Chapter Forty-One
KNOX
“Can you drive?”
I expected Lily to balk, but she took the keys from my hand and switched directions, moving to the driver's side of our rental.
“Would you set the GPS in the car?”
I punched in the address to the private airfield where the plane was waiting and let her take over. I had calls to make before we were in the air.
A minute into the drive and I knew Lily had this under control. She drove smoothly, as fast as she could but not fast enough to get us pulled over. We didn't have time to waste on a ticket.
Before anything else, I called the pilot. I wanted the plane ready to take off when we got there.
The next call was a lot harder.
Cooper.
It was too dangerous to leave him out of the loop. Too much could go wrong before we got to Atlanta. If it were anyone else but Alice I wouldn't think twice.
All of us had experience in crisis situations, first in the military and then years of working with clients in touchy situations. Cooper wasn't in charge because he was the oldest. He was in charge because he never faltered, never lost focus, never let emotion rule.
Cooper was a fucking machine. Except this was Alice. And where Alice was concerned, all bets were off.
I didn't have a choice. I glanced at Lily, her eyes on the road, knuckles tight on the steering wheel. I loved the Lily I knew. Her shyness, her occasional uncertainty, was a part of her, and I loved that part as much as everything else.
This woman sitting beside me—this woman who would do anything to save her son—she wasn't the woman I wanted every day, but I loved Lily more knowing she had this resolve inside herself for Adam. For someone who was hers.
She was making good time, the traffic lights changing in our favor, one after the other. I could practically hear the clock ticking in my head. Less than two hours.
I tried Alice again. Straight to voicemail. Fuck.
Braced for the explosion to come, my finger hovered over Cooper's name on the screen of my phone. I made a split-second decision and hit the name below his.
“Hey, man, on your way home? Things go well?”
“Evers, we have a problem. You in the office?”
“Yeah.”
“You alone?”
“Yeah,” he said more slowly. “What happened? Are you okay?”
“Lily and I are fine. Alice and Adam are not. Tsepov has the house surrounded. I'm on my way and I'll need backup.”
A long silence. His voice precise, calculating, Evers said, “Cooper's going to flip his shit. I'm assuming Tsepov said to come alone?”
There was only a hint of irony in his words. I heard the thump as he pushed back from his desk, the sound of voices as he moved down the hall.
“Yeah. Don't send anybody or he'll shoot, yada, yada.”
“He wants the account numbers,” Evers said.
“Yeah.”
“Fucking hell. We're fucked—”
“No,” I cut him off, “we're not. I don't have time to explain, but I have something to trade. We'll hit the airport in a minute. I need to talk to Cooper, but not until you're in his office so he doesn't do anything—”
“Stupid, got it. Get on it. I'm here.”
Evers disconnected. Before I called Cooper, I texted to Evers,
Charges planted around the house. Didn’t want L to hear.
Then, I called Cooper.
“What the fuck?” my brother answered. “You guys okay?”
“We’re fine.” I didn’t have time to ease him into it. “Tsepov has Alice and Adam.” I heard Evers in the background, quietly filling him in on the explosives and Tsepov’s demands.
Complete and utter silence from Cooper.
I braced, waiting for him to swear, to yell, to throw the phone. Anything. There was fucking nothing.
I pulled the phone away from my ear to check the screen in case I’d disconnected. The time counter on the call ticked-up, second by second.
00:21
00:22
00:23
00:24
Nothing from Cooper.
Just when I was about to hang up and call Evers, a harsh breath sliced through the speaker like a blade. Cooper’s voice was guttural, the sounds barely words.
“I’m going to slit his fucking throat.”
I tried to decide if coldly enraged Cooper was better than a Cooper who was swearing and throwing things.
Better for Alice.
Better for Adam.
Not so good for Tsepov.
That was fine. As long as Adam and Alice were okay, I didn't give a shit what happened to Tsepov. Agent Holley might since he was trying to build a case, but we'd deal with the FBI later.
“When I get my fucking hands on him—”
“Coop,” I barked into the phone. “We have an hour and forty-five minutes before I have to be there. Before we need to make the trade. I don't have time for you to get your shit together. I need you now. Alice needs you now.”
Another grating breath, the hiss of Cooper sucking in air. Once. And again. I could practically see him closing his eyes, using his steady breathing to calm his nerves the way he'd learned years ago.
Good. This was good. I waited, the clock in my head ticking down as I followed the map on the screen of the rental. I had another few minutes before we were on the plane. Once we took off and rose above the cell towers, I'd lose the connection. I couldn't afford to lose contact until we had a plan.
“How much cash can you get your hands on?” I asked. “I got something from Gates we can use instead of the money in the accounts but adding cash to the deal won't hurt. Just in case he doesn't recognize it.”
“What? What did you get from Gates?” Cooper ground out.
“The Imperial Faberge snuff box,” I said.
A beat of silence and then, “What the fuck? How did she have it?”
“Long story. Not important. I have the box. It's probably enough on its own, but—”
“I'll get the cash. We need to end this shit.”
“We're almost at the airport,” I said. “I tried calling Alice. Twice. I can't get through. I'm almost positive he's got the signals blocked. We need to let her know. There's a safe room in the basement—”
Lily shot a hopeful glance in my direction before her eyes went back to the road and she swung the car into the airport.
“Alice knows where it is,” I went on. “She knows the code, knows how to get into the safe with my weapons. If we can tell her what's going on—”
“What do you have in the house? If there's no cell signal, and he cut the cable so there's no Internet, no phone, what else do you have?”
