Chapter Thirteen #2
“You have one job. It’s simple. Babysit. Don’t mess it up and don’t tick me off.”
Raising a palm, Hector nodded. “Yeah, yeah.” He shuffled down the stairs and out of sight.
Christina looked at the camera hidden in the vent. “Have you been watching me try to get out of these handcuffs this whole time?”
“Yes,” he said, and she could hear the smile in his voice. “I’m almost to your place. For your sake, I really do hope that hard drive is in your safe. Because I always keep my promises, Christina, and Hector is just itching to have a go at you.”
Deer Valley
Saturday, April 14, 2:05 a.m.
“STOP HERE,” JACKSON SAID, right before Chance turned the Chevy Suburban down the road that led to the house where Christina was being held. “We should go on foot the rest of the way.”
“Why?” Bo asked. “We might need to make a speedy exit.”
“The house is registered to an LLC,” Jackson. “We have to assume it’s his. If so, we should expect robust security measures.”
After this turn, there was only one house down that road. It afforded a lot of opportunities to use creative safeguards.
“He makes a good point.” Eli looked out the window. “We all have sensors leading up to our houses,” he said, referring to the IPS crew. “We should expect the same if not more from this guy.”
“But don’t you guys also have sensors in the trees, too?” Autumn asked. “To detect people walking around your property.” As the newest member of IPS, her home security was less comprehensive than that of the others.
“Yeah.” Bo nodded. “May as well drive. He’ll know we’re coming either way.”
“Taking the vehicle is faster and gives him less time to prepare,” Declan added.
Jackson shook his head. The group had no idea who they were going up against. They’d taken the time to swing by the IPS office and load up with gear they thought they might need, but they needed to think outside the box when it came to Aguilar.
“How do we know the road leading up to the house isn’t booby-trapped?
There could be a spike strip ready to pop up and puncture our tires.
Who knows? I underestimated this guy once.
I lost friends and officers because of it.
We have to expect the unexpected. I say we leave the vehicle. ”
“Agreed. We go on foot,” Winter said. “The house is less than a quarter mile down.”
Chance cut the engine.
They all got out of the Suburban, wearing body armor, but none of the vests were rated level four—capable of stopping one AP round. But it was the best they had on such short notice.
Eli and Bo each grabbed one of the handles of the battering ram they’d decided to throw into the vehicle at the last moment. There was no telling how difficult it might be to breach the house or what they would be up against once inside.
Cutting into the woods, they started their trek toward the isolated house that sat on a steep slope. His brain kept supplying awful possibilities of what was happening to Christina, each one more terrible than the last. He tightened his grip on his drawn gun, keeping his head on a swivel.
Chance whistled, drawing their attention, and pointed to a sensor mounted on a tree.
They’d just lost the element of surprise. Aguilar knew they were coming.
Deer Valley
Saturday, April 14, 2:14 a.m.
A HIGH-PITCHED BEEPING sounded in the house. It was an alarm of some sort, but Christina had never heard it before and didn’t know exactly what it meant.
For a moment, she wondered if Jackson had found the app she’d downloaded on the cell phone. If she hadn’t been so stubborn, letting her anger get the better of her earlier, she would’ve told him about it. Then she’d know for certain that help would be on the way.
The beeping stopped.
“Hector, listen to me,” Alvaro said through a speaker on the lower level of the house.
She was thankful the toad had left the doors open so she could hear what was going on.
“People are on their way up to the house,” Alvaro said. “They’re going to try to breach, but they won’t get in.”
“You don’t know that!” Panic raised Hector’s voice.
“I do,” Alvaro said, calmly. “There are steel doors on the exterior of the house, fire-rated at six hours, impervious to battering rams. Hinge-area breaching charges won’t work.”
“What about the back side of the house?” Hector asked. “The whole thing is made of glass. I’ve got to get out of here.”
“The windows are made of a bullet-resistant polycarbonate material.”
“It’ll stop a bullet, but what if they’re able to break through it?”
Alvaro sighed over the speaker. “The polycarbonate resin can withstand repeated assaults. It has ballistic and forced-entry protection. I have exterior measures on the front and rear of the house that I can deploy to eliminate the targets once they’re in position there. All you have to do is sit tight.”
Christina’s heart pounded against her breastbone. Jackson and his friends. She couldn’t let anything happen to them.
Yanking at the handcuff, Christina had to get free. Had to do something to warn them.
If Jackson died trying to rescue her, she’d never be able to forgive herself.
“Sit tight? Is that a joke?” Hector did nothing to hide the alarm in his voice. “It’ll take you hours to get back here. By then, this place will be crawling with SWAT.”
“Stop walking toward the door.” Alvaro’s voice hardened. “Listen to me. They can’t get in. Not unless you let them in. I can take care of most of them from here.”
“Most isn’t cutting it. I’m getting out of here.” Footsteps hurried down a hall, the gait unbalanced.
“If you leave, I’ll bury you beside her,” Alvaro said, the edge in his voice chilling. “I swear it.”
“First you’ll have to get your hands on both of us.”
“Hector!” Alvaro roared through the speakers and cursed.
“Christina, if you’re not shackled in that bathroom right where I left you when I get back, I’ll make the Boy Scout and those helping him pay.
I can see them on the cameras. I know what they look like.
It won’t be hard to find out their names and where they live.
And I won’t stop with them. I know about the Shooting Star–Longhorn Ranch, where Jackson Powell grew up with a silver spoon in his mouth,” Alvaro said, sending a chill down her spine.
“About his brother, Logan, who lives in Bitterroot Falls with his pretty fiancée. Be a good girl and stay put.”
She swallowed around the lump forming in her throat as her chest tightened.