SEALed With A Kiss(8)

“Thank you,” Jay Rawlings muttered, following her lead more slowly.

Gesturing with her head for Bella to start for the door, Ophelia retrieved her coat from the chair and threaded her arms quickly through it. “Have a wonderful Thanksgiving, gentlemen,” she said. “We’ll see ourselves out.”

The staff member looked to the lieutenant governor, who nodded his agreement. Obviously, he wanted his man to stay behind so he could talk to him.

Ophelia’s grin broke free as she and Bella stepped into the hall. Bella headed for the stairs, but Ophelia caught her by the arm, shook her head, and dragged her down the hall and around a corner. “Let’s wait here,” she hissed, tucking them both out of sight.

The look Bella shot her reminded her so much of Vinny that she could almost hear him saying, Are you crazy?

“I want to hear what they’re saying on the way out,” Ophelia explained.

“What if they catch us?” Bella’s wide eyes shone with worry.

“We’ll say that you had to use the ladies room.”

“Me?”

“You’re an intern. Interns do stupid things,” Ophelia reasoned.

Bella rolled her eyes and huffed out a breath.

Down the hall, the office door clicked open. Ophelia peeked around the corner and snatched her head back. The lieutenant governor was stepping out of the room with David Collum on his heels, looking distinctly red-faced. Rawlings had taken his wrath out on the hapless man.

“I want to know who’s talking to her.” Jay Rawlings’ distinctive voice echoed down the hallway. “Another one of those goddamn SEALs has broken the code of silence.”

“I thought we already took care of the leak,” his staff member muttered.

“Quiet!” Rawlings grated. “Nobody needs to know about that. Maybe they’re all talking. I don’t know.” Their heels echoed on the stairs, the door clanged shut behind them, and then they were gone.

Ophelia rounded on Bella “Did you hear that?” she cried, resisting the urge to jump for joy. “He just admitted to his involvement. I heard him!” But she had yet to find the proof. That would involve twisting the arms of some of Vinny’s teammates, who had a tendency to clam up whenever she came around.

“We gotta get out of here,” Bella told her with a tremor in her voice.

“Yeah, yeah. In ten minutes, so we know that they’re good and gone.”

Bella turned her eyes toward the ceiling and the discreet, domed camera overhead. “There’s gotta be security in this place, even on holidays,” she agonized aloud. “I can’t afford to get arrested. I’ll be thrown out of school.”

Doubt pricked Ophelia briefly. “You’re the one who insisted on tagging along,” she said, turning the blame back on her sister-in-law. “Fine, we’ll leave right now,” she conceded as Bella started wringing her hands. “The secret is to act like you belong. Shoulders back, head up. Let’s go.”

Together they marched down the hall toward the stairs that the men had taken, but two silhouettes remained visible through the glass inset on the other side of the door. With a gasp, the women retraced their steps.

“Let’s find another way out,” Ophelia suggested, pulling Bella behind her as they searched the maze of hallways for another set of stairs. At the back of the building, they discovered an interior fire exit and took it to the lower level. Ophelia’s gaze alighted on a sign that warned that an alarm would go off if the door were opened, and her confidence wavered.

Bella whirled on her. “Great! What do we do now?”

“We’ll make a run for it,” Ophelia decided. “The streets are crawling with people. Who’s going to see us if we blend into the crowd?”

“Fine,” Bella conceded, but her face paled with worry.

“Listen, we had every right to be in the building, and now we’re leaving,” Ophelia assured her. “It’s no big deal. Come on. Just follow my lead. Act casual.” Throwing her weight into the door, she pulled Bella out into the cold with her. They made a beeline toward the street that was teeming with people. For several seconds, only the sound of voices, traffic, and a flute being played by a homeless woman filled the air. But then the door clicked shut behind them, and a high-pitched wail floated from the building, alerting the world to a breach.

Ophelia snatched up Vinny’s sister’s hand and guided her briskly along with the throng heading toward the Philadelphia Art Museum.

Bella’s fingernails dug into Ophelia’s palm, but no one pursued them. No one shouted, “Hey, wait!”