While Eleanor washed up and changed into fresh slacks and a warm sweater, Lydia followed her like a baby lamb. "We should just call the police, Nana. We've got a witness. They can take over from here."
"Are you willing to take a chance that whomever we get ahold of at the police department at this hour is honest and free from the seeds of corruption sown by Rodney Cruise? And even if that officer is just, is their superior? Is the district attorney? Is the judge?"
Lydia dropped onto the edge of the bed. "If you get hurt, I'll die."
"You'll carry on and finish this, and when you're done with this, you'll go on and finish the next thing," Eleanor answered while tugging a stocking cap over her snowy hair. It had been a long, long time since she was a fetching young woman, but she retained enough vanity to notice the cute little curls that peeked out from beneath the knit fabric. Not all was lost to time and gravity. She turned and faced her great-granddaughter. "If I get caught, call Uncle Ben. Do not tell your mother."
Lydia rolled her eyes and nodded. The girl held no illusions about which of her elders carried the gene for hysteria.
"All right, then. Shall we see if Mr. Lopez is ready?"
"Please be careful, Nana."
Being wrapped in the girl's embrace was a preview of Heaven. "I am nothing, if not careful, my dear."
~*~
For the second evening in a row, Eleanor found herself dozing in a moving vehicle. A speed bump in the parking lot outside Rodney Cruise's building jarred her awake. She blinked her dreams away and stretched her aching back. "Pull around that way."
Lowell followed her directions and turned onto a side lot obviously meant for delivery trucks. A ramp descended toward a big bay door. Presumably, the mailroom for the six-story building was on the other side. To the right of the ramp, a plain white door with a keypad was illuminated by a single streetlamp.
"Who'd'ya'think that belongs to?" Lowell asked, pointing toward a rusty square-body pickup truck at the end of the lot.
"Maybe the night security guard? Or maybe it just broke down and someone left it there. It looks as if it's seen better days."
Lowell snorted noncommittally, and heaved his large frame upward and out of the car. Like the gentleman she knew he was, he came around and opened her door for her, and offered her his hand, which she took with gratitude.
"You gonna jab that keypad next to the door with a hairpin or something? How do we get in?"
"Let's take a look, shall we?"
Arm-in-arm, they approached the door and peeked at the little keypad. "I'm afraid my hairpins won't do much against this kind of technology. Any bit of fiddling would be more likely to summon the police than unlock the door."
"You just going to knock and ask them to let you in, then?"
Eleanor beamed at him and hitched her heavy handbag a little higher on her arm. "That is a fantastic idea, Mr. Lopez." She rapped against the door several times and then peered up at the little black camera lens mounted above the door. "Act sick."
"What are you..." his question broke off into a fit of coughing just as the door opened and a man with a fantastic Wyatt Earp moustache peeked out.
"Problem?"
Eleanor gestured at her red-faced companion. "We were driving along, and he just started coughing like this.
Lowell pounded on his chest with his fist and spit something awful onto the pavement. He wheezed in a most convincing manner.
"I'm afraid I can't drive," Eleanor continued. "I've no night vision at all, and we were afraid to stop for help at any of those shady gas stations in this neighborhood."
The security guard's gaze darted to the dark, deserted parking lot and came back to Eleanor. A wealth of emotions flickered through his slightly bloodshot eyes.
"Please help us. I just need to call my granddaughter to come help me get him home."
"Lady, I don't know--"
"Argh!" Lowell bellowed and clutched his chest. "I'm hurting, Helen!"
Staggering back as if he might catch whatever ailed this strange man who'd shown up in the night, the security guard gave Eleanor her chance to slip through the open door, and she jumped on it. Lowell followed behind, wheezing. He fell back against the door, slamming it shut.
The guard held up both hands in a gesture of surrender. "I'm sorry, but I really can't--"
Eleanor reached into her bag, wrapped her hand around the rubber grip of the stun gun she'd ordered from the World Wide Web, and jabbed the guard in the belly with it. A sharp pang of guilt stabbed her when he crumpled to the floor, and she hoped it hadn't hurt too much. The poor guy was just an innocent bystander, after all--wrong place at the wrong time.
