Whispered Lies

“This room is safe. What about the plans?” he asked.

“When the IT center was built, the engineers needed the plans so they could run additional power and so forth. I recall a worker talking about how they couldn’t set a beam in one spot because of the underground tu

“Okay, so what does that do for us?”

She cocked her head in a smug angle. “While you were looking all hot and dangerous outside the glass window to the IT center, I was locating Amelia’s room and creating a loop for the security cameras we’d pass. She’s in the high-priority residence area, same section where Linette and I stayed. If we’re quick, we can check out the room to see if she’s coming back, but they’ll become suspicious if the camera loops run too long. We may see some students since this is mealtime, but once they shut the building for the night, security walks the halls.”

“Will you be able to tell if anything looks wrong about the room?”

“Yes. When Linette left without notice, her half of our room was clean within a day. If Amelia is gone against her will, I’m thinking at least one-half of the room will be spotless.”

“Good idea. Nice job.”

“Thanks.” She preened inside and started to reach for the handle when he said, “Hot and dangerous?”

Gabrielle cut her eyes up at him. “Like you weren’t playing up the sexy bodyguard bit to the hilt for the females ogling you?”

“Just doing my job.” His eyes crinkled with humor that downplayed the stern frown he gave her, then his face turned all serious. “Tell me how we get to the tu

She explained the back way to the stairs and the room where the access point to the tu

“What about the code to our door?” he asked.

She smiled. “I’ve set it so we can bypass security by keying in a secondary code that will not show up on their panel. But the original code will still go through if someone tries to come in.”

“I’ll leave a set of eyes to catch anyone who might try, but I doubt they’ll bother Mademoiselle Tynte Saxe.” He winked and her blood pressure spiked. “The minute we step out of here, don’t say a word and do everything I tell you to do.”

“Like that ever changes?”

Carlos ignored Gabrielle’s jab and took her hand, opening the door, then leading her into the living room, where he positioned her next to the exit door. He didn’t like her ditching the panic button, but they didn’t need to draw attention either. He was not letting her out of arm’s reach from here on out, which would be an issue later tonight, but he’d face that then.

Opening the glass doors to the patio where the wind was blowing, he placed an open magazine next to the glass figurine where the bug was planted. The pages fluttered intermittently from the breeze.

He placed his psuedo-iPod on the top of a cabinet with a laser beam set to trigger the video recorder in the unit if the door opened.

At the door to the hallway, he entered the secondary code, then pulled her out behind him. Carlos kept a steady pace, moving them down the hall silent as a shadow. The door to the stairs creaked, but no one appeared in the thirty seconds he waited, so they descended three floors down to the basement. Carlos flipped on a small LED light and let Gabrielle lead him to a room that smelled as damp and musty as it looked.

“It should be on this wall.” Her whisper echoed and she froze.

“No one should hear anything down here unless there’s a bug, and they have no reason to put one in this spot. Stand still while I check.” He shone the light across the wall, ru

“There’s a panel,” Gabrielle whispered, softer this time.

He put a foot against the wall for leverage and strained every muscle to widen the gap to three feet. Enough for them to squeeze into the opening.

Four tarnished brass pins held the panel on the wall. He unscrewed the pins, then put the panel on the cabinet and forced his body through the angle into the dark hole. Reaching a hand behind him, he waved her forward.

She touched his fingers, letting him know she was there.

He pinched the LED light and stood up, banging his head on the hard ceiling. He held back the curse he wanted to yell and caught her by the shoulder before she made the same mistake. “Don’t stand up too quick.”

Wasted effort since she was able to stand without touching the ceiling.

“Must have been a damn small bunch of warriors living here back when,” he muttered, drawing her along behind him.

Gabrielle whispered about the two turns they had to find to reach the student housing. Her slender hand was cold in his, gripping his fingers with all her strength.

He towed her along, wanting to chuckle at the fast flip in personality. She was a study in contradictions. One minute she was quiet and flush with embarrassment, then the next she was taking him to task over not finishing the kiss.

She had to think she’d done something wrong. He owed her an explanation or at least an apology for being a jerk.

Or a kiss. He wouldn’t mind owing her a kiss if not for it sending the wrong message and crossing all over the lines of a mission. He’d never had this issue with a prisoner, and never with any one woman.

But all he had to do was hear her voice or get a whiff of her perfume or the smell of her shampoo and he wanted her.

“This is where it should be,” she murmured when they reached the middle of a long passage with no doors.

At the next corner, Carlos saw a dust of light breaking through from above.

“There it is.” He let go of her hand and shone his light up the opening that rose eight feet above them. Long fingers of light pierced through a grate at the top. Rows of spikes had been driven into the wall at one-foot intervals from the grate, forming a ladder that ran down to waist-high above the ground.

He pulled her close. “I can’t put you up there first since I don’t know what’s on the other side.”

“Go ahead. I can get up the ladder by myself.”

“Okay, I’ll wave you up as soon as it’s clear. Keep this.” He handed her the light and reached two rungs up so he could catch his foot on the last one, then started climbing. When he reached the grate, it appeared to open into a storage room with hot-water heaters and cleaning equipment.

He used one hand to push up on the grate, holding himself to the ladder with the other. He put his shoulder into inching the heavy metal to the side. It slid on a track.

That was the good news.

The bad news was a squeak caused by friction at one point.

He listened. No footsteps came ru

A scuffling noise was followed by a feminine grunt, then her face appeared. He took her arm and helped her onto the floor, then to her feet. She immediately started dusting off her pants. Every bit the lady until she realized he was waiting.

“Oh.” She glanced around. “We go up the stairs.”

“Tell me now what the upper-floor layout is before we get there so we won’t have to talk.”

She explained, using her hands. “Amelia’s room is 210. If nothing has changed, everyone should be in their room or at the meal hall, because we were never allowed to linger in the hallways. But we might run into someone coming or going.”