Straight Flushed (Hot Pursuit #1)(38)

“Yes, sir,” Vance said. “Fuck,” he whispered under his breath.

“We’re screwed,” I replied quietly, barely moving my lips.

Cavanaugh pressed play on the other TV, which showed footage of the surveillance camera from inside the building positioned outside the gym doors. Vance and I entered the gym, and the man in black crept behind us then stood in wait outside the doors. About an hour into our workout, Miss Red arrived. The man ducked into the shadow of the double doors, pressing his back to the wall, remaining unseen. Miss Red casually walked by and dropped her things off in the custodial closet. She emerged a short time later with a small gray bucket of cleaning products. She headed into the women’s locker room, all the while the person in black stayed where he was, continuing to watch me and Vance through one of the small windows in the door. A few minutes passed then the person in black left his post and went into the women’s locker room as well.

Cavanaugh paused the video. “I watched the feed from the gym and this person enters the women’s locker room five minutes after you entered, Cain. He hung back and waited while DeLuca straightened up the room and went into the men’s locker room. Then, he went after you.”

His words hung suspended in the air before sinking into my ears. They quickly descended into the pit of my stomach. Seeing how everything played out was disturbing. This man had been watching me the whole time.

“For obvious reasons, we have no video from inside the women’s locker room, but we see Cain come out twenty-two minutes later then she and DeLuca depart the facility, after which Miss Red was attacked. The man in black slips out the door then Tom Matthews comes trotting down the hall, but the perp had already left as easily as he entered. Tom hears Miss Red and finds her in a pool of blood, and the rest we know. The person in black gets into a vehicle parked across the street. We’ve run the tags, and they were from a vehicle reported stolen a few days earlier. Miss Red was the only one who got a look at him, and all she can tell us was the individual appeared to be a male of slender build.” He shut the TV off. “Now, from the limited views we have of this man, we can get a pretty good estimate on his height but because of his hood we don’t know hair color or anything else. Does anyone recognize anything about this individual?”

The video was grainy and the man had kept his face down and out of the camera’s view. Nothing about him looked familiar.

When no one answered Cavanaugh, he launched into a solid five minute tirade on tighter security measures. After our brow beating, the meeting was adjourned and Vance was called into Cavanaugh’s office.

I sat at my desk and mulled the meeting over in my head and mentally reviewed the video feed. The man had been watching me. He was after me. I was stunned and confused.

When Vance came out, he walked up to me looking like he’d been put through the wringer. “You’re next.”

“You still have a job?” I asked nervously.

“Yeah, but he laid into me pretty good.”

“About what? I didn’t hear or see anything either.”

“He said when we were out on the street we looked like we were really wrapped up in each other, not to mention the moment in the gym where I was teasing you. He didn’t show it in there, but it couldn’t have looked good. He said we were distracted which is why we didn’t notice the guy come in behind us. He threw the ‘you represent this company twenty-four seven’ bit in my face and reminded me of certain company policies.” I knew exactly to which policy he was referring—no interoffice romances.

“What?” I said, choking on Cavanaugh’s accusation. “He suggested there’s something going on between us?”

“Well, think of how it looked, especially without the audio.”

“Whatever, I still find that offensive. We were joking around. We always do that.”

“True, but people don’t normally sneak in behind us and assault one of the employees. I told him there isn’t anything going on. Really, we should have noticed.”

“You’re right, we should have.”

“I’ll watch that door click shut behind me from now on, that’s for sure.” Vance pinched his hairline and worked some tension out in his forehead. “I’m embarrassed. If we’d heard him, Miss Red wouldn’t have gotten hurt. It’s weighing on me.” I nodded in agreement, having had the same thought. “Cavanaugh said they’re installing additional cameras outside of the building. The guy that snuck in was a pro.” Vance turned and looked at Cavanaugh’s door. “You better get in there before he comes looking for you. I already got our assignment.”

“Okay.” I slowly lifted out of my chair.

“Go in there and find me when you come out.”

“All right, time to face the firing squad,” I muttered uneasily.

At Cavanaugh’s door, I knocked.

“Come in and have a seat, Cain.”

I walked in and fixated on Cavanaugh’s thick handlebar mustache to avoid looking him in the eye. “Yes, sir.” My heart pounded in my throat, and my underarms began dampening the fabric of my shirt.

He leaned across on his desk and laced his fingers together. “I wouldn’t expect something like this to happen from my top team.”

“I know, sir. Neither of us can explain why we didn’t hear him come in behind us, but rest assured it won’t happen again.”