Текст книги "Nauti Enchantress"

Автор книги: Lora Leigh

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Текущая страница: 19 (всего у книги 22 страниц)

TWENTY

Time was running out.

Two weeks after Lyrica had returned to his house, he could feel the advance of each day like a noose tightening around his neck.

Graham could feel it like a bomb, silently ticking off the time, but he was unaware of the number remaining on the countdown.

Watching the cameras Elijah had installed on one monitor, he also watched the cameras his father had installed and hidden on the laptop sitting beside it.

Lying on the desk directly in front of him was the file he’d shown Lyrica several days before. Several reports were spread out around it, the pictures lying off to the side, unneeded once she’d confirmed she’d seen none of the men involved with the group.

“There are no anomalies in the cameras, no sign of the intruder’s return, and no one showing any curiosity at all in the fact that Lyrica seems to have disappeared.” Elijah paced the office slowly as he spoke, head lowered, staring at the floor thoughtfully. “It’s been two weeks. The waiting game isn’t on our side if we can’t flush out whoever’s behind this.”

“Angel’s hit a dead end as well,” Tracker stated from where he rested at the edge of the bureau on the other side of the room. “The wait-and-see game is on their side.”

Behind him, Graham could feel Lyrica tense, the slender hand resting on his shoulder slowly fisting. Reaching for her and drawing her to him, he pulled her into his lap, wrapping his arms around her and resting his chin on her shoulder as his gaze moved around the room.

Elijah, watching the act, reached up and rubbed at the back of his neck, blowing out a hard breath. “I don’t know what to do.”

“Tracker?” Graham asked quietly.

“No contact yet.” Arms crossed, his gaze hooded as he glanced to Lyrica, he gave a quick shake of his dark head. “I sent the message night before last that I’d completed the previous mission and was en route to Somerset. There’s been no reply. I have the rest of my team lying low and waiting. As soon as contact’s made, they’ll move.”

Lyrica was rifling through the pictures again, her graceful fingers trembling as she shuffled through them slowly.

The sight of those slender digits trembling with fear enraged him.

Lifting his head from where his chin rested against her, Graham turned to Elijah again. “Has Doogan managed to find anything?” he asked the agent.

“Doogan went and got himself shot again two nights ago on another op,” Elijah snorted in disgust. “Out of a six-man team, only one escaped unscathed. Two are in critical, one recovering, one limping, and Doogan’s out of commission with a concussion and a bullet hole in his shoulder.”

Graham winced at the information.

“If that boy keeps looking to die, fate’s going to hand him his wish on a silver platter,” Tracker grunted. “He’s a fatality waiting to happen.”

Lyrica stilled against Graham again, tensing further.

Damn, Tracker, it wasn’t enough that there was somebody out there trying to kill her, he had to mention fatalities, too?

Shooting the mercenary a scowl, Graham watched as the man gave an apologetic shrug before uncrossing his arms and bracing his hands on the top of the bureau where he rested.

The look in his eye reminded Graham of the warning he’d given before Lyrica had entered the office earlier.

He was hiding her. He kept her in the house behind closed doors and carefully darkened windows. There hadn’t been so much as a sighting of her since the night of the wreck.

Weariness and worry had lined Dawg’s and Natches’s faces as they’d pointed out the same thing that morning while Lyrica slept.

He was keeping her hidden. Whoever had the contract up for her was waiting to see where she was, evidently in no hurry at all. That meant it was someone close. Someone who wouldn’t seem out of place over a long period of time.

“We need a plan now,” Tracker growled. “It concerns me that the contract hasn’t been rescinded, yet he hasn’t replied to my message, either. It’s time, Graham.”

“Like hell . . .”

“I know him.”

“I agree with Tracker,” Elijah said as Lyrica’s soft statement had Graham looking back at her as she turned to him.

Lifting his hand in a gesture of silence, he glimpsed Lyrica’s pale face and wide emerald green eyes.

“What did you say?” His gaze went to the picture she was holding, the photograph shuddering from her trembling grip.

“I know him,” she said again, her voice soft, fear shadowing it. “I didn’t see this picture the other day. Why didn’t I see it then?”

Tracker and Elijah moved to the desk as Graham took it from her, frowning down at it.

“Because I wasn’t aware this one was in there,” he muttered.

Frowning, he flipped the picture over, checking the identification number on the back quickly before he began shuffling through the reports.