"Cripes!" Lowell jumped back and fell into another fit of coughing.
Eleanor waited for him to pull himself together. She could practically hear the seconds ticking away in her mind. "Perhaps you should stay here and guard him."
"You shot him."
She drew herself upright. "I most certainly did not."
"He's dead!"
"He's only sleeping, for goodness' sake."
"I'm coming with you," Lowell insisted.
"There's no time to waste." She started down the long white corridor and Lowell drew up beside her.
"I called you Helen. Threw him off the scent if they try to find us later."
Eleanor smiled up at him. "I wouldn't have brought you along if I hadn't had total faith in your ability to improvise on the spot."
A hint of red bloomed in Lowell's cheeks as they reached the end of the hallway and opened a door that let them into the impressive marble-floored lobby of the building. Deep shadows filled the space that was lit by only a few strategically placed lamps. It only took a moment to find the directory that told them Rodney Cruise's office was on the top floor. On their way up in the elevator Lowell confided that he needed to find a bathroom. "My prostate ain't what it used to be and this is a lot of excitement for a man my age."
Eleanor assured him she understood. They reached a pair of wooden doors with a brass nameplate that told them they'd found Mr. Cruise's offices. Thankfully, the locks here were far simpler than those outside. "Now, these, I can handle." The pick kit she'd carried since Eisenhower was president had worked its way to the bottom of her bag, and it took some digging to find it, but only a few seconds for the tools to work their magic.
"Where'd you learn that?"
"From a scoundrel with a pencil thin moustache."
Lowell scrunched up his face. "Didn't your husband have a pencil thin moustache?"
"Indeed."
They entered a little reception area where one entire wall was glass. The city light streamed through, providing more than enough illumination to move about comfortably. Three small doors opened onto three small offices. A fourth door, much larger, remained closed behind the little white desk where the receptionist no-doubt sat with only a thin computer, a tiny phone, and a weird glass paperweight that looked like a baseball, squashed by a truck and painted by Jackson Pollock.
"That's got to be the boss's office," Lowell said, and Eleanor agreed.
Again, they encountered a lock, and again opening it was no great challenge for Eleanor's experienced fingers.
Rodney Cruise's office took luxury to a new level. From the stunning Oriental rugs to the aged scotch on the glass serving cart, each item in the room bespoke wealth and comfort.
Lowell pushed open a narrow door that led to a washroom and slipped inside with a whoop of relief.
Long experience told Eleanor most office safes were located within a bookshelf or in the bottom drawer of the desk. The bookshelves in Rodney's office were few and held a sparse collection of leather-bound volumes, Faberge eggs, a ship-in-a-bottle, and a handful of awards. Even without the inside intel provided by their new accomplice, it wouldn't have taken any great effort of deduction to figure out it wasn't there. She padded across the thick carpet, sat in the man's enormous rolling chair, and tugged the handle of the bottom desk drawer.
Bingo.
Just like Chet had promised, the safe had a digital keypad. Eleanor tapped in the code he'd shared and the little door popped open.
"I'm impressed," someone said from the office doorway.
Eleanor tried to make out the man's features in the dim light. "Riley?"
He raised a gun. "I really hate to do this in my dad's own office, but you're a tiresome old woman who has already caused too much trouble."
"You can't come back from murder, Riley."
"Shut up, you old hag! You don't—" The boy's knees buckled, and he slumped to the floor like a rag doll. A tall, slim, female silhouette appeared in the door, squashed baseball/paperweight in hand.
Lowell burst out of the bathroom. "Did I hear voices in here? That guard wake up?" He staggered to a halt, staring at the body on the floor and the woman standing over it. "Who are you?"
A slow smile spread across Eleanor's face. "Why, Lowell, I do believe that is Larisa Johnson, and she just saved my life."