Page 90 of Love at First Sighting
“How do you plan to get me in?” I ask.
“I don’t know yet. There’s a button to open the bunker on his desk, but it needs a key or a badge.”
Carter leans over the console and cups the sides of my face. I hope after tonight, this’ll all be over. I want a future where he wears jeans and T-shirts and never has to want for love again. I’d trade every part of my old life to keep the person who sees and cares for all that I am.
I kiss him once, then twice, and a third time for good luck before we slip out of the car and dash toward the station. Heunlocks the front door and guides me inside. It’s eerily quiet in here. The wire fans make pages, held down by coffee mugs, staplers, and little desk knickknacks, flutter on the desks, and the rain thumps on the old, rattling windows.
He keeps the lights off and we duck lower at each flash outside. The office feels like stepping into a black-and-white movie, with danger lurking in all the shadows. Carter brings me to a steel door built into the brick wall near the front of the office. He shoves a key in and opens the door for me.
A cold chill rushes up at us, with the metallic tang of basement concrete. I can practically hear a Geiger counter clicking in the background.
“Down those stairs,” he orders. “Wait at the door. I’ll get you in. We have a whole shelf near the back—thick books that sayPIS Code of Conduct. Start looking. I’ll get down there when I can,” he says. If Brad’s message to Marcus made it through, we don’t have a lot of time. I can’t imagine Marcus would let us get away with this that easily. “If…If you find it and I’m not back yet, run.”
“Carter…”
“I mean it. El, in case this goes—”
“No,” I say, cutting him off with sharp words. “Don’t tell me you love me. Don’t make this a goodbye like the movies. Youneedto come back to me.”
Carter nods slowly and tears well in his eyes. “Okay. I promise.”
I kiss him one final time before descending the darkened stairway.
Chapter 28
Carter
My heart races as I push open the door to Marcus’s office. The whole station is a ghost town. The moon casts eerie, broken shards of light through the shutters. There’s no quiet office chatter, no phones ringing, no copy machines running. The soft squeak of my wet shoe soles on the tile floor feels like it’s giving me away with every step. I don’t see Marcus anywhere in the station, and his car isn’t in the lot, so I know we at least beat him here. He’s got to be on his way, though, and the clock is ticking down. Especially if he knows I shot Brad.
I’ve never shot anyone before.
Holy shit, Ishotsomeone.
In the car, I assigned levels of risk to our endeavor. Going to Marcus’s office is DEFCON 1, and entering the bunker itself is maybe a 3. If someone does show up—cops, Marcus, Brad—they’ll see me first. I can distract them long enough to let El escape safely. And even if I can’t make it there after her, one of us has to get in. One of us needs to let everyone know what happened here.
As much as I don’t like splitting up…
I crouch beside the desk, fumbling through drawer after drawer. I searched through these drawers before, but I didn’t know what I was looking for. We’ve neverusedthe bunker, except for random storage, so it’s not like Marcus is carrying around the badge like a nuclear football.
I turn around toward all the books and folders on the filing cabinets behind his desk. Maybe there’s some kind of crowbar or tool I can use to jimmy the door open for El, but there’s nothing. Expense receipts, a dead cactus. I open his computer again and pull up the security system he hardly knows how to run. It’s a screen full of camera displays, and El’s at the bottom of the steps in front of the steel bunker door. I try a few buttons and passwords, scan myownPIS ID badge, but get an angry flashingAccess Deniedmessage. Below that it reads:Invalid Clearance.
As I’m shuffling more things around, the station’s front door clicks open. I freeze. That’s not El. She comes with the quiet squeak of Converse and a waft of fruity cucumber. Not the sharp click of dress shoes and tobacco.
I don’t even have time to duck and hide.
“I don’t remember approving this overtime, kid.”
I swallow, fists clenching at my sides. Marcus hovers in the doorway, and annoyance simmers in his eyes. I saw the same look many times growing up. It’s thedon’t askordrop itlook. Usually, he pulled it out when I was being a pain in the ass, but now it feels like a real threat.
My dad is dead because of something Marcus did, and that’s a secret he’ll do anything to keep buried.
His hand rests on his gun holster in a way Iknowisn’t him putting his hands on his hips. He’s ready to act if he needs to. I hope he cares about me enough to not kill me.
“I…was waiting for the rain to stop.”
He chuckles. “Sure. Explains the joyride you took through LA. And shooting Brad.”
“I didn’t mean to shoot Brad,” I confess.
