Jaimie: Fire And Ice Part 9

She jabbed the call b.u.t.ton again.

"I asked you a question. Where would you go if you got out of here?"

"And I said that's not your concern."

"You think you're going to grab a taxi and head for a hotel?" He gave a disbelieving snort. "No way. Everybody else in Manhattan had the same idea ten minutes ago. Plus, even if you found a cab, there aren't any traffic lights. It'll be like the Indy 500 out there. "

He was right. He was probably right about all of it, but what did that matter? She was not about to stay here even if she had misinterpreted what he'd said.

Why would any woman in her right mind agree to spend what might be hours in the dark, fifty floors above the city, alone with a stranger?

"Dammit," she snarled, aiming a kick at the elevator door, "what's with this elevator? Where in h.e.l.l is it?"

"I don't know how to break this to you, honey, but elevators operate on electricity."

She swung toward him. Easy enough, because he was only a couple of inches away, looming over her, arms folded, all six foot two or three or maybe four of him.

She stared at him. Then she swallowed. Hard.

"I knew that."

"So you were pounding on the call b.u.t.ton because...?"

Her chin went up. Her eyes narrowed.

"Where's the service entrance? The fire stairs?"

Zach sighed. She was one stubborn piece of work. And, really, what did he give a d.a.m.n what she did? She wanted to walk down fifty flights of steps? The steps would be lit; there'd be battery-powered emergency lights leading the way, the same as the emergency lights on an airplane. After that she'd be on her own, on the dark streets where she might learn that people weren't always at their best in situations like this, but again, that was up to her.

He was n.o.body's knight gallant. He never had been.

"Do a ninety-degree turn," he said wearily. "Hang a right, go down the hall, hang another right, go through the dining room, through the breakfast room, into the kitchen. The service door will be dead ahead."

She swept past him. Went maybe two steps. And stopped.

He smirked.

"A little dark for finding your way through the forest, Gretel?"

Oh G.o.d! Very dark. So dark she could only make out occasional lumps and b.u.mps of what had to be furniture.

"Not at all," she said, and stepped forward, straight into a chair.

"I have medical supplies upstairs, right alongside the candles and flashlights, when you finish destroying yourself."

His tone was pleasant. Cheerful Jaimie gritted her teeth, unzipped her shoulder bag, dug through makeup, pens, pencils, a small notebook, Power Bars, breath mints, a tiny tin of aspirin, balled-up tissues, her Kindle, her phone, her iPad, her wallet...

There!

She closed her fist around her keys.

Caleb had given her a tiny LED flashlight the year she'd moved to D.C.

"This way, Diogenes won't be the only one who searched for an honest man," he'd said, and she'd laughed, hugged him, clipped the thing onto her key ring and promptly forgotten all about it.

Until now.

Don't fail me, she thought, and clicked the on-off b.u.t.ton.

A narrow, bright, almost adequate beam of light pierced the darkness.

Next time she saw her big brother, she'd have to give him a supersized kiss.

She followed the light down an endless hall, down another hall, through a couple of rooms and into an industrial-size kitchen. The light bounced off acres of s.h.i.+ny stainless steel, vast expanses of ceramic tile, over a door, over a second door.

She tried the first one. It opened onto a pantry.

The second opened onto a hall.

A dark hall and a dimly lit EXIT sign.

She stepped out the door carefully, searched around with the flashlight until it picked up a stairway.

A long, steep, narrow stairway that ended in a right-angle turn.

And a blackness broken by wavering flashes of light.

"s.h.i.+t," Zacharias Castelianos said, from just behind her.

"Meaning," Jaimie said, trying to sound triumphant instead of terrified, "you thought the stairs would be completely dark."

"Meaning," he said, "building code requires a battery-powered emergency system, but this one doesn't seem to be working very well."

No. It wasn't. The lighting wasn't just poor, it was uncertain. Would it last all the way down to the lobby?

Would it last for fifty floors?

Jaimie's throat constricted. It wasn't too late to turn back...

"Listen, honey-"

It was the "honey" that did it. Showing this man any weakness would be a mistake.