“That was a late arrival from Doogan.” Elijah stared at the picture of the soldier standing with Betts Laren. “Check the back of the file for the report. I don’t recognize him.”

“I do.” The statement had them stilling, staring back at Lyrica in surprise as her voice sharpened. “I do know him. He’s been at the inn several times. I’ve fixed his breakfast. I even told him about my favorite places to shop when he asked so he could tell his fiancée the best places to go.”

“Who is he?” Graham had never seen him. He hadn’t been part of Betts’s group in Afghanistan, nor part of Betts’s team.

“Kevin Davis,” she said softly. “He’s engaged to one of Mom’s long-term guests, Carmina Lucient. He was there for a few days last month before returning to Iraq for the end of his tour. He’s not supposed to be back until sometime next month.”

“Here’s the report.” Graham narrowed his eyes on the official information that had accompanied the picture. “Kevin Davis, he was actually assigned to Betts’s team and should have been with her on that last mission. There’s nothing here that states he wasn’t there. He was assumed killed in action when he didn’t return. He hasn’t been seen since.”

“Bingo,” Elijah growled.

“Trained in tactical warfare, a Ranger. Laren had him pulled the year before she was killed for the team she put together. He also has ties to the commander, Jimmy Dorne, if I remember that file myself,” Tracker murmured. “A distant blood relation, if I’m not mistaken.”

“Third cousin.” Graham read the information from the file. “Dorne’s parents raised him, though, after his own were killed.”

“Do you think Carmina’s involved?” Lyrica whispered then, suddenly terrified. “She’s there with Mom, Graham. They’ve been best friends since Carmina arrived.”

“I’ll call Timothy and Dawg,” Elijah stated, flipping his phone out and heading for the far corner of the room.

“I’ll head out, apprise the team, and get back with you tonight. We’ll see what kind of plan we can come up with to draw him out then.” Tracker headed for the door as well.

Lyrica moved quickly to her feet, turning to Graham. He could see the demand in her eyes.

“No!” He cut her off before she could speak. “Elijah will contact Timothy and Dawg. They’ll get your mother out of the house and somewhere safe while they watch Ms. Lucient. You’re not going.”

“He’s waiting for me to show myself,” she retorted, rubbing at her arms as though to warm them. “Get Mom out of the house and I’ll go in. If Carmina is in on it, then you can catch her in the act of calling him.”

“It’s too damned dangerous.” His guts were clenching, cramping with awareness of the danger she would face.

“It’s too dangerous not to,” she argued, that militant Mackay gleam of stubbornness brightening her gaze as her hands went to her hips in determination. “We can’t go on like this, Graham. At least I can’t. I want this finished.”

His teeth snapped together furiously. “Are you in that big of a hurry to leave me, Lyrica?”

She flinched as though the question were a lash laid to bare skin.

“Is it a requirement that I leave once this is over, Graham?” Her hands slid from her hips and moved instead to clasp in front of her. “I wasn’t aware there was a deadline.”

He stilled then.

Was there a deadline?

What the fuck was he going to do once it was over?

He could see the questions raging in her eyes as he stared at her, but he couldn’t make himself answer the question.

–

Lyrica swallowed tightly.

She’d known, she reminded herself. She’d known flavors didn’t last long in Graham’s life. She’d just so hoped he’d become fond of her particular taste, perhaps.

“I see.” She forced herself to say it softly, her chest clenching painfully as her eyes suddenly felt raw, the pressure behind them actually hurting as she forced herself to hold back the tears that would have filled them. “Well then, at least I know now.”

“Dammit, Lyrica,” he snarled then, anger tightening his features. “I didn’t say any of that.”

“No, you didn’t,” she agreed. “This has gone on long enough, Graham. I won’t hide any longer. I told you I couldn’t go on like this. Now it’s over. Get Mom out of there and I’m going in. I’m not hiding anymore.”

“And just what made you come to this harebrained conclusion?” he bit out furiously.

Oh, that was it.

“Harebrained?” Keeping her voice soft, well aware that Elijah was still on the other side of the room, still on the phone, she went on. “Well, excuse me for being harebrained, Graham, but it’s my life that’s on the line and on hold here, not yours.”

And it wasn’t his heart breaking in two at the knowledge that she’d never had a chance at having her love returned.

No, that was hers.

Stupid little Lyrica, always looking for rainbows where none existed.

He stepped closer, his expression tight, the gold in his eyes more subtle, like chips of gold ice. “No.” He repeated the word succinctly, pure arrogance filling every line of his face. “I will not risk you so needlessly. And don’t test me on this, sweetheart, because I can and I will lock your ass in a room somewhere until this is all over.”

