cubicles could also hide a person.
What the hell was she doing?
It was ridiculous. She shouldn’t have watched that stupid horror movie with her stepmom the last time she’d come into town. Melissa loved them. They gave Becca bad dreams and apparently made her paranoid that there was a serial killer in her office.
Her shoes clicked on the marbled floors, echoing through the space.
That was the moment when the lights went out.
She stopped, the place going dark, and then she could hear someone breathing. It came from her left, low and rattling through the room. Someone coughed and she took off, her heart pounding, adrenaline coursing through her veins like wildfire.
She raced for the bank of elevators, the light above the doors the only illumination in the building. She wouldn’t be able to get in the elevators, but it was the only light to be found so she ran for it.
She could feel it; something was there behind her. Something was chasing her and if it caught her…
The elevator doors opened and a flashlight beamed in the darkness.
She stopped, her feet planted to the floor, and for a moment she couldn’t breathe.
“Dr. Walsh?” a familiar voice rang out. “We’re having some problems with the lights on this floor. Are you all right?”
Chuck. Her hands shook as the lights came back on and the world went from terrifying to normal in the space of a heartbeat.
Chuck clicked off his flashlight and concern showed on his face. “Dr. Walsh?”
She took a deep breath. “I’m okay. I just got a little scared. Is anyone still here?”
He slid the flashlight back into the belt around his waist. “There are a couple of researchers working in the cancer center. And Frank from human resources is sleeping in his office again. I know I shouldn’t let him do that but he’s been having…”
She was being paranoid. She shook her head. “If I was Frank’s wife, I would have kicked him out, too.” He was a jackass, but he wouldn’t scare her like this. “The lights went out and I could have sworn I heard someone coughing.”
A sound rattled through the room and she nearly jumped.
Chuck sighed. “It’s the heater. You don’t notice it when everyone is here and talking. We need to have it fixed. I’m sorry, Dr. Walsh. Come on and I’ll escort you down. I promise I’ll talk to maintenance the first thing Monday morning.”
She nodded and didn’t argue with him. She did notice the heater. That hadn’t been the sound that frightened her, but she was being silly. She started following him toward the elevator. She glanced back and could have sworn she saw a shadow move in the rear of the building.
But it was nothing more than her eyes playing tricks on her. She could describe easily how the brain filled in spaces, how memory could make the mind twist and turn and see things that weren’t actually there.
She went through it in her head as she forced herself not to give into fear, not to look back to make sure that thing she’d felt before wasn’t still there. Wasn’t waiting for the lights to go out again.
She banished the fear and promised herself she wouldn’t let it affect her.
Chapter Eight
Owen glanced up at the clock and realized she was late. Fifteen minutes late. The party had started at six thirty, with Jax mixing cocktails while his pretty wife laid out her appetizers.
Damn him, but he’d forgotten River was a vegetarian. There was cheese but no meat, and a shocking amount of green stuff.
He was hungry and it wasn’t all about food. Since the day with Rebecca, Owen Shaw had realized how empty his life had been, and he suddenly wanted to fill it.
Fill it with her.
That woman had done something to him, and he wasn’t entirely sure he was happy about that.
“She’ll be here,” Robert said before popping a marinated olive in his mouth.
Owen shrugged. “Or she won’t. Maybe you were all right and I fucked this up.”
He’d been thinking about it every second since she’d blown him off. He’d been careful when they’d crossed paths, merely giving her a smile and a breezy hello.
“God, don’t get broody,” Robert groaned. “I need one of the Euros to have a sunny disposition. Sasha threw a plunger at me earlier today, and I swear he was trying to impale me. I often wish McDonald had more carefully screened her experiments for personality.”
Owen stared at him. A shiver went through him. He dreamed about it at night, about that moment he couldn’t remember, the one that had changed him utterly. In those nightmares, he saw the needle coming his way and looked up so he could see the face of the doctor who would take everything away from him.