Chapter 20 #2
Poor Alex. She could hear the quiver in his voice. She continued in a full-on run until she hit the hedges between Miranda’s house and the neighbor’s lot. She darted into the yard, hugging the bushes until she reached the back corner of the house.
She crossed to the back deck, climbing the few stairs to it and moving to the sliding door. She tried it, but found it locked.
“Just talk, huh?” Miranda asked. “It seems like you had something specific you wanted to say.”
“Nothing specific, babe. Tell her you wanted to know more about her offer. Put it back on her.”
Alex cleared his throat as she worked to pick the lock. “Uh, well, actually, you mentioned working with you and I…wanted to know more about that.”
Ava wrinkled her nose as she worked on the lock until it finally popped up. She yanked the handle, but the door didn’t budge, hitting a floor lock.
“Damn it. Ace, keep her talking, I need to hit the back door. Slider’s no good.”
“More about my offer?” Miranda said, her voice dripping with honey.
Ava vaulted over the railing and dropped to the grass, swinging around the side of the house to find the back door.
“Yeah,” Alex said. “More about that. Yep. “
Ava reached the back door, shoving the lock pick into the lock after trying the knob. She opened it in a few seconds. It only opened a fraction of the way, a chain lock engaging.
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” she murmured through clenched teeth, her frustration building.
“Well, before we do that…there’s something I need from you,” Miranda said.
Ava blew out a breath pulled the door nearly closed before she slid a thin wire inside to shove the chain lock to the exit point. With a flick, she disengaged it, swinging the door open as she grabbed the chain to stop it from rattling.
“I’m in,” she whispered.
“Something from me? Well…uh…what?”
Panic rose in his voice as she tiptoed through the kitchen, her eyes scanning for potential spots for the safe. “Easy, Ace. I’m right here with you.”
“You,” Miranda answered.
Ava struggled not to gag at the words, not daring to look at her phone.
Alex’s nervous chuckle made her uncomfortable. She slipped into a dining room, checking behind a large painting before she moved back to the hall.
“Me? I, uh…well…wait, now,” Alex stammered.
Miranda let out a cackle. “Oh, please, don’t flatter yourself. I don’t want you like that. I want your loyalty. And…you’re going to have to prove it.”
“Pr-prove it?” he asked.
“Don’t agree to anything,” she reminded him as she crossed past the living room where Alex and Miranda stood.
Alex stood with his shoulders almost at his ears as he shifted his weight from foot to foot. She flicked her gaze away, forcing her mind to the task at hand as she hurried past the opening to the stairs and noiselessly crept up them.
“Yes. Ava is a problem.”
She went left first, doing a quick search of what appeared to be the primary bedroom without finding anything.
“She’s not. She’s really not. Ava is…not a problem.”
“Stop talking,” Miranda said. “I want her gone. Your buy-in is Ava.”
She moved to a guest bedroom, then peered into a bathroom.
Her hope waned as her heart thudded harder against her ribs. What if the safe was in the room Alex and Miranda were in?
“Ava is not a buy-in. You should want Ava, not me,” Alex said. “Really, you should. I mean she’s amazing. She’s smart, and she’s tough and…”
Ava stepped into a home office, her eyes falling on a painting of Miranda hanging on the wall. “Really?” she murmured as she crossed to it.
“I don’t care what you think of Ava. And to be fair…I fully expected you had realized what she was based on your message.”
“Well, I said things changed but…” Alex paused as her fingers hovered on the gilded frame. “Ava is my wife. And if you want me…she comes with me.”
A smile crossed her face as the words floated through her earpiece. She pushed herself to tugging on the painting. It swung away from the wall easily revealing the safe. “Ace, I found the safe. I’m using the cracker now.”
“Out of the question,” Miranda answered as Ava stuck the magnetic strip on the safe’s front and turned on the codebreaker. “Ava is not part of the plan.”
“Well, she should be. Because I’m not part of the plan without her.”
“You’re not in a position to make demands here, Alex. We can ruin you. And we can take her out. Now, I’m giving you an option…you can save her life…or we can kill her.”
Red digits popped up on the reader.
“Almost there…it’s halfway through.”
“I don’t understand why it has to be that way,” Alex shot back.
“Two more,” Ava reported, chewing her lower lip as she waited.
“Because we said so. You do as we say. Not as you say. You may be the great Alex Stone in the tech world, but you’re just a pawn to us.”
Alex huffed out a breath.
“One more,” Ava said. “Hang in there.”
“I don’t understand but…let’s…put that aside for now.”
“Oh, no,” Miranda said. “No, no. This is far too important. You cling to her like she’s some kind of savior. That has to stop.”
“Got the code,” Ava hissed.
Her trembling fingers punched it into the keypad. A beep and a green light indicated she’d done it correctly along with the appearance of a retina scanner. “Got it. Ready for the retina scan.”
Ava toggled on the app on her phone and zoomed in to Miranda’s eye before she held it to the scanner. A red button and a buzz sounded.
She tried again, moving the camera around. Her heart plummeted as she received another error.
“Ace, it’s not working. I can’t get the retina scan.”
She held her breath, shifting her weight as she waited to see if he could shift his view to capture the image. Time was running out, and so were their opportunities to pull this off and get out alive.