And he couldn't do that from here.
He had to get closer, and that meant moving into this last duct. This small last duct.
Jack stared into the narrow confines of the six-foot length of steel… just the length of a coffin. But coffins probably were a lot roomier. What if he got stuck in there?
Milkdud had given him a few hints on how to maneuver in a tight spot. This might be the time to try them out.
Jack turned off the headlamp. Then, with his right arm extended ahead and his left arm close against his side, he squeezed himself diagonally into the duct.
Tight. Very tight.
Now he truly appreciated what Dud had meant about claustrophobia being a deterrent to hacking.
Slowly, silently, he inched forward until he had about eighty percent of the office in view.
A plump, red-haired man in a white shirt—Gordon Haffner, Jack hoped—sat behind the desk, talking on the phone. Jack could hear him perfectly. As he watched, two other men entered. Jack recognized one from the van on Thursday night: Thomas Clayton. The other was new—dark-skinned, dark-haired, bearded, very intense-looking, with an accent from somewhere in the Middle East.
Jack smiled. He figured he was looking at Thomas Clayton's backer—the guy who was killing anyone who stood between him and the Clayton House. Excellent. Now, if they'd all just be so good as to discuss exactly why they wanted the house so badly, Jack could get the hell out of here.
But they didn't. They talked about Alicia and how they hoped she'd come up with a sale price this morning so they could settle the matter of ownership, but the reason was never mentioned.
And what was Thomas doing here? Sean had told Haffner that Alicia didn't want her brother present at the meeting. But here he was, and the clock was ticking, getting close to nine-thirty. He was sure Alicia would pop her cork if she saw him here. This was no way to get her to cooperate. What were they thinking?
And then Haffner's intercom buzzed, announcing "Mr. O'Neill and Ms. Clayton." Haffner got up, slipped on his suit jacket, and said he'd be back as soon as he finished speaking to her.
Jack's head jerked up and almost struck the ceiling of the duct.
What?
The meeting was supposed to be in Haffner's office, just the other side of the register. Where the hell was he going?
Not that the meeting itself mattered. Alicia could fill him in later on anything important. Jack had crawled through these ducts to hear the postmortem. If he had any chance of picking up some choice tidbits of unguarded conversation about the Clayton house, that would be the time.
But if the meeting was being held somewhere else, so might the postmortem.
He listened awhile to hear if Thomas and his Middle Eastern wallet man would drop anything worthwhile, but they didn't seem to be buddies: Thomas read the paper while the stranger stood at the window and stared at the street below.
Jack eased back into the larger duct and checked out his options.
2.
"What are we doing here?" Alicia said as Gordon Haffner ushered them into a mahogany-paneled conference room.
"Having a meeting," Haffner said. He looked confused as he laid a file folder on the gleaming surface of the oval mahogany table. "Isn't that why you called? To have a meeting?"
"We met in your office last time, so I thought—"
"This is much roomier."
Alicia glanced at Sean O'Neill, who replied with a barely perceptible shrug.
"Is something wrong?" Haffner said.
Yes, but Alicia couldn't tell him what. They'd set up this meeting to allow Jack to identify Thomas's backers. But what if the backers met in here instead of Haffner's office after the meeting? Jack would be eavesdropping on an empty room.
If she demanded to meet in Haffner's office, would that make him suspicious? And what would that accomplish if the backers were set to meet here afterward?
Jack needed to know about this conference room. And she could think of only one way to do that.
"Wrong?" Alicia said, letting her voice rise. "You want to know if something's wrong! Let me tell you what's wrong!" She raised the volume, pushing it to a shout. "Your client, my half brother Thomas Clayton, is what's wrong! Do you have any idea what kind of a slug you're representing? Do you know what he did to me Thursday night?"
She saw O'Neill turn her way and give her a quick smile and a wink.
But as she started in on the details of her abduction, she found she no longer needed to force the volume, or act angry. Suddenly the rage was real and her pitch rose.
Gordon Haffner's face went a little pale, and Sean O'Neill's smile faded.
Alicia heard her own voice… screaming…
3.
You're beautiful, Alicia.
Jack smiled as he watched her wind down from her tirade. He'd been crouched outside the return from Haffner's office, pondering his next move, when he'd heard a woman screaming. He hadn't recognized the voice—a scream was a scream—but he'd followed the sound. After all, no one should be screaming in an attorney's office, unless maybe it was a client who'd just got a bill.
A few turns this way and that, and here she was, sliced by the louvers of a register high in the wall of some sort of conference room, doing a very convincing Screaming Mimi.
Finally, she began losing steam. As she wound down, Jack eased back into the larger duct and positioned himself facing the way he'd come. He turned on his headlamp and narrowed the beam to check his watch. Barely past nine-thirty. He'd be back on the street before eleven—hopefully with the answers to some of his questions.
All he had to do was wait until the meeting was over, then see where the other side chose to hash over Alicia's proposal.
* * *
Jack didn't have to wait long or go far. Sean presented Alicia's asking price of ten million dollars, Haffner expressed shock—genuine, Jack was sure—then tried to bargain her down. But Alicia held firm and finally Haffner said, Thenk-yew-veddy-much, and the room emptied out.
Jack gave them a few minutes, and was about to crawl back toward Haffner's office when he heard the conference door open.
"You can have the room as long as you want," Haffner said. "I'll be in my office should you need me."
Jack wedged himself into the duct in time to see the door close, leaving Thomas and the Middle East guy together. Neither sat down.
"Ten million," Thomas said, shaking his head in what might have been admiration. "Christ, she's got balls." He glanced at his companion. "Well, Kemel, what's it going to be? Are your people going to go for it?"
"I do not see that we have a choice," the guy called Kemel said. His accent was definitely Middle East, but his English had a faintly British accent. He spoke rapidly, clipping his words.
"You've got to be kidding! You heard Haffner. He's sure he can get the will set aside. Ten million for that place? That's crazy."
Jack too was shocked. He'd hauled that asking price out of the air, never dreaming they'd even consider it.
"My people want this matter settled. It has dragged on too long. And after all, what is ten million against what we will gain by keeping it out of the wrong hands? A pittance."
The wrong hands? Jack thought, mentally rubbing his own hands together. He was hot, sweaty, and cramped, but suddenly that no longer mattered. Now we're getting to the good stuff. Keep going.
"A pittance to you, maybe. But a hell of a lot of money for something that might not be there."
"If it is not, it is of no loss to you. It is not your money."