Would he?

Drawing herself stiffly upright, her hands curling into fists at her sides as she shot him a disgusted look, Lyrica turned and stalked furiously from the room.

She’d be damned if she would let him order her about. That was the second time he’d threatened to lock her in a room somewhere, and she wouldn’t give him the chance to do so.

Slipping quickly to the kitchen doorway, she slid the keys to Graham’s pickup from the peg on the wall, praying he was more involved with something other than the surveillance screens on the computer monitors. If she was lucky, he wouldn’t have a clue that she’d stolen them until she was gone.

She knew the doors and windows were all electronically keyed to alert him if they were opened. But what he didn’t know was that Kye had found a way to bypass the one on her window. For Kye, slipping out of the house had been the same as slipping out from Dawg’s eagle eye had been for Lyrica. Just to see if they could get out and back in, without getting caught.

Unlike Lyrica, Kye bragged she had never been caught.

She had described to Lyrica exactly how she’d rigged the window to hold the alarm at bay and how she reconnected it once she returned.

Lyrica had no intention of returning.

She’d been aware that he’d made the resolution of the danger the deadline for their affair. And here she’d thought she had a chance—

No, she’d known better, she thought as she slid into Kye’s room and closed the door quickly behind her.

Her friend’s room sat directly over the garage, and thankfully, Graham had pulled the pickup from the garage to make room for the vehicles that needed to be hidden whenever Natches and Dawg drove to the house rather than slipping over from Dawg’s farm through the woods.

Had the pickup been in the garage, the chances of being stopped before she ever started would have been much higher.

Knowing the truck was outside the garage had determined which keys she’d taken. She should have taken the keys to his precious Viper, she thought furiously as she moved to Kye’s vanity table, stole a bobby pin, and moved quickly to the window.

Seconds later, the bobby pin, rather than the metal strip attached to the window beneath it, was completing the circuit with the electronic box. Sliding the window up, Lyrica crawled through the opening, slid to the garage roof, and within moments was shimmying down the drainpipe with the same ease she moved down the wood support posts of the inn’s wraparound porch.

She was in the truck and accelerating from the driveway in no time, racing from Graham’s house, and his life, as tears whispered down her cheeks.

It wasn’t supposed to be like this, she thought painfully. It wasn’t supposed to end when the danger to her life was over. That was supposed to be the beginning.

–

Tracker stepped from behind the garage, his eyes narrowed as the truck pulled around the corner. A heartbeat later it was speeding away from the house toward the main road and, he knew, back to the girl’s mother’s.

Pulling the phone from his vest pocket and flipping it open, he hit the contact number. He didn’t have to wait long.

“I’m in place,” Angel said in answer. “I have the nest in my sights but nothing’s moving.”

That was odd enough.

“There will be soon,” he promised her. “The bird just flew and I suspect that’s where she’s headed.”

“Is this a good thing or a bad thing?” she asked curiously.

Tracker chuckled at the question. “A good thing, I hope. Perhaps seeing the prey will cause the wolf to make a move. Keep an eye on things and keep me apprised.”

The phone flipped closed as Graham raced from the back door, filled with panic, fear, and a man’s knowledge that something too precious to be lost had just escaped his life.

Poor dumb fucker, Tracker thought. He should have taken better care of her.

A second later Tracker was flying backward, to land on his ass with a surprised curse and a thud. Jumping to his feet, he faced Graham’s furious wrath coolly.

“Bad move, Brock,” he growled. “I don’t take kindly to that shit.”

“Fuck you!” Graham snarled in his face. “Why the fuck didn’t you stop her?”

–

Rage was like a living, burning entity searing his insides as he faced the mercenary, using every ounce of self-control he possessed to keep from killing the bastard.

“It’s not my place to stop her.” Tracker stood still, his stance one of precaution as he watched Graham carefully now. “It’s my job to keep her alive.”

“And you think—” Snapping his lips closed, he turned and hit the garage remote, bending and moving beneath the door when it was no more than halfway raised to rush to the Viper.

He’d catch up with her quickly enough.

Dawg’s place was just up the road and she would head there first. Elijah had just gotten off the phone with him and her brother knew to be waiting for her.

As the garage door lifted enough for the Viper to clear it, Graham hit the gas, throwing the vehicle into gear and racing from the interior with a scream of the tires. He rounded the curve that led to the front of the house even as he shifted gears, pushing for more speed.

