Page 94 of Don't Let Go

After tugging the mask down firmly to cover my face and head, I did the mental count to three. On cue, I hit the stopwatch function on my watch as she said, “Go.”

Seven seconds to clear the wall. I took it at a run, jumping to catch the top of it and pulling myself up and then rolling over and dropping to the ground.

“And go.”

On my feet, I ran following a straight trajectory and hit the ground amidst shadows at the seven-second mark. I’d covered roughly fifty meters.

Three more sprints would bring me in range to the house.

“Go,” Patch said and we repeated the process for the next three sprints. She was monitoring the cameras’ rotation and had been gradually adding seconds to them over the past several hours to delay their range and it gave me mobile blindspots to run through.

Fortunately, I was a solid sprinter. In range of the house itself, I moved with the shadows beneath the trees that lined the edge of their garden. The retired officer didn’t care for personal monitoring, so the cameras were sparser on his private spaces, such as the garden.

He likely trusted the system he had in place to alert him before anyone got this close. It was a very nice system. Butnothingwas fool proof against a determined man.

I was quite determined.

“You’ve got a thirty second window coming up,” Patch said as I took a beat to get my air back. “In five, four, three…”

On one, I was up and went directly through the garden to the trellis that attached to the side of the house. I didn’t bother with the doors or windows downstairs. Every single one was wired.

Instead, I climbed the trellis to the second story, then up to the third. The house boasted a very nice attic that Patch found featured in a Town and Country article from four years prior. The windows were narrow, but I could get through them.

They were also not wired.

Sloppy.

It took a little effort to get the window opened and slid up. Then I wiggled through the opening. Careful not to make too much noise once inside. On light feet, I crossed the interior of the attic to the door. They had a proper door at the top of the stairs.

In the Town and Country article, the attic had been converted into a cheery little reading space. The four differentwindows allowed for a cross breeze and the furniture had a lot of floral, and pink accents.

At the door, I used a small can of oil to lubricate the hinges and gave it a beat. A lot of older houses did the creak and groan. I didn’t want to alert my target. The door opened silently after that. The lights were on low, the occupants were likely asleep.

A cat sat on the staircase below and stared up at me with feline indifference before sauntering away. Once down the steps, I began a sweep of the house. The occupants, well occupant since his wife was on a cruise with her sister in the Caribbean, was here somewhere.

It was why we’d chosen to hit all our targets in the middle of the night. It was just after one in the morning here. A soft murmur from downstairs drew me to the living room.

The flickering of a television offered alternating light to the room and cast wild shadows. The movie playing was a classic Bond film.

No comment.

My target, however, was sprawled in a recliner, an empty heavy crystal glass on the side table. The scent of bourbon reached me as the retired colonel snored heavily through his film.

Lips pursed, I studied him for a moment, then scanned the room before returning my attention to him. The curtains were closed, the windows blocked and no obvious signs of camera surveillance.

Still, I wasn’t going to take any chances. I pulled out the device that Patch had made for me. It had two small antennae on it and basically looked like a wifi signal booster. Once I had it plugged into the wall, my comm played three dashes, a dash-dot, then two dots, and a dash.

She was in the system.

Withdrawing, I kept my gaze focused on the target until she sent another signal in Morse code for all clear. Pushing away from the wall, I did another sweep and removed any possible weapons from St. James’ reach, along with his cell phone. Dropping it into a sealed pouch for Patch to do what she wanted with it, I finished my search.

Once satisfied, I pulled out the pressure injector and crossed the room to where my target continued to sleep blissfully.

I could just drug him while he was out. That would be efficient. Except…

They terrorized Fallon. Tortured her. Took her life from her. Threatened to do it again.

He didn’t deserve an easy path. I kicked his chair once and his eyes jerked open. The pupils dilated as he focused on me and his mouth opened.

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