“Must be pretty important,” he said, his gray eyebrows coming together. “It’s not a fit night out for man nor beast.”
She chuckled, recognizing the quote from a show she’d loved as a kid. “Do you think you could let me go look for my things?”
“I’ll take you up. Gotta make my rounds, anyway.”
He escorted her to the bank of elevators, and punched in a number on a keypad by the nearest one. The light above it came on, and the door slid open. Pretty high-tech stuff. Of course, she’d noticed earlier today that the new building had all the latest bells and whistles.
Arriving on the sixth floor, Lucy hurried to the area where the photo booth had been set up. It had been dismantled. Santa’s chair was gone, and so were her bag and case. “Oh, hell.”
“Some stuff was left in the break room,” he told her. “If it’s valuable, it’s possible somebody locked it up for you.”
“Could be. Stella saw me leave my camera and lenses here.”
“Let’s check her office first, then,” he said, leading her down the hallway to the executive suite. He preceded her inside, but before she even had a chance to follow, she heard him exclaim, “Oh, no, watch it, mister!”
Following his stare, she looked out the window to the street below, and saw a car spinning out of control. It skidded off the street, hydroplaning across the parking lot where the Elite Construction security truck was parked. She winced, doubting the driver could regain control.
He didn’t.
“Dang it all,” said the guard. He cast her a quick look. “Do you mind looking by yourself? I should run down and make sure that driver’s all right. If your stuff’s not here, check the break room, back down the hall, fourth door on the left.”
“Of course,” she said, then watched the elderly man hurry away. She quickly scanned the office area. No luck. She wasn’t going to go snooping through Stella’s desk drawers or file cabinet, even if they weren’t locked. Her things wouldn’t fit, anyway.
She next spent several minutes searching the break room. It was piled with boxes of decorations, and containers of unopened food. Lucy looked through every bag and box, to be sure nobody had tucked her things in there for safekeeping.
Growing frustrated—and worrying somebody might have picked up the camera and lenses and given themselves an early Christmas present—she opened a free-standing cabinet and at last, struck pay dirt. “Yes!” she exclaimed, spying the familiar bag and case.
So relieved she felt like crying, she scooped them up, hurried toward the elevator and pushed the call button. She waited. And waited. And waited. Nothing.
Apparently the guard needed to again enter the code on the keypad so she could get down. Wondering if he could still be outside after all this time, she went to the front window and looked down toward the parking lot.
What she saw surprised her. An ambulance, its lights flashing, was parked beside the two vehicles involved in the fender-bender. She hadn’t realized the crash had been so serious, but apparently the driver had been hurt. They were putting him on a gurney and wheeling him over to the ambulance.
Suddenly that gurney was pushed under a streetlight, and she had a better view of the person on it. Even through the snow and the darkness she could make out the grizzled gray hair, not to mention the uniform.
It wasn’t the driver of the other car. It was the guard.
“Oh, God!” she muttered, wondering what had happened.
He’d gone out to help the accident victim—had he slipped and fallen? Or, maybe he’d been trying to help dig the vehicle out of a snowbank. Considering his age, and knowing even the healthiest of men could be affected when they tried to shovel too-heavy snow, she prayed he hadn’t had a heart attack.
Then she began to wonder something else.
What if she was trapped in this building?
Her heart started thudding as she replayed everything in her mind. The conscientious way the man had carefully locked the door this afternoon, even though people were still leaving. And the way he’d obviously kept the elevator turned off tonight, despite knowing she was up here.
Would he really…“No,” she muttered, certain he wouldn’t have locked her in when he went to help the other driver.
There was only one way to be sure. Remembering how Ross had beat her to the lobby today, she found a door marked Stairs and headed through it. Six flights down was not fun, but it was better than sitting in somebody’s office all night.
Reaching the entrance, she held her breath and pushed the nearest door. It didn’t budge. Neither did the one beside it, or the next. She really was locked in here.
“Every building has an emergency exit,” she reminded herself. She just had to find it. How difficult could that be?
Not difficult at all.
At least, she didn’t think so…until the power went out.
Then
New York, December 23, 2005
AS THEY WALKED the busy streets of the city, Ross glanced at his watch and saw it was almost four o’clock. He began to do some mental calculations. What time did the shipping place close? How many people were lined up there already? How long would it take to get back to his place and pick up the wrapped presents?
Eventually he just started to wonder how much money he had in his checking account. He needZed to know that, since he suspected he wasn’t going to make it to the mailing store today to send off gifts to his family. He had lost track of time with Lucy; plus, he hadn’t even picked up something for his nephew yet. So it looked like he’d be paying a king’s ransom to send it tomorrow and arrange for a Christmas Day delivery. If there was such a thing.
For some reason, though, that didn’t bother him as much as he’d have expected. It seemed worth the price since it had let him spend more time with Lucy Fleming. After the unpleasant scene with her ex, followed by that amazing kiss in the elevator, he hadn’t been about to say nice meeting you and walk away. Errands could wait. Plus, if worse came to worst, he could always send the family e-gift cards tomorrow. Having twenty-five bucks to spend at Amazon would make even his bratty youngest sister squeal; she was really into those teen romance books.
With a fallback plan in place, he let himself forget about everything else—missing the holidays with his family for the first time in his life. The job he was starting next week. The tense phone call he’d had with his father last week. It was sure to be repeated on Christmas Day, when talk would shift from turkey and Mom’s great stuffing to the same-old question: When are you going to give up that vagabond lifestyle and come back home to work for the company where you belong?
Gee. He could hardly wait. Not.
So an afternoon spent with a beautiful young woman whose gold-tinted brown eyes actually sparkled as she looked in delight at the softly falling snow sounded like a great idea to him. The best one he’d had in ages—the last being when, after graduating from Illinois State, he’d decided to come to New York for a while rather than going home to work for Elite Construction. He didn’t regret that decision. Especially today. Today, he was very happy to be right where he was.
“Do you want me to carry that?” he asked as they snaked up the street, weaving around street vendors and harried shoppers.
Lucy glanced down at the rumpled box containing her broken gift from her brother. She was still clutching it against her chest. Every once in a