13. Chapter 12
Don’t look for someone who will solve all your problems. Look for someone who won’t let you face them alone.
“I’m surprised Hope didn’t insist on coming with you,” Rowan murmured as Bradford pulled his truck into the woods off the side of a well-traveled two-lane highway.
“Her dad’s lawyer wanted to talk to her and then she wanted to talk to Kim again. See if she can get more information from her.” The only reason he was okay with her being out of his sight was because Tiago had agreed to tail her.
He’d already received a text from Tiago telling him that she’d left her lawyer’s and had recently arrived at the diner, so he knew she was safe.
“That makes more sense… So.”
“So…what?” Bradford shut the door behind him and pulled out his backpack. All this recon hadn’t been on his list of things to do when he’d come to see Hope, but he was glad he’d been prepared.
Everyone who worked for Redemption Harbor Security was like that. Their founder, Skye, probably took things to a level none of them did (she never left the house without C-4, not even to go to the grocery store, and no that wasn’t hyperbole) but it was still ingrained into them to be prepared.
“How are things with you guys?”
Awkward? “Good enough. And that’s all you’re gonna get, so tell Tiago that if he wants to know anything, he’ll have to ask me himself. Because I know this shit isn’t from you.”
Rowan grinned as he hoisted his own pack. “It’s mostly Tiago, but we’re all concerned too. We’ve been brothers since we were dumb kids. I care about you. Her too, for that matter. I see how she looks at you, but…I don’t know. I just don’t want you getting hurt.”
“If I do, I do.” He shrugged because he wasn’t going to worry about that. He was pretty certain that Hope worried about it enough for the both of them. One of them had to just go for it and it was going to be him.
Rowan didn’t say anything as they put in their earpieces and slipped into the woods.
“Berlin, you copy?” he murmured. It was half past six, so it was still light out but there were plenty of shadows in the woods.
“Loud and clear. I’ve got a drone high above Killeen’s place.
There hasn’t been any traffic in or out except that Bronco about an hour ago.
I have no idea if he was even driving it since the driver parked in the garage.
Since then, nothing. And my battery is about dead anyway.
I’m not sure you’ll get close enough to gather any real information. ”
Oh, he would. “You got a backup drone?”
“Of course I do.” At the sound of a throat clearing in the background she said, “To be clear, Ezra is the one flying the drone and he wanted you to know that. As if I need to steal credit,” she muttered.
“Do I need to head back to base and referee you two?” said Rowan, who, more often than not, did referee all of them. Either he or Adalyn did.
There was more good-natured bickering but Bradford tuned it out as they stalked through the thick underbrush, mosquitos and cicadas buzzing loudly in the background.
Berlin had pulled up all the known records for Edward Killeen’s property and from there she’d done her magic. He could do basic stuff like property searches, because once you had an address there was a lot you could find if you knew where to search. But Berlin worked a different kind of magic.
So far they knew that Edward Killeen owned at least nine properties in the region. Six were in his wife’s name, two in his son’s, and he owned about eight spread out around the country. Bradford was certain there were more under aliases, but that was what Berlin had found thus far.
They had a pretty decent aerial layout of where they were headed.
And she was right, he wasn’t certain they’d find anything this way, but he wanted to get eyes on the ground right now.
It was a start anyway, while Berlin dug into Killeen’s financials.
She hadn’t found out much on the Tanner brothers other than they’d been arrested a handful of times for petty crimes.
So maybe there wasn’t a connection to them and the Killeens. Only time would tell.
There was no way to know what would give them the information they needed so they had to start somewhere.
“Stop right where you guys are,” Berlin said into the quiet about thirty minutes into their trek through the woods. “You’ll be coming up on security cameras soon so give me a sec…”
She trailed off and he had no doubt she was disabling them.
“Okay, I’m in and you’ve got about thirty minutes. The cameras are completely down, indicating an error that needs an update, but they’ll be up soon enough.”
“At the risk of having my head chopped off later, why didn’t you just do that thing you do where you create loops or whatever magic you do?” he asked as he started jogging in the direction of Killeen’s home. They knew from the aerial photos and coordinates exactly where it was.
“It won’t work for this system, that’s the easiest way I can explain it. And by doing it this way, even the security system and monitoring company will think it’s in need of a reboot. Which it is—it’s why I was able to hack in so easily.”
Bradford had a feeling that “easily” was just by her standards.
“But after this it will automatically update itself, so whatever you need to do, make it fast. Also, if you can find a cell phone or laptop or PC or whatever, you know what to do,” she added.