Seeing his pickup race from its parking space had sent his mind exploding. Everything inside him was screaming about the danger she was facing by leaving the house. Every second she’d been with him, his body had clenched at the thought of her so much as sticking her head out the door and giving anyone a chance even to glimpse her.

It was imperative that no one see her. To keep her alive, he had to keep her hidden.

And now, she wasn’t hidden.

Taking the turn onto the main road, he was racing toward Dawg’s in less than a minute. The Viper ate up the miles, taking the curves with a smooth, easy performance he didn’t even pay attention to.

All he could think about was the danger Lyrica would face if she reached the inn. All he could consider was life without Lyrica in it, and the knowledge that if he weren’t such a stubborn bastard, she would have never slipped away on him.

The turn to Dawg’s farm was just ahead, and still he hadn’t caught up with her.

That fucking pickup wasn’t that fast, he thought, a premonition suddenly racing up his spine.

No, she wouldn’t have gone to the inn, he tried to tell himself. She wouldn’t have considered something so foolhardy without him or her brother at her side.

As he reached the turn, the sight of Natches’s modified ruby red Charger coming at him, moving so fast it was nearly on two wheels, had him stomping the brakes as he swung the Viper into a turn the second the car passed; the sight of both Dawg and Natches in the front had that premonition cementing to stark knowledge.

“Incoming call. Secured. Encrypted.” The computer announced the call.

“Accept.” The growl was torn from his throat, fear filling his senses, sharp and acrid on his tongue.

“What the fuck did you do?” Dawg yelled into the connection. “Lyrica wasn’t on her way here. She’s on her way to the inn. She passed Rowdy less than five minutes ago, tearing the roads up in that fucking truck of yours.”

He was sweating.

As he shifted gears quickly, the Viper tore around the Charger, taking the lead as Graham cursed furiously.

“Graham, I’ll take your head off if she gets hurt.” Natches wasn’t screaming. He was icy cold, calm.

“You have that friend of yours with you?” Graham bit out, referring to the sniper rifle Natches always kept close at hand.

“Why?” the other man asked with cool, biting fury.

“Don’t bother with the house; get in place with it once you arrive,” he ordered, the Charger still in his rearview mirror despite the pure power Graham was pouring into the modified engine beneath the hood of the Viper.

Dawg was cursing furiously.

“There’s an angel in the trees,” Natches informed him. “Why me?”

“Fuck if I know,” Graham snarled. “Just do it.”

Flicking the disconnect button on the steering wheel, he pushed the Viper harder, hearing the tires scream as he took the curves now. Rather than risk the more heavily traveled route to the inn, Graham took the dirt road ahead instead.

Turning onto it with a spray of dirt and gravel, he was forced to fight the steering wheel for a precious second before the Viper was racing toward its location once more.

The direct route to the inn would alert Davis and his fiancée, if she was involved, that he was coming. The back road that ended just behind the tree line behind the house would hide his arrival. Something warned him that slipping into the house might be all that saved Lyrica.

Some inborn sense of danger, a warning he didn’t dare ignore, tightened in his gut. This was why a move hadn’t been made. Someone had known she would make her own move.

Davis couldn’t have known her that well. But the fiancée had been at the inn for months. Long enough to have gotten to know Lyrica. Long enough to know how close each girl was to her mother.

Damn, he should have seen this coming. Lyrica had called her mother just after leaving her apartment that night. She’d told Mercedes she was coming, that she’d just left. Carmina would have known Lyrica was on her way. If Davis was just waiting for a chance to get to her, then he could have easily been in place to force the Jeep off the road.

If Lyrica’s vehicle hadn’t been so well reinforced, she would have been dead. Whoever had driven that van—Davis, he was guessing—hadn’t been expecting the steel reinforcements Dawg had welded into the frame just in case something like that had happened during the years he’d driven it.

It would have taken far more than a van ramming the passenger side to hurt the driver. If he’d rammed the driver’s side, then he’d have accomplished his goal. The sheer force of the blow would have killed her.

But he’d hit the passenger side, expecting the Jeep to crumple and fly over the edge into the depths of the ravine.

He hadn’t been wrong about Lyrica making an appearance on her own sooner or later, though. But was he expecting it this soon?

He couldn’t know Graham knew he was alive. He was suspected to be dead, and there was no way anyone could know Graham had even tied this to Betts Laren.

