Page 86 of The Devoted Game
At the elevators on the top floor, McBride dug out the pry bar and dropped the bag onto the floor. “Make sure no one sneaks up on us, Grace.”
He didn’t have to worry, she wasn’t taking her eyes off that corridor. If anything moved, she was drawing her weapon.
She did have to glance McBride’s way a couple of times when it sounded as if he were wrecking the elevator doors. When he got the first set pried apart, he studied the shaft before announcing, “Car’s down on the first floor.”
She nodded her understanding. Dead end. Dammit. Her stomach threatened to embarrass her. She swallowed, took a few deep breaths. Worth had to be here. They had to find him.Soon.
McBride moved to the second elevator. Pried, pulled, and pried some more until the doors slid apart. The elevator car waited as if they had summoned it for a ride down.
McBride stepped inside for a look while she kept up her surveillance on the corridor, though what she really wanted to do was take a look for herself.
“Looks like the engineer has been at work.” McBride motioned for her to join him. “Check this out.”
The control panel had been removed from the wall and a black box had taken its place. On the black box was a timer, counting down from fifty-six minutes.
Their gazes collided. Oh Jesus. She suddenly understood what that timer meant. “The only reason he would have a timer on this elevator—”
“Was if he wanted it to blow up or to start moving at a certain time,” McBride finished. “We need to go down one floor.”
He carried the pry bar, but she snagged the backpack he’d forgotten as they rushed for the stairwell again. Every step down she reminded herself that they had time to get the job done. No need to worry yet. But the idea that the elevator could jolt into action in advance of the specified time had her stomach twisting into knots. McBride had told her howthe timer on the Trenton explosive had reacted to his movements. And though the C-4 hadn’t been real, there had been danger all the same.
On four, McBride began the same process of prying the doors apart. She served as lookout.
Her pulse started that frantic rhythm she had come to recognize as her ready-for-action mode. They had to find Worth. Had to get him to safety. And then the scary part would finally be over. Then they could focus on getting the bad guy. Considering what they had found in his house, he would most likely be spending the rest of his life in an institution.
When the sound of straining metal signaled that the doors were opening, she abandoned her lookout post and moved in next to McBride.
The doors parted and there was Worth, his face pale. Like the other victims, he appeared asleep, sedated probably. The wordhaughtywas written in black marker across his forehead. A harness had been secured around his upper torso, then attached to a line that hung from a pulley secured to the underside of the elevator, leaving him suspended in midair four stories—four and one half counting the mezzanine—above the lobby level.
Instinct had her reaching for him.
McBride held her back. “He’s too far away from the door to reach. You could lose your balance and fall.”
She stared into the deep, dark elevator shaft. Definitely a bad way to go.
“We have to call Pierce,” she urged, her mouth going so dry her tongue would hardly push out the syllables. “We need help.”
“If anyone else comes close to this building, he might remotely set the elevator in motion. We can’t take that risk.”
Worth would be squashed. She shuddered.
Vivian put her trembling hand over her mouth to hold back the sound that rose in her throat. McBride was right. What the hell were they going to do? That damned line holding Worth looked too flimsy. He hung out of their reach. Fincher had evidently secured Worth in this manner while the elevator was stopped on the second floor. Attachingthe cable would have been simple from the first floor with the use of a ladder. Then, one press of a button and Worth was hoisted upward.
A shudder rocked through her. She was suddenly glad that Worth was unconscious. If he was awake he would only be trying to get loose, moving, fighting his bindings, and that would make matters worse. Other cables and wires dangled around him from the underside of the car. If there was only an access from the floor of the elevator car ... but there wasn’t—only from the top.
“Let me update Pierce before he does something we’ll all regret.”
McBride gave her a nod. She made the call, and it went exactly as she’d known it would. Pierce wanted to act, but she convinced him to stay put for now.
When she’d ended the call, McBride said, “Here are our options.”
Did they have any? She searched his face, hoped he had a plan that would work. Even he couldn’t do magic. Or fly.
“Since we can’t risk trying to override the control, one of us will have to climb around to the back side of the shaft.” He gestured to the various points around the inner walls where a foot or hand could find support. More cables lined the walls, offering something—however precarious—to hang on to.
“Once on that ladder”—he pointed to the back wall of the shaft where narrow metal rungs were attached about two feet apart in a path that appeared to go all the way down and all the way up—“Worth would be well within arm’s reach. Whoever goes that route will give him a push, swinging him in this direction so the person on this side can grab hold and cut him loose.”
Vivian wasn’t an idiot. She understood that she couldn’t possibly hope to grab Worth and hold him in position long enough to cut him loose and then drag him to safety. They would both end up swinging back out over the open shaft.