Page 36 of Deceive Me
Was the hushed quality of her voice a reaction to his touch? “Cereal bars, water, juice boxes. A flashlight and a burner phone so she can call for help once she’s secure. I replenish the perishables regularly, and each hiding spot is stocked with additional supplies, a couple of toys, and a blanket.”
“A four-year-old shouldn’t have a go bag.”
“No, she shouldn’t.” Deacon shifted against the wall, remembering the arguments he’d had with himself, the uncertainty of how best to take care of Sydney on his own. In the end the conclusion had been simple: his daughter had to be prepared, and not just for criminals. “Families have similar procedures for severe weather, tornados, earthquakes out west. Fire. It’s not comfortable to think about your child being scared and alone, but at least I have some small peace of mind knowing she has a chance.”
Elliot nodded, but she wasn’t looking at him; she was looking at the door to the hall, her eyes haunted. By what? And what would it take to get her to share it with him?
He glanced at his watch: five minutes. “Let’s go.”
There were four hiding spots in the house: one in the back of Sydney’s closet, one in the kitchen, one under the stairs, and a final one in the gym above the garage. As part of the game, Sydney chose one of the cubbies that was not in the same room as Deacon, and he came to find her. Whichever cubby was locked closed, Sydney was inside. And once he discovered her, they started the game all over again. Deadly hide-and-seek—or practical parenting; it was all in how you chose to look at it.
The hiding spot at the back of the closet in the front room opened readily. Not there. He tried to check the locations in a random pattern, but today, with Elliot along, he went in order. The kitchen was empty except for King, who glanced up from a stack of reports spread out on the table at their entrance. Deacon closed the door silently, a finger against his lips to keep the man from speaking. He led Elliot toward the pantry, which extended approximately four feet on either side of its door before terminating in cabinets that lined the rest of that wall. Most of the space behind the wall contained the actual walk-in pantry, but on the left side a hollow had been built between the pantry and the outer wall. Deacon knelt to run his fingers along the baseboard, found the shallow dip barely noticeable to the naked eye, and pressed.
The cubby didn’t open.
He sent Elliot a ragged grin. Using his knuckles, he rapped three times on the drywall, paused, then three more.
A two-foot-wide panel opened in front of him. Inside, Sydney sat on a fleece blanket, grinning up at him. “Surprise!”
Deacon held his arms out. When Sydney slammed into him, he wrapped them tight around her. “Surprise, Little Bit. You did good.”
She leaned back to look at Elliot. “See?”
“I see.” Elliot’s smile strained across her face. Deacon recognized the emotion behind it, but she didn’t dwell on it any more than he allowed himself to. “Ready to go again?”
And the game was back on. For half an hour he and Elliot tracked Sydney through the house, laughing and joking while inside they fought the sick juxtaposition their playing represented. Deacon had finally called a halt to get his daughter some lunch when an alarm sounded in his ear.
Damn it!
Elliot didn’t hesitate; she scooped Sydney up as they walked through the kitchen door, ignoring the palpable tension to cross the room toward the fridge. “What are we having for lunch, Syd?”
“Ice cream!”
“I don’t think so,” Deacon called after them, gratitude filling his chest as he watched Elliot secure his daughter, care for her. That left him to confront King and Fionn, now leaning over King’s laptop.
“What is it?” he asked quietly.
Fionn straightened, frustration and anger a mask sharpening his playboy looks. With a flick of his wrist, he twisted the laptop around until Deacon could see the screen. “You won’t be liking it, Deac.”
15
Elliot could hear Deacon’s raised voice through the thick oak of the closed library door. Not that she blamed him. It had been a long afternoon of frustration and anger, not to mention hiding it all behind a pleasant mask so as not to upset Sydney. None of them wanted to worry the little girl, although Elliot had a sneaking suspicion her charge understood more of what was going on around her than the other adults realized. She certainly sensed Deacon’s moods. Kids were like that, or at least Elliot had been. And she’d learned well to hold it all inside so as not to add to the burden her mother and stepdad carried. She’d never really had a chance to be a child, carefree and naive. Knowing Sydney was being forced along a similar path made Elliot itch to find Mansa and stop him as soon as possible—permanently.
Right now, though, it sounded like Deacon was the one who needed her, odd as that seemed. When had they gotten so close that she knew he’d turn to her and not Fionn? Or maybe it was just wishful thinking and aberrant hormones—that had to be it. She sucked in a deep breath, filling her lungs to the bursting point, grasped the doorknob, and walked inside. Her silent exhale was lost beneath the quiet whoosh as she closed the door behind her.
No one paid attention to her entry; like Elliot, the team was focused on their client. Deacon glared down at a large computer screen centered on the library table, the image of a young, geeky-looking woman trembling before him, face a blotchy red swath. Elliot felt a moment’s sympathy for her, though from the volcanic anger raging across Deacon’s face and the near-to-breaking tension in his body, the woman should be grateful she wasn’t in the same room with him and call it even.
Elliot moved to the empty spot next to Dain.
“Sir, I can’t find something that isn’t there.”
“Bullshit!”
Yeah, Deacon’s attention wasn’t going anywhere anytime soon.
“It has to be there, Sheppard. It’s impossible for nothing to be setting off the alarms. Either something physical is causing this, or something electronic. Now which is it?”
“I don’t know, damn it!” She waved a hand at the desk littered with more computer screens than Elliot had ever seen in one place, a dozen stacks of reports, and an astonishing number of coffee cups, coming close to knocking over one or two. “Every square inch of the grounds has camera coverage. You have manual surveillance. We have the satellite for only a limited time per day, but we do have it. There aren’t any gaps that I can pinpoint from here. It has to be something on your end.”
