“Dude, you’re going to have to make a choice.” His tone very clearly told Sam that there was only one choice to make. He sank back onto his chair and passed a hand over his face.
“I’m not going to make you wait, Quinn. But there’s got to be a compromise. You’re driving to Rhode Island?”
“Yeah,” Nick said almost belligerently. “Quinn hasn’t been doing well with flying, and—”
“And you know how much he hates airplanes.” The note of despair was gone from Quinn’s voice, and Sam knew she’d seen where he was going.
He spelled it out anyway. “I’ll fly back to Boston, get Riley, and meet you at Chloe’s.” She wouldn’t have gotten very far with her education and training, but that was going to have to be a secondary concern until he knew she’d be safe doing it. If he had to traipse all over the country on this transfer mission, he wanted her with him.
For more reasons than he was ready to reveal, though the way Nick and Quinn were looking at him right now, they already knew.
…
After too many hours and four hundred miles later, Riley followed late-morning traffic into Atlanta and found public parking near the downtown address of Millinger.
She slid the gearshift into park, climbed out into a gorgeously mild day, and stretched. Man, that felt good. She’d pushed hard, taking few breaks and downing a lot of energy shots. Traffic had been heavy enough through most of the drive that she’d kept her phone turned off. She would have a hard time ignoring it if it rang, and as much as she wanted to hear Sam’s voice, she had a feeling she knew what he’d say about her trip. Better to wait until she was done.
A few people hustled up and down the sidewalk, but on a Sunday morning, this low-rise business district was eerily free of traffic and pedestrians.
Riley leaned back into the car and snagged the printout of downtown Atlanta. Squinting at the street signs on the traffic signal supports, she found her location on the map. Millinger was a couple of blocks away. She tilted her seat forward to reach into the back for the stuff she’d bought at a hardware store yesterday. Walking around carrying a big pipe was kind of stupid. She’d look like she was spoiling for a fight, or about to smash in her cheating boyfriend’s windshield or something. The hammers had appealed to her, with their heavy, dense heads, but she wanted to be able to have her hands free. She ended up buying some lengths of mid-gauge chains and carabiner-style clips. She wrapped a chain a few times around each of her arms and clipped them in place, liking the sense of availability they gave her. They were heavy, though, and she didn’t know if the extra effort to carry them would negate the energy she drew. Hopefully, she wouldn’t need to find out.
After rummaging in her bag for a shirt with sleeves loose enough to cover the chains, she shoved her wallet into her back pocket, her keys into the front—more metal ready to grab if she needed it—and strode down the street. The sun glinted off skyscrapers and parked cars, and a light breeze sent a single french fry container dancing past. She smiled at a guy talking to the Bluetooth in his ear, but he never even glanced at her.
The narrow, old building Millinger was in had a taxi circle in front but no doorman. Riley headed purposefully for the entrance, pulled open the door, and cut straight across the lobby as if she’d been there before and knew exactly where she was going.
The lobby wasn’t empty, which meant Riley didn’t look suspicious. A guy stood looking out the front windows, probably waiting for someone, and a couple of women sat on a bench by a giant square pillar, drinking coffee and talking.
The bank of elevators was right where she expected, dead center lobby. She hit the up button and scanned the company listing on a large placard between the two sets of elevator doors. Millinger was on eight.
The elevator dinged. A group of men and women in suits stepped off, not even noticing Riley in their squabbling about jury selection processes. She stepped onto the car and waited. The doors stayed open. Her heart rate picked up. Seconds ticked in her head, sounding like minutes before the panels closed.
Slumping against the wall, she jabbed “eight,” and the elevator began its ridiculously slow climb. Riley grimaced at her reflection in the mirrored walls. Over the past several months she’d grown used to not paying attention to her appearance. Her hair could look artfully tousled even when she’d slept in her car for two days, but her shirt was more wrinkled than she’d thought. Oh, well, it wasn’t like she was here to make a good impression on anyone. She stopped fussing and watched the floor number fail to change. What would she find when she got to eight?
If she ever got to eight.
She realized that was the same floor the Society was on in its building back in Boston. Deliberate or coincidental? It would take a lot of effort to find an available office on the eighth floor, but from what Riley had heard, Anson was that obsessive.
The car groaned past six and headed toward seven. Marley had done some reconnaissance while Riley traveled, pretexting a call to the building management office. She’d pretended to be a client having trouble getting through on their phone system. According to building staff, Millinger didn’t have open business hours. They’d advised her not to bother coming during the weekend because no one was likely to be there, which was exactly as Riley had hoped.
But she had her chains just in case they were wrong.
Finally, the elevator slid to a halt. She stepped out onto a serviceable, industrial-grade, dark blue carpet in a very basic hallway as a gleeful young woman passed her. Riley noted the satin-padded notebook she clutched—she must have been at the florist listed on the placard downstairs.
Riley looked to her right, and saw two doors on opposite sides of the hall, each with half-glass panels set in them. One had flowers painted on clear glass, and Weddings by Marci in gilt lettering in the center. The other had frosted glass with a guy’s name and the letters P.C. after it, with no indication of what kind of professional he was.
She looked left, where there was a full-glass door with a matching glass window looking into the copy shop. At the far end of the corridor was a plain wooden door with a golden handle and Millinger mounted dead center. That was all. Shrugging, Riley headed toward it.
The door was locked. A good sign, but now what? She hadn’t developed enough finesse in her training with John to slide a bolt or whatever that she couldn’t see. She checked to make sure no one was in the hall and gripped the handle tight. All the metal she touched infused her with power. She closed her eyes and pushed down hard. There was a crunch, and the door opened. Tiny shards of wood littered the carpet, and the latch plate hung crooked in the jamb. The door wouldn’t latch again, never mind lock, so they’d know someone had been here. She’d better find something to make this worthwhile, and find it fast.
There was no receptionist or cube farm inside. Just a wide entry at the top of a long hallway. A couple of standard waiting room chairs faced bare white walls, and a ficus at the corner needed dusting.
Riley could see two doorways on each side of the hall, staggered so neither was directly across from the others. But she couldn’t see if the doors were open or had anything on them, like convenient nametags or department signs. She tried to picture the building from the outside, to gauge how big this set of offices might be. She wasn’t very good at that, but by her best guess, not very big. Two small offices, probably, if each of those doors went into its own room, and then maybe a larger conference room or workroom or break area or something through the other doors.