Unless Carmina Lucient’s presence at the inn had enabled her to learn far more than even Graham feared.

TWENTY-ONE

Lyrica remembered the years in Texas, before Timothy had found them and saved them. Before he had brought them to Kentucky and given Dawg the chance to show them what family really meant. She remembered the fear whenever Chandler had arrived, his strict, icy presence filling the house with a heavy, fearful tension.

And she remembered those few times she and her sisters had been separated from their mother.

Mercedes hadn’t sat at home worrying or pacing. She had searched for her children while they were in foster care. She had fought Chandler. She had even risked her own safety by threatening to report her daughters as missing. She had put her own life, her security, and her need to provide her daughters with a better life on the back burner to ensure their safety.

And Graham expected Lyrica to wait, knowing her mother could be in danger soon? Knowing her mother was worrying for her? She hadn’t even been able to talk to her mother or Zoey in the time Graham had kept her hidden. She had only seen her two older sisters because their fiancés were working with Graham on the investigation.

Pulling the pickup into the driveway of the inn, she was relieved to see that Carmina’s car wasn’t in the driveway. Timothy’s pickup was there, as well as her mother’s sedan and Zoey’s beat-up, too-fast, older-model Mustang.

Guests were normally absent through the middle of the day. Sightseeing, shopping, and other activities kept them busy, which left the inn reasonably quiet.

She was already throwing open the door to the pickup as it rocked to a stop. Running the short distance to the steps leading to the wraparound porch, she was certain she would hear the Viper racing behind her at any second.

Pulling open the door and rushing into the foyer, she quickly moved through the dining room to the kitchen.

It was empty, and that was unusual. Her mother was normally in the kitchen in the afternoons with whichever daughter was helping her that day, going over the next morning’s menu and preparing a light dinner for guests returning that evening.

The realization that she wasn’t there had fear sending Lyrica quickly to the other end of the kitchen, where Timothy kept a handgun holstered beneath the wide lip of a prep counter. Reaching beneath the counter, she found the holster empty.

Ice formed in her veins.

Secondary.

He’d placed a secondary in the kitchen after the trouble her sisters had faced the year before. Her mother was usually in the kitchen and Timothy wanted a backup that no one was aware of. Lyrica had been there when he’d placed it, but her mother hadn’t been. He’d warned her not to tell her mother because Mercedes tended to be very nervous in the areas where the weapons were hidden.

Moving silently, her gaze returning often to the dining room entrance, she went to her knees, quickly opened the lower cabinet doors hidden behind the prep area, reached up, and found the smaller-size Glock holstered there.

Extra clip, god love Tim’s over-prepared heart. Still kneeling, she pulled the weapon and ammo clips free and shoved the extra clip into her back pocket. Watching the entrance from between the boxes of dry supplies stacked beneath the prep counter, she chambered the first round as quietly as possible before rising to her knees and pushing the weapon into the band of her jeans.

Smoothing her T-shirt over the gun, she fought back the fear as she had when she was younger. She buried it beneath the knowledge that if she didn’t act, if she didn’t do what had to be done, then the consequences could be more than she could bear.

Before she could begin straightening, a scraping at the back door caused her to freeze. She eased back to retrieve the weapon she’d tucked into the band of her pants. Holding it in a two-handed grip, the barrel pointing to the floor, she peeped around the counter, her heart thundering in her chest as she watched the door slowly ease open. Mouth dry, her throat tight with the knowledge that whoever was coming in was coming in way too slow assailed her.

The house was too quiet. A heavy sense of impending danger seemed to slide through the air like a bad smell. Even the slight breeze that slid through the door as it swung slowly open couldn’t dispel the heaviness in the air.

No one stood in the doorway, though. For a moment, it looked as though a ghost had opened it.

“Lyrica, shoot us and I’ll crack your ass.” It was all she could do to hold back her sob at the sound of Dawg’s voice.

Dawg wasn’t the only one who stepped quietly into the kitchen. He came in, his stance watchful, covering the two men who moved in behind him.

Straightening slowly, she did nothing to hide the weapon she was carrying.

“Timothy’s spare weapon is missing,” she whispered, knowing Dawg was aware of the hidden positions of the guns. “The backup he placed beneath the cabinet last year was still in place, but I was the only one here when he placed it.”

Dawg nodded, his pale green eyes watching the dining room doorway carefully. “And he told you to keep it to yourself.”

She licked her dry lips nervously, all too aware of the fact that Graham’s eyes had flickered to the weapon she still held.

