* * *
Cursing his carelessness,Roark smiled blithely at the tall HR director who knotted the drapery cords around his wrists. “FSB didn’t pay well enough?” Their research had been thorough. Ariel had verified the Russian spy connection but not the reason Ursula had fled her home.
Ursula knotted the ropes tighter. “FSB as stupid as you and all cops. We are surrounded by idiots.”
“We all make the occasional mistake,” he said insouciantly, aiming for James Bond but too furious and terrified to restrain his temper much longer. He did not suffer confinement well.
He hoped Reuben tuned in to his camera soon, before Ursula found it. In the meantime, he had to convince her he was one of the smart ones. Concentrating on dropping his accent at least gave him stress relief.
“You have made your last mistake. You will go to the landfill along with that immense idiot who dares call herself nurse. My mother was a nurse. She saved the lives of thousands! That lump of alcoholic blancmange couldn’t save her own.” Looking triumphant, Ursula straightened and admired her handiwork.
Roark felt like a trussed turkey. “Blancmange, that’s a gelatin dessert, isn’t it? Does it come in grape?” If he had to die here, he at least wanted answers. He scanned the shelf-lined walls of the fire-protected vault. He could probably scream himself hoarse without being heard.
He’d thought he was so smart finding the door and opening the combination lock...
But that meant his concentration had been on the lock and not the female sneaking up on him.
“Gelatin,” his jailer snorted. “People who eat this disgusting stuff deserve their fate. Boiled bones and skin—perhaps that is what we should do to you. Dmitri would not like it though. He does not like killing people either, so I must do it for him.” She climbed a stepstool to reach a drawer near the ceiling.
“So you killed Marlene with grape gelatin? Or the grape punch? The antifreeze was a good idea.” Roark tried to wiggle his fingers into his back pocket while she had her back turned.
She hadn’t bothered searching him, apparently because she thought he was too stupid to carry weapons. Or to reach them after she’d tied him up.
“Me? I am not so stupid! Why kill an old lady who knew nothing and would die soon anyway? She was amusing to watch.” She carried down a small metal box. “It is that thieving alcoholic blancmange who caused all this trouble. We should never have hired her.”
“Savanna? She was nowhere near Marlene’s apartment. She was on medical leave. You were there, though. You brought the fruit bowl.” While Ursula picked through a key ring searching for the one needed to unlock her box, Roark finally pried his knife out of his back pocket. The military had taught him many skills, most of them not useful in a civilian world. But every so often...
Ursula shot him a disbelieving look. “You think I waste my time cutting up fruit for a gray-haired old spy? Savanna fixed it. If it contained antifreeze, I did not know. The old lady was already ill. Just now, Savanna stupidly bragged about it, said she would get rid of me the way she got rid of the other spying bitch. She meant to pin the murder onme.I gave her my credit card to buy ingredients for the punch. She took advantage of my generosity! She said she’d give the receipts for the punch and the antifreeze to the police if I did not rehire her!”
“Ah, I see your point.” Roark sawed at the rope, but he didn’t see much hope of cutting free before she locked him in here. “So you bought the juice for the punch, Savanna doctored it, and gave it to who—Lucy?—to deliver. Then why wasn’t the whole party poisoned?”
Growing frustrated, she sorted through her key ring again. “Myjuice went in the punch. Savanna picked up the groceries Marlene ordered, poisoned the juice, and gave them to Lucy to carry up. Stupid fool thought she could blame me because everyone knew I bought the punch juice. Dmitri will be very mad, but the bitch had to die. She was too stupid to live.”
Cursing, she hooked the key ring on her belt and headed for the door. “I will be right back. Do not think you will free yourself in time. Once I open the box, sarin works very quickly.”
She slammed out, locking the vault behind her.
Sarin, the deadly Russian nerve agent... That gave him something to fear besides the walls closing in on him. Roark sawed at the thick cord.
* * *
Curledup and lying down on the narrow back seat of Pris’s truck, focused on the horrifying video streaming into her phone, Ariel screamed in horror as the vault door closed, leaving Roark in blackness. He couldn’t hear her, of course.
Pris and Dante in the front seat could, but they were concentrating on their own screaming arguments about speed and directions as the old truck flew down the highway. Ariel had shown them the video from Evie’s camera of the dead nurse, and Pris’s mental alarms had gone off.
The moment the Russian killer had caught Roark in the vault, Ariel had dialed 911, just as he’d instructed. It had taken interminable moments to reach anyone, and they had seemed dense as trees when she tried to give them the address. Why weren’t the police already there?
Where was Reuben? Did he have a camera on him?
She called Jax but he didn’t answer. She tried Evie. Where was everyone?
With a storm approaching, the day had gone dark early. She pulled an old raincoat over her head so the headlights flashing by wouldn’t distract her.
If she wasn’t already crazy, she’d be losing her mind now. She didn’t know how to shout at the fighting pair in the front seat. She sent panicked mental messages to Pris, who usually understood. But Pris had her mind on driving fifty miles over the speed limit.
They might be there in half an hour instead of an hour. Sarin worked in minutes.
Where was everyone?