Chapter 23 · Under His Roof

The elevator wouldn't take me down.

I hit Lobby. Then Garage. Then Lobby again, thumb jammed into the brass button until the plastic squeaked. The panel blinked, reconsidered, and slid me back to the sixtieth floor like a dog returning a stick.

"Mr. Sterling coded it to your print this morning," the security kid said, talking to his own shoes. "Top floor or nothing, ma'am. Sorry."

"Nothing works for me. Nothing's my favorite."

He didn't laugh. Nobody on this floor laughed. I'd been here eleven days and I'd heard exactly one joke, and it was mine, and it bombed.

The doors opened on the smell of coffee and something with butter in it. Marcus Sterling stood at the end of the marble hall with his sleeves rolled past his elbows and his tie gone, holding a file the way other men hold a drink. Fifty-four years old. Not one soft inch on him. He'd shaved and he'd missed a spot under his jaw, and I hated that I noticed it, hated that I wanted to put my mouth on it.

"You locked the elevator."

"I secured the elevator."

"I'm a lawyer.