Rabbits(71)

“It does feel a bit…excessive for one person,” I said. “Although there were a lot of people on that giant screen.”

“The number of remote operatives we have working for us is significant, but there are also people working directly with me here in the building.”

I heard the sound of the elevator doors opening from somewhere nearby.

“Including somebody I believe you know,” he said.

I turned at the sound of footsteps.

A woman in her late thirties or early forties walked toward us from the double doors that led back to the elevators. She was about five foot seven with thick, shiny auburn hair. She wore a brown pencil skirt, a cream-colored top, and tortoiseshell Ray-Ban glasses.

Her eyes widened and her mouth fell open when she saw me. For a brief moment, it looked like she was going to pass out.

“K?” she said, then turned to Crow. “What the fuck is going on?”

It was Emily Connors.



* * *



—

The man called Crow took Emily aside, and the two of them spoke in hushed tones for about a minute. Then, after a sharp glance in my direction, Emily turned around and stalked back out the way she’d come in.

“What’s wrong?” I asked Crow.

I hadn’t seen Emily Connors for years, so why had she gotten so upset? Did seeing my face again remind her of that night in the truck with Annie?

“She’s just a bit annoyed with me, I’m afraid,” Crow said. “She’ll be fine.”

“Can I talk to her?” I asked.

“I’m not sure that’s such a good idea just now, but we’ll see what we can do.” There was something almost threatening in his tone as he spoke.

“Sure,” I said, but I was still thinking about Emily. What the hell was she doing here? What was going on?

Crow started walking me back to the double doors that led to the elevator.

It was clear our conversation was over.

I had no idea what had happened to Sidney and Chloe after the elevator had taken me upstairs. Maybe they were still down in the lobby waiting for security clearance.

“I’ll be in touch,” Crow said as he pressed the call button for the elevator.



* * *



—

I took the elevator back down, feeling stunned. Crow? Emily Connors? What the hell had just happened?

The doors opened and Chloe yanked me out and into the foyer. “What the fuck are you doing? We’re getting security passes.”

I opened my mouth to speak, but Sidney shushed me with her hand. “I’ve been able to get us access to the upper floors of the building,” she said.

At that moment, Albert from security arrived holding three laminated security passes. “Sorry for the wait,” he said.

Sidney grabbed the passes from Albert’s outstretched hand and dragged us into the elevator.

Once inside, she scanned her security pass and then pressed the PH button.

“Let’s start at the top and work our way down,” she said.

I nodded. I thought about telling them what was waiting up there, but they’d find out soon enough.

I hoped I’d see Emily Connors again. I had a lot of questions.

Once we reached the penthouse level, the doors opened and we stepped out of the elevator. Sidney led us down the long hallway, through the glass doors, and into the small empty lobby. She took a quick look around, and, just like I’d done earlier, went directly for the wooden doors with the security panel. Something had been bothering me since we’d arrived at the penthouse, but I couldn’t put my finger on it.

Before I could tell her that the doors were unlocked, Sidney waved her pass in front of the panel, there was a click, and she yanked open the door.

At that moment, I figured out what had been bothering me. It was the air. The atmosphere was different. The temperature and humidity had changed, and as the three of us stepped through into the penthouse proper, it was clear that something else had changed as well.

We were standing on the same mezzanine looking over the same room, but it was completely different.

The high ceiling was there, along with the three skylights, and the view through the windows was identical. But there was nothing left of Crow’s high-tech lair—no bookshelves, no furniture, no rugs, and no obscure music from the 1960s.

The entire room was filled from floor to ceiling with computers—each machine much larger than the regular black server boxes that filled those mysterious top secret government buildings in Hollywood movies.

A few minutes ago, this room had been a beautifully furnished high-tech–meets–steampunk James Bond–villain library, and now it was nothing more than some kind of generic server farm.

As I stood there staring at wall after wall of black computers where bookshelves had been just minutes earlier, the gray feeling hit me like a wave of cement, and I passed out.





24


    YOU LOOK LIKE YOU MIGHT NEED MORE THAN A COOKIE


I woke up in the lobby of The Tower staring into the eyes of Sidney Farrow.

“Welcome back,” she said.

“Are you okay?” Chloe asked.

“I’m fine. Low blood sugar,” I lied.

“Are you sure?” Sidney asked. “You look like you might need more than a cookie.”