I'd been racking my brain for the answer to that question since I realized Tsepov had blocked the cellular signals.
“Not much,” I admitted. “There's the wireless network inside the house. It's probably live even if he's cut the Internet.”
“Your alarm has a separate cellular signal, doesn't it? Wired in away from the house?”
All the alarms we installed had an independent cellular line, so they could alert emergency services if the power or phone lines were down.
Even if someone was using a device to block a cellular signal.
The alarm was hard-wired to a mini cell tower hidden in the woods.
Tsepov's men wouldn't know to look for it, and it was far enough away from the house that whatever he was using to block the signal wouldn't affect it.
“It's our standard system,” I said, “so, yeah, it has a cellular line, but it's not connected to the wireless network in the house.”
“But that gives us a live signal going into the house,” Cooper said. “We can't trigger the alarm without risking Tsepov's men panicking and blowing the house. You don't have a speaker system on the alarm, do you?”
“Fucking no. It was just me and I—”
I never thought I'd need one. Never imagined this scenario. For clients? Sure. But for me?
We always tell people the most important thing your system protects is the people inside the house. I'd always been on my own, and I could protect myself just fine. My system, what I had of it, was the best. I'd left off most of the bells and whistles, never thinking I'd need them.
Lilly brought the car to a halt as close to the plane as she could. We were out the second it rolled to a stop, racing for the open door of the plane.
“Boarding now. I'll lose you once we're up. Stay with me.”
“Gotcha. Evers is working on the cash. He's getting Lucas so we can figure out if there's a way to patch the signal going to the alarm into the network in the house.”
I buckled in, Lily beside me, and took her hand in my free one. Closing my eyes, I tilted my head back, trying to picture every square inch of my house, to put the pieces together in a shape we could use.
So much shit connected to the Internet. Fucking everything, from the smart speakers to the refrigerator. The goddamn coffee maker had an app so I could start a pot from my fucking phone, and the printer—
I sat up with a jerk. The fucking printer.
I didn't have a home office per se. I lived five minutes from work. If I needed a desk, I went to the office. Every once in a while, I worked from home, spreading out any paperwork on the big farmhouse table in the kitchen.
We tried to stick with electronic files versus hardcopy for anything sensitive, but some of the admin shit we printed out old school.
While I hadn't succumbed to the trend for a home office, I did have a printer in the utility room by the kitchen. A multifunction copy/scan/fax/printer device, its connection to the phone line would be useless, but it was on the wireless network.
“The printer,” I said. “In the utility room. It's not that loud, but it's fucking stocked with paper. Alice will hear it. If Lucas can patch the alarm to the network, maybe—”
In the background, I heard Lucas grumble, “It's fucking designed so it doesn't connect with the fucking network.”
The plane lurched forward as its wheels left the ground. Cooper pulled his phone from his face, his voice distant as if from the other end of a long hallway. “I don't give a fuck. Make it connect.”
Doing the same with my own phone I called to the cockpit, “How long till we land?”
“Forty-five minutes,” came the answer.
“We'll be there in forty-five minutes.”
The plane gained altitude, cutting through the blue sky into the clouds. Any second, we'd leave the reach of cell towers and the phone would cut off. No Wi-Fi on the Sinclair Security plane, which meant no cellular calls. I'd always liked that before.
The private plane was a hefty expense, one we'd decided was worthwhile. Adding Wi-Fi? That ran a cool quarter-million, and for a number of reasons, we'd decided to skip it.
Cursing myself as a cheap bastard, I told Coop, “Anything happens, call the sat phone. I'm about to lose you. I'll call the second we land.”
Cooper disconnected before the call dropped. From beside me, Lily said, “You have a safe room?”
“In the basement. It's basic, but it's bombproof and bulletproof.”
“Do you think Lucas can hack into the network? Will Alice hear the printer?”
More than anything I wished I knew the answers to those questions. “I hope so. I fucking hope so.”
Lily fell silent. I'd always loved that we didn't need to talk, but never like I did then. Every nerve in my body was strung tight. I didn't think I could have handled words, handled having to reassure and calm. I could barely keep myself together.
My grip on Lily's hand was too tight. Her fingers dug into mine. She was my lifeline, and I was hers. We held on with everything we had as each excruciatingly slow second ticked by.
Lucas was the best. He would figure it out. Evers would get the money. Cooper would somehow keep himself from burning the world to the ground to get to Alice. The plane would land, we'd give Tsepov his fucking box and his money. We'd end this once and for all. With everyone safe.
I had to believe that. I had to believe I was going to hear Adam's infectious giggle again. I had to believe he would be all right because there was no alternative.
Not for Lily and not for me. I wanted my family—Lily and Adam and me. Together.
Without Adam, it would all fall apart. Lily would fall apart. And I would go right with her.
This was not my fault. I knew that. This train wreck had been set in motion by my father, by Lily's husband, long before we'd met.
It was not my fault.
And yet Adam was trapped in my house under my watch, his fate balanced in the hands of a man who so far had proven to be a fucking moron. A dangerous fucking moron.
All it would take was a careless finger on the wrong switch and the house would be obliterated, Alice and Adam along with it.
Thinking of Cooper, I forced myself to breathe, drawing air in slowly, filling my lungs and emptying them. Creating calm. Focus. Pushing back the fear, the utter mind-numbing terror, that this whole thing would slip out of my hands, and Adam with it.