“Timothy, Mercedes, and Zoey aren’t answering their cell phones,” Natches stated softly. “Have you seen them? Heard anything?”

She shook her head. “There was no way to miss the fact that I arrived, though.”

Dawg’s gaze moved to her for a moment before turning back to the dining room entrance.

“Then you’re the only one he’ll expect,” Dawg murmured.

“Timothy’s security system has every room covered, except bedrooms,” Graham stated softly, his gaze still locked on her. “They’ll know we’re here.”

Dawg shook his head at that. “When I couldn’t reach him, I instigated a fail-safe he has installed.”

“Paranoid bastard,” Natches muttered. “Especially since hooking up with Mercedes.”

“Love does that to a man,” Dawg growled, glancing back for a second, his expression hard, his gaze furious.

Graham remained silent.

“Zoey’s not screaming,” she whispered, moving closer to them. “You know Zoey, Dawg.”

That terrified her. Zoey would rush hell with a bucket of water for their mother. And she would do it loudly. She may be a recluse, she may try every excuse in the world to avoid family, but she never avoided her mother, and now that her older sisters were no longer at the inn, she was there every morning and every evening to help Mercedes.

“I know Zoey,” he agreed. “But she’s not foolish, either.”

“Let’s get this taken care of,” Graham ordered then, his own voice still below a whisper. “I have other things to do.”

He had another flavor to find, no doubt.

Flicking him a contemptuous glance, Lyrica turned back to her brother, aware of Natches watching her carefully.

“If you ask me to leave, then I might shoot one of you.” Her first choice wasn’t family, either.

Dawg grunted at that. “Give things time, little girl. We have other interested parties moving into place. I’m just waiting for them to get ready.” He touched his ear, revealing the small, almost invisible Bluetooth earbud he wore, which she knew was linked to a central radio.

They were moving through.

Natches moved slowly into the room and the door was closed silently before he and Dawg moved to either side of the door leading to the dining room. The dining room would be their warning, she thought as she watched them from the side. Anyone coming from the stairs would be within sight of the doorway leading to the foyer, directly across from the kitchen. Anyone coming from the hallway entrances to the guest suites had to pass by the dining room.

“Plan?” Natches murmured then.

Dawg’s eyes narrowed. “We spread out and find them.”

“Timothy would be in his office right now,” Lyrica stated. “Mom should have been here in the kitchen with Zoey. If someone has them, then they’ll be together upstairs.”

Dawg nodded slowly as he said, “Did you get that?” His gaze narrowed. “Check it out.”

Lyrica’s eyes narrowed on Natches then. Shifting her weapon to a one-handed grip, she held out her other hand demandingly. She wanted her own link.

His gaze flickered icily, and a second later he gave a negative movement of his head.

They were going to push her out. The hard flash of pain that seared her chest was surprising. It shouldn’t have been.

Before she could pull her hand back, Graham reached out and dropped one in her palm, the almost clear bud lying innocently in her hand as he glared down at her.

Natches’s curse was a sibilant hiss as she curled her fist around the earbud, maneuvered it between her fingers, and tucked it in her ear. Once it was in place, she pressed the activation button at the end and waited.

“Angel can’t get eyes in the office,” Tracker stated softly through the link. “Rowdy, can you override the window darkening?”

“That’s all internal,” Rowdy answered soberly.

Lyrica tucked the Glock in the back of her pants, listening as Rowdy and Tracker discussed the best way they could possibly override the controls for the window darkening.

It wasn’t possible, Lyrica knew that. Timothy had always felt that whatever trouble came inside the inn couldn’t be as dangerous as what could be waiting outside the window of his office on any given day.

But there was another direct line of sight into the room that would afford a view of everything but the exact area where his desk sat. Should anything happen, Mercedes and her daughters knew they were to stay behind that line. If they came upon the office and the sliding doors that led to it from the hall and from the attached bedroom were open, then they were to get out of the house.

Fast.

“There’s two other views in if there’s trouble,” Lyrica stated softly, quickly explaining the line of sight into the office.

“Checking.” Hard, without emotion, a female voice came over the line.

“I have sight from the west,” a male voice answered. “Sliding door retracted, no one in sight.”

“Sight from the south,” said the female long moments later. “Door retracted, no one home.”

Lyrica shook her head.

The small area where it was possible to hide would have been large enough for Timothy, her mother, and Zoey. It would have been crowded, but very possible. Of course, no enemy would have much of a chance if they were that close to Tim.