far from certain of Jack’s real identity.
Jack felt a chill invade every part of his body.
He slowly hung up the phone. Somebody else was very interested in this
package, whatever it was. And someone knew it was coming to him. His
hands were shaking as he picked up the phone again. He quickly dialed
Seth Frank, but the detective had gone home. The person would not give
out Frank’s home phone, and Jack had left that number back at his
apartment. After some prodding by Jack the person tried the detective’s
home, but there was no answer. He swore under his breath. A quick call
to directory assistance was useless; the home number was nonpub.
Jack leaned back in his chair, the breaths coming a little more rapidly.
He felt his chest where his heart suddenly threatened to explode through
his shirt. He had always considered himself a possessor of above-average
courage. Now he wasn’t so sure.
He forced himself to focus. The package had been delivered. Lucinda had
signed for it. The routine at Patton, Shaw was precise; mail was vitally
important to law firms. All overnight packages would be given to the
firm’s in-house gofer team to be distributed with the day’s other mail.
They brought it around in a cart. They all knew where Jack’s office was.
Even if they didn’t, the firm printed out a map that was routinely
updated. So long as you used the correct map …
Jack raced to the door, flung it open and sprinted down the hallway.
Completely unbeknownst to him, around the corner, in the opposite
direction, a light had just come on in Sandy Lord’s office.
Jack clicked on the light in his old office and the room quickly came
into focus. He frantically searched the desktop, then pulled out the
chair to sit down and his eyes came to rest on the package. Jack picked
it up. He instinctively looked around, noted the open blinds and
hurriedly shut them.
He read the package label: Edwina Broome to Jack Graham. This was it.
The package was boxy, but light. It was a box within a box, that’s what
she had said. He started to open it, then stopped. They knew the package
had been delivered here. They? That was the only label he could think
to apply. If dtey knew the package was here, had in fact called about it
this very day, what would they do? If whatever was inside was that
important and it had already been opened, presumably they would already
know about it. Since that hadn’t happened, what would they do?
Jack sprinted back down the hallway to his office, the package held
tightly under his arm. He flung on his coat, grabbed his car keys off
his desk, almost knocking over his half-empty glass of soda, and turned
to go out. He stopped cold.
A noise. He couldn’t tell from where; the sound seemed to echo softly
down the hallway, like water lapping through a tunnel. It wasn’t the
elevator. He was sure he would have heard the elevator. But would he
really? It was a big place.
The background noise produced by that mode of transportation was so
everyda , would he have even noticed it? And he
‘Y had been on the phone, all his attention had been so concentrated.
The truth was he couldn’t be sure. Besides it might just be one of the
Em’s attorneys, dropping in to work or pick up something. All his
instincts told him that conclusion was the wrong one. But this was a
secure building. But then again how secure could any public building be?
He softly closed his office door.
There it was again. His ears strained topic@ up its location without
success. Whoever it was, they were moving slowly, stealthily. No one who
worked here would do that. He inched over to the wall and turned off the
fight, waited for an instant and then carefully opened the door.
He peered out. The hallway was clear. But for how long?
His tactical problem was obvious. The firm’s office space was configured
such that if he started down one way he was more or less committed to