“Go in,” she told the vampire, listening to the echo of Power behind her own words. He hesitated, though, a small frown creasing his forehead. He was clearly struggling between the force of Elena’s command and his natural inclinations. “Go on,” she said, and tried to put an extra force of will behind it. She could feel him bending beneath her words, and Elena gritted her teeth and pushed.
The vampire’s face smoothed out. “Yes, fräulein.” He stepped forward, into the closet.
“Stay,” Elena said hurriedly. “You’re fine there. You won’t need anything.”
She closed the door quietly behind him and flipped the lock. She hoped the command would be enough, and that it would still work when she wasn’t standing right there next to him. The lock wouldn’t be strong enough to hold a vampire for long.
She rapidly crossed the hall again and went into Jack’s office, shutting the door behind her. She leaned against it for a moment, taking a quick gulp of air. There was a lock, thank goodness, and she turned the latch as quietly as she could, her hands shaking.
How long did she have before this new Guardian Power’s effect wore off, she wondered. Or did she have even that long? Were there security cameras watching the hall, would someone have seen her lock him in?
She firmly put it out of her mind. She needed to concentrate on the job at hand. But she had to work fast.
The office had floor-to-ceiling windows looking out over the plaza outside, a coat closet in the corner, and another door that led to a small bathroom. It looked like a normal executive office—desk, cabinets, chairs. Not too many places to hide something secret.
Damon had found Jack’s journal in a secret drawer at the back of the desk, so that was the place to start. Elena seated herself in the cushy leather chair behind the desk and slid the top drawer all the way out.
On the top of the back of the drawer, just as Damon had described, was a small keyhole. Pulling the lock picks Damon had given her out of her attaché case, she slid the straight piece of metal into the lock and turned it as far as she could, then carefully inserted the long curved pick. At first, it was just like she was fishing around, rubbing a few pieces of metal together with no effect. But at her fourth try, something shifted. It took a few more tries to manage to push back all the pins inside the cylinder of the lock. Finally, though, the lock turned as neatly and easily as if she’d had the key.
“Gorgeous,” Elena breathed to herself. “Let’s see.”
Nothing. The secret compartment was empty.
Frustrated, she shoved the drawer closed again a little too hard. There was an audible clunk. Elena froze and listened hard. There were probably other vampires in the building, and their hearing would be sharp. But there was no answering sound, and after a moment, she relaxed.
She looked quickly around the room. If the poison wasn’t in the secret compartment, where could it be hidden? She began to rifle through the other drawers, pulling them out and looking them over carefully. No more secret compartments, as far as she could see. No keyholes hidden in the backs of these drawers.
There was nothing in the desk, nothing fastened underneath it, either. She got to her feet and looked around. The cabinets? She froze. Had that been a noise? She drew the stake from her attaché case. If it was the vampire secretary, breaking free of her suggestion, maybe she’d be able to take him out for long enough that she could escape.
But there was no other sound. She must have imagined it. Her luck was holding, for now.
The cabinets held nothing but hanging files and, at the bottom of one, a bottle of gin.
Where else? Elena ran her hands under the cushions of the chairs, lifted the paintings on the walls and looked behind them to make sure there was no concealed safe. The closet was empty, except for a long black coat and an umbrella. Elena swung the door shut.
Wait. The memory of her favorite hiding place back home made her look in the closet again, more carefully.
There were the faintest lines across the floor. A square. Elena hurried back to the desk and found a thin bronze letter opener. She stuck it into one of the cracks and slowly pried up the panel.
Below the panel was another locked compartment.
Her hands were shaking now, and she dropped the thin pick twice before she got it in the lock properly.
Sitting at the bottom of this hidden compartment was a square box, maybe eight inches on each side, made of black metal. Please, Elena thought. Please. Carefully, she snapped back the latches and opened the box.
Inside, neatly clipped into place along the sides of the box, were six hypodermics full of shimmering blue liquid.
Elena took a moment to marvel that Siobhan had bothered to make her false poison the right color. Perhaps she really had possessed some of the poison, although she hadn’t given it to Elena and Damon. Maybe they should have searched the cave and Siobhan’s cabin in the woods.