One flight, two flights. On the fifth-floor landing, Lucky stopped to catch his breath. He’d really let his body go to hell lately. More running, and taking stairs instead of elevators. Later. If he survived this.
“Anything?” he asked his backup.
“Nothing. On the fourth floor.”
Ha! Lucky beat two officers in their twenties. He’d never let them live it down. “Keith?”
“Got him in my sights. He’s in Walter’s office, but Lucky?”
“What?”
“There’s some kind of interference. I’ve got cameras going out all over the place. Started in IT. I’m going to come down…”
“Don’t. Stay where you are. I’ll check it out. We need you watching any remaining cameras.” Back to the wall, Lucky crept down the hallway. He’d have to pass his cube and Walter’s office to get to IT.
Keith’s voice hissed into his ear, “I still got full signal in the conference room, so far.”
O’Donoghue cursed from the direction of Walter’s office. The slam of desk drawers sounded at regular intervals.
Movement. Not from Walter’s office this time, but Lucky’s cube.
Just Lucky’s luck he’d find a member of the cleaning staff pushing a cart and scare them half to death. Maybe he’d remind them to leave his coffee cups on his desk where he’d put them. Then again, a cleaning cart and a hat would help him get past Walter’s office without drawing attention.
Clutching his gun in a two-handed grip, he stepped into his cube.
A blur came out of nowhere. What the fuck? Down he went, gun skittering across the floor. A loafer kicked the gun away. Lucky rolled, clutching his shoulder with his good hand. Mutherfuck, mutherfuck, that fucking hurt! Even through a layer of leather jacket.
“We can do this the hard way, or we can do it my way.”
Lucky’s heart stuttered. He’d let Owen Fucking Landry get the jump on him.
“How fitting that we’ll end our association where it began,” Landry said, in a poor imitation of a late-night B-movie villain. “Did you miss me?”
Landry aimed a .38 straight at Lucky’s head, which might have inspired more fear if Lucky hadn’t witnessed the jerkoff’s poor performance on the firing range. A golf club leaned against the filing cabinet.
A golf club? Probably from somebody’s office.
Lucky glared at the man he wished he’d killed way before now. Wasn’t Cruz supposed to be watching for Landry? What about Landry turning himself in tomorrow morning? With Keith listening in, at least someone knew what the hell was going on besides Lucky. Only cameras went down, right? No mics? Keith had better be calling in reinforcements.
“How the fucking hell did you get in here?” A laptop sat open on Lucky’s desk. Landry idly pushed a button.
“I have my ways.” In the old days O’Donoghue’s brown-nosing bootlicker might have sounded smug. Now, his jaw clenched. He picked up Lucky’s Sig from the floor and placed it on the desk—out of Lucky’s reach. “Don’t worry. I have no plans to kill you. Yet. You’re going to help me set the record straight about Jameson O’Donoghue.” He spat the name.
Where was Lucky’s backup? Keith better forget what Lucky said about staying put and get his ass down here.
Oh fuck. As discreetly as possible, Lucky reached up and scratched his ear. No earpiece. He still wore a mic.
If Landry didn’t strip it off him.
No instructions coming. Please let Keith still get a feed.
“Is this where you monologue, confess your evil deeds, then blow my brains out?” Yep, definitely not the way Lucky planned to leave the earth. His left biceps throbbed. That’d leave a bruise. Brought down by a golf club. He’d always known golf was evil.
Too bad Landry hadn’t aimed for Lucky’s torso. Could the asswipe detect the added protection under Lucky’s jacket?
“You screwed me over in so many ways.” Landry’s words came out an acidic hiss. “You know I had it all, right? Do you have any idea how much those suits were gonna pay me? All I had to do was deliver one measly drug. I was this close.” He spaced the fingers on his free hand an inch apart, keeping the gun trained on Lucky with the other. “You had to go and ruin everything, didn’t you?”
What the hell? What about the video he’d sent and setting the record straight in regards to O’Donoghue? An attempt to lull Lucky into a false sense of security? Lucky didn’t do senses of security, false or otherwise. Paranoia had saved his ass too many times.