He and Rowan both grunted because they did know what to do. She’d only reminded them eight times. They were also going to try to plant some small cameras around the house too, and the plan was for Berlin to link them into the Wi-Fi system.
Since Killeen’s home and extended property butted up against a palmetto farm, and they weren’t certain if the farm was a cover for something, they approached from a different direction.
The guy’s house was relatively large, about five thousand square feet, but not what Bradford had seen with some drug runners. But it was more than big enough for the guy and his wife—their son lived in a smaller house farther west on the property on the other side of the palmetto farm.
Bradford really wanted to get in there, but the location made it far too difficult. At least without more aerial recon.
“There’s movement on the road. Someone is turning into the main entrance.” This was from Adalyn, who was in an SUV a few miles back acting as an extra set of eyes. “Your guy will have company soon.”
In other words, they needed to be prepared.
“I didn’t see anyone other than Killeen on the cameras inside the house,” Berlin added, as if she’d read his mind .
“In the house?” He knew some people had them to watch their pets or kids or whatever, but it seemed like overkill to him.
“One in the kitchen, the other in a game room.”
He made a mental note of it and glanced at his watch as he and Rowan crouched down by the tree line.
“Not too much ground to cover,” Rowan said. “We can enter from the northwest bottom window.” He pointed at the one he meant, but Bradford already knew.
He nodded. His friend was right, it was the straightest shot, and from the plans they had, it connected to a laundry room. “I hate not knowing if there’s other security,” he muttered.
“Right? Makes me feel like I have a bull’s-eye on my chest.”
They were wearing top-of-the-line bulletproof vests under their shirts, but yep. He felt the same. If Berlin or the others had seen anyone with the drone, they’d have told them, so it was a good bet that there wasn’t any on-the-ground security—at least on the direct grounds near the house.
“Berlin, you see that vehicle yet?” he asked.
“It’s approaching slowly, should reach the end of the driveway in about sixty seconds.”
He looked at Rowan, nodded when the other man gave familiar hand gestures.
“Okay, Killeen is stepping outside onto the driveway,” Berlin finally said.
They took off while they had a chance. Everything funneled out around him as he sprinted for that window at full speed.
It took a precious two minutes to get the window open without breaking it. Then he was inside first, with Rowan quickly following.
“Spread out, stay on the comms,” Rowan ordered. “If anything is off, we retreat.”
Bradford nodded, already slipping out of the laundry room and into a quiet hallway.
They’d already gone over the rooms they’d planned to hit first to plant the cameras and listening devices.
It was a crapshoot because Killeen could sweep the place on a regular basis, but it was a risk they had to take.
He moved silently, pausing to sweep a couple generic-looking guest rooms. But once he made it to the kitchen, he got to work. People gathered and talked in kitchens, so it was one of the rooms they’d planned to tag first.
“You’re still clear.” Berlin said in his ear. “He’s staying in the driveway.”
He was silent as he worked, placing the tiny bug high up on top of one of the shelves. Then he hid a camera in the corner of a picture with a black frame. If he didn’t know it was there, he wouldn’t have seen it.
The tech now was next-level and even scared him a bit if he was being brutally honest with himself. There was a reason he swept his own place regularly.
“Time to get out of there. He’s walking the guy back to his vehicle,” Berlin said.
“Retreating now,” he whispered, with Rowan saying the same thing.
He met Rowan at the laundry room door.
“How many did you get?” he asked as they hurried toward the window, careful not to touch anything.
“Three cameras and two audio bugs.”
He snorted softly as he slid the window open.
They liked to plant more than cameras in case something went wrong with the audio on them.
“Same.” There simply hadn’t been enough time to do more, not without a risk of getting caught.
But he’d got one camera in the kitchen, another in one of the living rooms and managed to add one on the back patio that overlooked the massive pool.
It blended in with the brick accent wall and if any of them were going to go unnoticed long-term, he’d bet money on that one.
“He’s walking up the front steps and there’s another car coming up the driveway now. A Mercedes S-Class… Gotta be his wife. Get the hell out of there.”
They were both outside now, crouched down by the window. “Are we good to make a run for it?” Rowan asked quietly as Bradford secured the window.
“Yep.”
They sprinted back across the grassy stretch of yard and he only dragged in a full breath once they passed the tree line and Berlin said, “You’re clear. And with four minutes to spare.”
“Let’s get the hell out of here,” he muttered, not slowing down as they hurried through the woods. He wanted to get back to Hope anyway. He trusted Tiago to watch her, to keep her safe, but it didn’t matter.
A compulsion inside him wanted eyes on her, to see for himself that she was okay.