Flash

ask."
    "The way I see it, there are not a lot of options when it comes to hiding in a place like this. We've got two."
    "Two?" She looked at him sharply as they turned another corner. "Surely you don't mean one of the empty lockers?"
    "That's exactly what I mean. Silas told us all the lockers on this floor were rented. But we have access to two of them. I'm going to stash you in the one Rollie leased."
    "What about you?"
    "I'm going to wait this out in Gill's locker. With any luck, whoever is coming up that staircase won't have a clue which lockers belonged to Rollie or Gill. With the doors closed and the broken locks hanging in place, our lockers will look just like all the others."
    Her eyes narrowed in suspicion. "Why are you separating us?"
    "Common sense. Increases our odds in case I am not being unduly paranoid."
    "Our odds? What are you saying? Jasper, wait, let's discuss this—"
    "No time." He stopped in front of Rollie's locker, opened the door, and pushed Olivia inside. He dug the slim flashlight he had brought with him out of his pocket and handed it to her. "Here. Just in case."
    "In case what? Jasper, I don't like this."
    "If you hear a disturbance, make a break for the stairwell, understand?"
    "Jasper."
    "Just do it. I want your word."
    "Yeah, sure."
    He closed the door gently and adjusted the broken padlock so that it looked like all the others. It would take close examination to see that it had been cut.
    He prayed that there would be no such examination.
    He went quickly back through the complex of intersecting corridors and halted at Melwood Gill's locker.
    He heard the sighing rasp of the stairwell door being opened just as he stepped into the shadowed interior. An instant later the sputtering fluorescents overhead flickered and went out.
    Not Silas
. The attendant knew that Jasper and Olivia were still on the fourth floor.
    Someone else.
    Jasper closed the door of the locker with great care. Then he waited for what he knew would happen next.
    Footsteps. The rattle of a lock being shaken at the far end of the aisle. More footsteps. A pause and then another padlock clattered briefly.
    Whoever had turned out the lights was making his way systematically through the aisles checking each locker door as he went.
    Jasper hoped that Olivia would not realize he had lied to her when he told her that the reason he was putting her in a different locker was because it made sense to separate.
    The real reason he had stashed her in Rollie's old locker was because it was in the very last aisle. It was only logical that whoever had followed them would be forced to do exactly what he was doing: Search every aisle and try every locker on the floor to find the one in which his quarry was hiding.
    Such a methodical approach meant that whoever was prowling the darkened corridors would find the broken lock on Melwood Gill's locker long before he or she got anywhere near Olivia's hiding place.
    He or she? There weren't too many possibilities, Jasper thought. Rollie's information, whatever it was, pertained to Eleanor Lancaster. The future governor looked like the type who could take care of herself. "Come out, come out, wherever you are," Dixon Haggard called as he tried another locker. "I know you're both here somewhere. Things will be a little different this time. I came prepared, you see. Brought along my gun."

25
    « ^ »
    W ell, hell, Jasper thought. He'd had a fifty-fifty chance, and he'd guessed wrong. He had been almost positive that it was Eleanor Lancaster who had followed them here today.
    Why had he been so certain? he wondered. After all, he'd known that it was a man he'd battled with on the stairs in Gill's dark house.
    "No point hiding up here in hopes that the attendant will come rescue you," Dixon sang out cheerfully. "He's having a little nap downstairs under his desk. I locked out the elevator and put a sign on the office door telling everyone that the facility was closed due to an emergency."
    Footsteps. Another padlock clattered.
    Jasper eased to the rear of the locker. He crouched at the end of one of the freestanding metal shelves. With luck, the boxes left on the shelves would block Haggard's view for a few crucial seconds.
    "An emergency in a self-storage facility. Pretty funny, isn't it? But this situation definitely qualifies, I'd say."
    Dixon's voice was loud enough to carry across the fourth floor. He sounded keyed-up, edgy, excited. He also sounded sure of himself. It was the voice of a man