"I am not your honey," she said coldly. "And I am not asking for your advice. The light is fine. And if all else fails, I have my flashlight."

The emergency system chose that instant to blink off. It came back on quickly, but not before the pencil-thin beam of the keychain flashlight bounced off the dark wall with all the effect of a drop of water bouncing off the rocks at the base of Niagara Falls.

"Dammit, woman," Zacharias Castelianos snarled, "will you please think logically?"

"I am always logical, Mr. Castelianos. I am not only a Realtor, I am a CPA."

"Well, h.e.l.l, why didn't you say so? A certified public accountant. That means I'd pick you first to lead my team descending Mount Everest."

"It's a set of stairs, not a mountain. And what I do is not your problem."

She was right. Hadn't he already come to that same conclusion?

"I am a grown woman, and fully responsible for myself."

Right again, he thought, and heard himself say, "You'll never make it."

"Certainly, I will."

"Those lights will go out. Or that thing you call a flashlight will die."

Bingo. She'd already thought of both possibilities. Those long ago, not-so-amusing games at the family ranch in Texas would end up sounding like good times.

Especially since she had a thing about heights as well as darkness.

Standing at a window and looking down over the city was one thing. Flying was OK, too. She could ride a ski lift up a mountain without blinking.

But she wasn't big on ladders, even step stools.

And here she was, about to take on stairs that went down and down and down...

Do it now, James, before you chicken out altogether.

She took a step forward.

"Don't be a fool!"

His voice was sharp. Her breathing was rapid. Neither was a good sign, but she slung the strap of her shoulder bag over her head so that the bag would hang like a backpack.

Excellent idea.

Bad execution.

The strap wasn't long enough. All the weight of the bag bobbed between her shoulder blades.

"That's not balanced. It's going to make things even more difficult, if you insist on-"

The blonde with the disposition of a mule took a breath, s.h.i.+ned the light on the next step, and started down the stairs.

Zach's jaw tightened.

The woman was a stubborn, prideful idiot.

He took a step forward. He could stop this nonsense. He was taller than she by at least half a foot. He outweighed her by, what, ninety, one hundred pounds. All he had to do was grab her, carry her back inside and...

And what?

Tie her up? Cuff her to a chair?

No way. He wasn't her keeper and she wasn't his responsibility. He'd had enough of responsibility the last couple of weeks; the truth was, he'd had enough of it for years.

For every action, there was a reaction.

Didn't anybody study physics anymore? Didn't they study history? Didn't they realize you couldn't always rely on others to ride to the rescue?

He put his hands on his hips.

She'd reached the bottom of the first flight. He watched her move along the landing...and vanish from sight when she reached the next set of steps.

He could still hear her, though. The high heels that had gone squish, squish, squish on wood were going click, click, click on the concrete.

Man!

High heels. Stiletto heels. For fifty flights of steps?

"At least take off your shoes," he shouted.

No answer. Just those clicks fading away.

He went down a couple of steps. A couple more. The emergency lights were flickering like candles buffeted by a heavy wind.

"c.r.a.p," he muttered.

Like it or not, she was his responsibility. She was here, in his home; he'd managed to scare the life out of her. He couldn't let her break her- He heard a thump. A thin cry.

"f.u.c.k," he snarled, and took off down the steps at a gallop.

She was on the second landing down, sprawled in a small heap, that sad excuse for a flashlight burning a hole in the dark from where it lay in her lap, the ridiculous shoulder bag beside her.

"Honey," he said, squatting down beside her. "What happened? Are you hurt?"

She looked up at him. There were tears in her eyes and on her cheeks.

"I hate the dark. I hate heights. I hate whoever made these ridiculous shoes," she said, making a slas.h.i.+ng gesture at the stilettos lying a couple of steps below her like small dead creatures. "And you were wasting your time trying to seduce me because I am absolutely, positively, no-way-in-h.e.l.l ever going to sleep with you! You got that, Mr. Castelianos?"

Zach nodded.

"Got it," he said solemnly.

He picked up her flashlight. Perfect timing, because the emergency lights stopped flickering and simply went out.

Jaimie gave a little sob.

Zach leaned forward and gently thumbed the tears from her cheeks.