Covert Intents: A Branson Family Novella Read Free

would keep the elevator on their floor.
    No w she looked at him. Probably because she thought he was crazy, chasing her down the hallway right after refusing to go out with her.
    They both started talking at the same time.
    “Look, I just want to say—“
    “Seth, it’s okay. You don’t—“
    The both stopped. Rachel gestured with her hand for Seth to continue.
    “I just wanted to say, I didn’t say no because I wasn’t interested. I can’t go out with you tomorrow night because I have to work.”
    That at least eased the look on her face. Seth felt like he could breathe again.
    “Oh,” she said. “I guess I didn’t even think of that. Maybe we could do it some other time. This weekend or something.”
    See dumbass? This is why you should’ve just left it alone. Now what are you going to do?
    Seth knew one thing for certain, he didn’t want to put that hurt look back on her sweet face.
    “Um, yeah. I just need to check on some things. Let me get back to you.”
    Rachel nodded, obviously skeptical, but at least not hurt. “Oh, okay, that sounds good. I guess we can just talk about it some other time.”
    He wanted to reassure her that he did plan for them to go out. Hell, he’d like to back her against the elevator wall and kiss that plump bottom lip until she was sure he wanted to go out with her.
    But since he couldn’t actually go out with her, he should probably not do that.
    Instead he nodded and hit the button to open the elevator door so he could get back to work. But when he pressed it the elevator dropped suddenly a few feet then everything went dark.
    “Seth?” Rachel’s concern was evident.
    He reached his hand out for her and found her, wrapping an arm around her shoulders and drawing her next to him.
    “It’s probably just an equipment malfunction. It’s okay, the emergency generator should kick on in just a second.”
    But it didn’t. And that was really weird. If the elevator was out of service —which the sign had said just a few minutes ago— then the door shouldn’t have opened at all. And if the door opened, then there had to have been power, and the back up generator.
    Seth wasn’t a real custodian, but he knew this was not right.
    He pulled out his phone to use as a flashlight, shining it in Rachel’s direction first.
    “You okay?”
    She nodded. “Did power go out in the whole building maybe?”
    He shrugged. “Even if it did, the back up generator should be on in here. Let me use the emergency phone.”
    Seth opened the small door that held a phone with a direct line to campus security or emergency services if the line was commandeered. But when he picked up the phone, it was dead too.
    Okay, tha t reall y wasn’t right. The elevator shifted again. It only dropped a few inches, but the terrifying lurch caused Rachel to gasp.
    He turned the light off on his phone and turned it around to make a call. He needed to get help here right now.
    “Elevator phone isn’t working, so I’ll just use my cell to call security and get a maintenance team over here.”
    “Yeah, that’s a good idea,” Rachel whispered. She was still standing right next to him. Seth didn’t blame her. The stillness and silence of the elevator was a little eerie. Waiting for it to drop again had them both tensed.
    He found the number for campus security then hit send. The call immediately died, so he tried again. Same thing.
    “What’s wrong?”
    Seth shook his head. “I don’t know. My phone seems to have a signal, but then the call drops every time.”
    “Want me to try mine?”
    “Yeah, good idea.” He read her the number and she punched it in, but the same thing happened.
    “Okay, I guess we’ll try 9-1-1.” An emergency call would bounce off any cell phone tower regardless of their carriers.
    But the call dropped again.
    Seth tried one more time to be sure, but he already knew what was going on. The power, back-up power, emergency phone and cell phones all not working or being