Page 84 of The Twilight Theft

“Fuck that!” He slammed into the door again. It didn’t budge.

“Drew!” I got in front of him before he dove at it again. “It must be barred from the outside.”

A door opened somewhere below us. Two deep French voices and heavy, hurried feet told me it was Rav.

Drew paced back and forth, slamming a hand against the door. “Hurry!”

Marc was a few inches shorter than Rav and built like a freight train. He spoke with an accent even thicker than Rav’s. “Stand back.” He leaned against the door, pushed away, and rammed into it so hard the concrete around us practically shook.

The only movement was above the panic bar.

He and Rav gave it a few more shots before anyone listened to my theory about it being barricaded. Drew stood precariously close, wound tighter than a balance beam spring.

I moved a few steps down. “Brie, any sign?”

“Nothing helpful,” she said. “Ash and Will are trying to piece together the timeline. We’ve only got a one second clip of Noah and can’t find him on any other video. We don’t know where he came from or where he went.”

“And Wyatt?”

“Last we saw him, he was heading down the stairs from the bathroom. And I only have live feeds from the cameras outside the restaurant, so I can’t rewind to confirm if he went to the fourth floor.”

“And Craig’s team?” I’d been too distracted to pay attention to Emmett’s discussions with Craig, as they tried fixing the Bishop comms and cameras.

“Looks like their tech was tampered with.”

A hand slid across the small of my back and Drew’s warm body closed in on mine. “Anything?”

“Wyatt must have done something to your comms.” I looked up at him, at his tense jaw and the mix of frustration and anger boiling just below his surface. The pounding against the door continued behind us. We were going to lose this job.

I couldn’t lose.

“I have a breach kit in the car,” said Rav’s buddy. “But it’ll take me twenty minutes.”

“Go,” said Rav. “I’ll buy you a beer if you make it in ten.”

“Make that a two-four,” Mr. Freight Train said as he ran down the stairs, “and you’ve got a deal.”

Wyatt had between ten and twenty minutes before they’d blow the door. How long until one of the security guards got up there through the other buildings—if they could find a way up. How far ahead of us was Wyatt? And how much farther would he get in that time?

I had to stop him. Had to do something.

But what?

“The fifth floor!” I practically shouted.

Scarlett, Rav, and someone else asked what I was talking about.

But there was no time to explain. I went as fast as the stupid little heeled shoes would take me. Down a flight, through the door into the offices.

“What are you doing?” came Drew’s voice from behind me.

Along a hall, hang a right after the third cubicle, past an office, and into the kitchen.

Drew lunged ahead of me, barring the glass door to the balcony on the far side of the kitchen. “Don’t you dare. It’s too dangerous.”

I’d made the climb from the ground floor on Wednesday. I knew the facade well enough I could make it up a single flight without thinking. “He might not be up there anymore. Maybe he’s already ducked into one of the other buildings.”

“It was pouring yesterday.” He stood firm between me and the door, bracing his arms against the frame. “The walls will be too slippery. You’ll fall.”

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