Beast in the Tower. Julie Miller

twisted an ankle, she should have shown up by now. “Unpredictable, hmm?”

      Odd for a scientist. Maybe she was following some logical pattern of her own design. Unexpected. But far more engaging than waiting for a mixture to cool.

      With a few quick keystrokes on the computer, he pulled up the cameras for the sixth and seventh floors. With no movement detected on either level, Damon switched to views of the lower floors. There was plenty of activity to observe in the lobby, where his current contractor, J. T. Kronemeyer, was arguing on the phone wedged between his shoulder and ear, and handing out assignments to his foremen.

      But no Katherine Snow.

      Damon typed in more commands. He accepted the challenge she unknowingly presented. “I’ll find you.”

      Eighth floor, ninth floor. Where had she gone?

      He absently massaged his brow bone, easing the phantom eye strain that settled behind the patch masking the left side of his face. “Come out, come out, wherever you…” Damon smiled and blew up the image on screen three. “Gotcha.”

      Breathing deeply after what must have been a quick, steady climb, his subject stepped out into the hallway on the thirteenth floor.

      Feeling something akin to victory coursing through his veins, Damon raised his mug to his unwitting opponent and drained the last of his coffee. As he watched Katherine Snow squat down to study something on the tile floor, her quizzical expression piqued his own curiosity.

      What was she doing on a cordoned-off floor, anyway? One that Kronemeyer’s renovation crews hadn’t even gotten to yet? The previous company Easting had hired, and subsequently fired for too many delays and “misplaced” supplies, had replaced the exterior windows, stripped the doors and added structural reinforcements to bring the settling walls up to code. But the thirteenth floor belonged to a different phase of the remodeling project. It wouldn’t see any finishing work for several months. Miss Snow had no business being there.

      Yet there was something beyond his camera angle that caught her eye. She stood and made the odd choice to walk along the edge of the tiled hallway. Why not take the middle path others had used?

      Others?

      “Curious.” Damon typed as he sank onto the stool in front of the monitors. Was that…? He squinted his good eye and blew up the image on the screen. Footprints. In the thick layer of plaster dust that coated the floor. Fresh prints. Recent.

      And Katherine Snow was following them.

      “No, no,” he admonished the monitor, wishing he could transmit some sort of telepathic warning to her. “You don’t belong there.”

      Neither did the footprints.

      “Be smart. Go back.” Damon was already shrugging out of his lab coat. Had she heard a sound earlier? Was she following someone? Before any definitive answers could form, she turned a corner and disappeared from sight. “Damn.” He tossed the coat and pulled up the next camera to find a shot of her. “Come back to me.” He was searching. Searching. “C’mon.”

      Was that a door? Two? Three, hanging back in place? As Damon panned down the hallway, he discovered that some unsanctioned work had taken place. Floors thirteen through twenty-five should have been stripped down to bare bones. No way had Kronemeyer’s crew gotten ahead of schedule. Since that electrician’s unfortunate death, the missing crew member and the superstitious rumblings about the curse of landing a job at the Sinclair Tower, Kronemeyer’s men couldn’t even catch up. So who’d authorized replacing the doors?

      “Where are you? Yes!” Damon shook a triumphant fist when her fresh-scrubbed face reappeared.

      She was trailing her fingers along the wall, slowing her step as she reached the second door. Damon’s pulse quickened to a bolder beat, feeling the same edgy anticipation reflected on her face.

      “Don’t do it.” But his fingers were turning in the air, right along with hers, as she reached for the doorknob. He was just as curious as she to know what lay on the other side.

      The instant the door swung open, two arms snaked out and latched on to her wrist.

      Damon jumped. “What the hell?”

      Man’s hands. Suit-coat sleeves. Dragging her into the room out of the camera shot.

      Damon cursed and ran from the lab. He swiped his key card through the security lock that accessed his private elevator and typed in the activation code. Once in, he pressed thirteen over and over until the doors slid shut.

      Objectivity be damned. Katherine Snow was in trouble.

      And he owed it to Helen to keep her safe.

      Chapter Four

      Grubby hands closed over her wrist and Kit screamed.

      “Shh! Get in here,” a strident voice whispered.

      “Let go of me!” The door slammed. The hands dragged Kit to the center of the room. She stumbled over a bunched-up rug. The foul odor of sweat and booze stung her nose, granting her recognition an instant before her assailant released the hard pinch on her bones. “Henry!”

      “Shh.” The old man with the grizzled face and bulbous nose urged her aside with a placating hand. He blinked his watery eyes, trying to decide which one to spy through the peephole with. “I’m planning a surprise.”

      She’d certainly gotten one.

      Relief surged through Kit, replacing panic with confusion and concern. This was definitely not what she’d expected to find in her search for Helen Hodges’s apartment. Rubbing the chafe marks on her wrist, she assessed Henry Phipps’s frayed, wrinkled suit and distant expression, and wondered how an addled old man could have such a painful grip. “You can’t just grab someone like that. I thought I was being abducted.”

      Now that she knew she was in no real danger, Kit took a closer look at her surroundings. The apartment walls had been stripped down to its two-by-fours, revealing hanging wires and rusted switch boxes that looked as though they hadn’t been functional for years. And though the window overlooking the parking garage still bore its factory sticker, there was nothing else new or clean about the rooms. A trio of well-worn area rugs covered the stained hardwood floor, while a motley assortment of freight boxes and a metal folding chair passed for furniture. Kit cringed at the sad clues around her. “Do you live here?”

      “Shh.” Henry pressed a finger to his lips and smiled. “She’ll be home soon. It’s a surprise.”

      “So you said.” Kit frowned as Henry puttered about the room, straightening what little there was. “Didn’t you spend last night at the shelter?”

      He tossed her a ratty pillow that he’d probably fished out of a Dumpster. “Have a seat.” She’d pass. “Can I get you a drink?”