When I was ready, I leaned over and grabbed the key card from where it had landed next to the giant’s body, using the edge of my shortened skirt to wipe the blood off the plastic. Then I turned toward the door and drew in a breath.

I wasn’t sure what I would find behind the metal, but I was as ready as I could be to face it—and to kill whatever danger might be coming my way.

Chapter 11

11

I slid the card through the reader. A light on the top flashed a bright green, and the door snicked open. I stuffed the card into a pouch on the utility belt and tightened my grip on my knife.

I rushed through the opening, my knife up and ready to slice into whoever was standing inside. But instead of cutting down another giant or two, I found myself in an empty hallway.

Actually, it was more like an antechamber, a wide stub of a room. A wooden coat rack stood in the corner, its empty arms making it look like a scalped tree. A series of metal lockers lined the left wall, fronted by a long metal bench.

My gaze snapped to the second, interior door ahead of me, and I waited, just waited, for someone to open it.

But no one did.

No one came to investigate. No one poked a head out of the interior room to ask a question of a fellow robber. No one ambled over to the snack machine that hummed against the right wall, its fluorescent bulbs flickering like a bug zapper.

Well, if they weren’t going to come out to me, I had no problems going in to them.

Still moving as quietly as possible, I pulled the exterior door shut behind me and headed for the one at the far end of the chamber. This door was made of wood instead of metal, and I could hear music playing, some twangy country song about a woman getting revenge on a man who done her wrong. Even worse, whoever was on the other side was singing along in a very loud, very screechy, very off-key voice. I winced. Somebody needed some singing lessons. A chorus of dogs howling and cats hissing would have sounded better. But the caterwauling told me that there was only one person inside. No one else would have put up with the country-western karaoke act.

I shut the awful screeching out of my mind, reached forward, and tried the knob. It turned easily, and I opened the door just a crack. The actual security center wasn’t much bigger than the antechamber, and a series of monitors took up the back wall, along with several keyboards, joysticks, and a control panel, all arranged on a long table. Another table stood at a right angle to the first one. It too was covered with monitors, although all of those screens were fuzzy with snow.