Jo peered out the window of the office before she did anything else, checking to make sure no one was heading toward the building. Finding the yard empty, she then turned to the shadowed room and began to move cautiously around, feeling the desk surface and then opening and groping the contents of drawers in the hope of finding a key to the cell Nicholas was locked in.
When that didn't turn up anything, Jo checked the window again, intending to risk the lights for a few moments if no one was around. However, the sight of two men crossing the lawn toward the building made her heart lurch up into her throat.
Panic suddenly pumping through her, Jo glanced wildly around the shadowed room, and then her eyes landed on the dark hole that was the knee cubby under the desk. Without pausing to consider the merits of the hiding spot, she quickly dropped and crawled into it. Jo had just gotten into the spot and squeezed her eyes closed—as if that might help make her invisible—when she heard the outer door open and the murmur of male voices.
"I don't know, Mortimer," Bricker was saying. "Nicholas just keeps risking himself to save women. Maybe he isn't the rogue we thought he was."
"Sam said the same thing," Mortimer admitted, and Jo's eyes opened with alarm as his voice suddenly became clear and loud and the office light came on overhead. Oh Christ, they were coming in here. She was so dead, she thought with horror as Mortimer continued, "But you know what he did as well as I do, and—"
"Where are you going?" Bricker interrupted.
"To get the keys to the cells," Mortimer answered, and Jo's heart stopped as his legs came into view between the desk chair and the kneehole where she crouched.
Please don't sit, please don't sit , she began to pray, sure he would bump her with his legs if he sat at the desk, and then she'd be discovered. Jo could have howled with frustration when his knees began to bend as he started to sit.
"I have the keys still," Bricker said, and Mortimer paused and straightened again. As the legs moved out of sight again, Bricker asked, "Why do you think he keeps risking getting caught then?"
"I don't know," Mortimer muttered as the lights in the office went out again. "Maybe he has a death wish."
"You think so?" Bricker asked with surprise, his voice growing fainter as the men moved out of the office. "I never would have figured him for the suicidal sort."
"I didn't say suicidal, I said death wish. There's a difference. "
Jo remained where she was as the voices moved farther away, not daring to breathe, let alone move until the deep rumble of Nicholas's voice joined them. She couldn't hear what they were saying now, but it told her that Mortimer and Bricker had reached the end cell and it was relatively safe to move. Certainly it was safer to move and get the hell out of the office than it was to wait there for them to return. Jo didn't think she'd be fortunate enough to avoid getting caught a second time if she stayed where she was. She had to get out of the office before they finished talking to Nicholas and returned.
Crawling out from the knee cubby, Jo crouched behind the desk and peered nervously over it toward the door just to be sure, but when she didn't see anyone at the door or through the windows, she quickly stood and tiptoed out of the room, only to stop when she heard the voices up the hall.
"Nothing to say?" Mortimer was asking.
"He was talking earlier," Bricker commented, and she could hear the frown in his voice.
"Well then, I guess we just wait for Lucian. He'll find out anything we need to know," Mortimer decided and Jo realized she'd best get her butt moving. She glanced around briefly, her gaze moving back toward the exit, and then shifting to the garage where the SUVs all sat lined up silent and waiting. She headed for the garage. It seemed the smartest option to her. Jo didn't trust that Mortimer and Bricker wouldn't lock the door of the building when they left this time, and she might not be able to get back in. Besides, there was obviously no sense looking for the keys in the office since Bricker had them. But perhaps she could find something in the garage to hack through the bars or jimmy the lock or something.
"Lucian might come tonight and put you out of your misery, but it could be morning before he gets here," Mortimer was saying as Jo reached the garage door. "You might as well make yourself comfortable. Do you want anything?"
Nicholas's response was just a rumble of sound as Jo carefully opened the door to the garage and slid through it. As she eased the door carefully closed, she heard Mortimer say, "Then we'll leave you to your thoughts."
Jo hurried to the first SUV in the garage to duck on the other side of it. She waited there for one heartbeat, but then couldn't resist easing up to peer through the windows of the SUV. She was just in time to see Bricker and Mortimer enter the small entry hall and move into the office.