Page 86 of The One Who Won’t Get Away
She was gone.Really gone.Any hope of finding her alive vanished with that one phone call.I had known the chances had been slim, but now there was no chance at all.
We ate in silence for a while, listening to the clatter from the kitchen and the low drone of news from the TV bolted to the wall.My mind wandered to the last time I’d seen Isabella, the day she vanished.Then the missing posters, local news, school assemblies—none of it mattered.She was just gone.A black hole in the shape of a nine-year-old girl.
“Nick,” Sean said, and I blinked back to the present.
He was holding his phone again.“The whole security system just went down.That’s not normal.”
I sat up.“Cell or hardwired?”
“Hardwired.”
Power outages might take it out, but what were the chances?If I were trying to break in, on the other hand, I’d cut the power, especially if I knew there was a security system.
We both stood up at the same time, tossed cash on the table, and were out the door before the waitress even noticed.
On the sidewalk, I fumbled for my keys, but Sean was already on the phone, calling his security team.
Police were notoriously bad at responding to security alarms.In the city this size, it would probably be close to an hour before they’d get there.Sean's team would be way faster.Hell, as far as Sean and I were, we’d be faster.
“Leila’s the only one close,” Sean said, shoving the phone in his pocket.“Everyone else is stuck at the Mayday job.”
“Leila’s a tech,” I said, feeling sweat start to gather under my arms.“She doesn’t have field training.”
Sean shrugged.“She can call the police if it looks suspicious.They'll respond to an emergency call faster than a security alarm.”
We got in Sean’s car, and he punched the gas, cut off a minivan, and headed for the house.
We rode in silence for a while, the radio dead, the windows rattling.I checked my own phone, hoping for a text from Nadya.Nothing.
The one time I let my guard down.Of course.The one fucking time.
We were ten minutes from the house when Sean’s phone buzzed.He put it on speaker.
“Leila,” he barked.
“There’s a problem,” she said, voice trembling.“Two men forced entry at the side door.I tried to get closer, but I’m not exactly trained for this, Sean.”
“Did you call the police?”
“They’re on their way.And the fire department, too.They set the house on fire and are sitting tight in the yard.”
My mouth went dry, and fear clawed at my insides.This was worse than any mission I had been on as a Navy SEAL.At least then, it had been my own life on the line.
“Can you see Vera and Nadya?”Sean asked.
“Hard to see anything in there through all the smoke.”Leila muttered something under her breath before finally saying, “I think they just went into the basement.”
He punched the dashboard.“Fuck.”
“There’ll be less smoke in the basement,” I pointed out but how long until the beams start falling on their heads.
“Perps just jumped into their car and are leaving the scene,” Leila said through the speaker on Sean's phone.“I'm following them with a drone.”
Sean turned onto a side street, gunned it through two stop signs, then braked hard as we reached his block.The house was a few houses down, with a narrow driveway and a tiny patch for a yard.
Smoke billowed from a busted window.
We jumped out of the car and ran for the house.The front door was ajar; hinges warped from the force of entry.I could hear the faint wail of sirens, still blocks away, still too far when time was measured in heartbeats.
