Page 60 of Traces of Kara

“Call for backup again.”

“Phone’s busted. The storm blew it out the last time I tried, remember?” Mark stood just behind the tank, a few feet from where Grant crouched.

Grant stood and reached his hand out. “Gimme the phone.”

Mark handed it over.

Grant pushed the autodial to his office. The keypad remained dark. The line was dead. “Gimme your phone,” he said anxiously, shoving his phone into his pocket.

Mark’s phone was dead, too. The storm had knocked out the cell service.

“Let’s go,” Grant demanded. For the first time, Grant noticed a fetid odor. He narrowed his eyes, trying to place the smell.

“What?” Mark followed Grant’s eyes toward the ductwork. “The smell? You just notice that?”

Grant didn’t respond.

“Smells like the lightning fried something.”

“That’s not an electrical smell.” Recognition perched on the edge of his mind. His mind grasped for the answer, but it was just out of reach. He turned his focus back to finding Mimi, which made him think of Ted. “Ted might be in the building.”

“What?”

“I saw him from the roof. He was heading for the building.”

Mark made a disgruntled noise. “What? Why didn’t you say something? Jesus, now he’s at risk.”

Grant knew he was right, but on the roof, he’d had to make a decision: holler down and argue with Ted, or work his way toward Greer. “It’s his wife,” Grant said with disdain. Had his own motives been selfish? Had he let Ted go in knowing he could get hurt? He didn’t have time to analyze his reasoning—and he wasn’t sure he wanted to. “All right, let’s see,” he whispered. “We’ve got Jackson and Mimi missing. Ted in the building, maybe, and Greer. If it’s Greer. It could be someone else all together.”

“What’re the chances of that?”

“Slim to none. And Kara’s a big mystery.”

“The gunshot.”

Grant tried the phone again. No service. “Here’s the plan. We check out this level, then the next. You hear anything?”

Mark shook his head.

Grant had surveyed the blueprints. He knew the only way to find them was to find Greer, and to do that, he needed ten guys, armed and dangerous, to spread out and cover all floors at once. For the first time, he wished the FBI were here. For now, he and Agnew would have to do the best they could. The shot had come from below—somewhere in the bowels of the building. Had Greer shot Mimi, or Jackson? Did Ted have a gun? There were too many questions, and they were sitting ducks. What if Greer had booby-trapped the plant? He should have taken action the minute Mimi had come to see him. Hell, he should have followed up on the PFA long ago.

The interior corridor was dark. There were no windows in the outer offices to shed even a modicum of light. Grant moved slowly, one arm running along the wall for guidance, the other blindly holding his gun before him. They’d found the bathrooms, both empty, and were winding their way through the darkness like mice in a maze.

“This is insane. They’re not this way. We’d hear something.”

Grant knew he was right. He stopped walking and turned around. “Back to the center, then down the other hall to the right.”

Mark retreated. “I’m telling ya’, they’re in the basement.”

“What makes you so sure?”

“Where would you be? The guy can’t go unnoticed. If he does have Jackson and Mimi, then where else could he be? He can’t know if more employees are coming into work. He wouldn’t take the chance of being seen.”

Grant mulled over Mark’s logic. It made total sense, much as he hated giving in to the young sergeant, who already had a big black mark on his file.

“Come on.” Grant pushed past him and headed for the wall of electronics. He stared at the mechanical monstrosity, the darkened lights, the multitude of switches. To the right was a lever that begged to be pulled down. “Know anything about this stuff?”

Mark shook his head. “Wouldn’t chance it, either.”