A Gift of Thought (25 page)

We’ll see,
he typed.

Good enough. Time to see if she could spot anything on the video.

Server log-in? Where do you want me to start looking?

Ty typed the codes that she could use for access to the video. As Sylvie entered them, she almost imagined she could hear their computer expert screaming at them for using an unprotected chat line to transmit confidential information. But she didn’t give a damn if anyone else looked at video footage from AlecCorp and Ty apparently didn’t either.

K, ready,
she typed.

Ty didn’t answer.

What do you want me to look at?
she typed.

Still no answer. She waited and then tried again.
Where do you want me to start?

Nothing.

For a little while, as she wrote to Ty, Sylvie had been able to forget where she was, to pretend that she was sitting at any desk anywhere. But with Ty not responding, the attention of the two men at her back pushed insistently at her awareness. She glanced over her shoulder. Yes, they were both looking at her. Ari, the door opener and sandwich maker, smiled but the other man stayed stony-faced and grim.

Sylvie turned back to the computer.
Ty?

Sorry,
popped up in the chat window and she felt a wave of relief.
James found something. Take a look.
He added a camera number and time stamp codes.

Sylvie clicked through the server looking for the right video. Her fingers tapped impatiently against the tabletop as she waited for it to stream until, deliberately, she stilled them. Five cups of coffee, she reminded herself. That was why she was jittery. Not because the attention of the men behind her was dangerous. She took a breath, feeling again the comfort of the weight against her belly, but resisted the impulse to touch it.

The video finally started streaming. Sylvie watched as Rachel walked toward a door, her hands held above her head in the traditional gun-at-one’s-back position. Rachel pushed open the door and exited. No one else ever entered the camera frame.

Sylvie scowled and dragged the play icon to the left to rewind.

Smart kidnappers,
Ty wrote.
Watched for the cameras. Someone must have been waiting for her outside.

Maybe,
Sylvie typed in response. She watched the video again. Then a third time. Then she typed,
Look at her legs. The bottom of her dress.

What do you see?
Ty asked.

Do you have the time stamps for when she arrived?
Sylvie answered. She wanted a clearer picture of Rachel.

She had time to watch the video two more times before Ty sent her the codes she wanted. Then she watched the other video, looking at Rachel carefully as the footage showed her coming up through the basement parking garage with Chesney. Ty, Lydia, and Mark were close behind them, but James must have stayed at the car.

Rachel wore a long-sleeved, high-necked, full-skirted black dress. It was velvet and Christmas-y and not inappropriate, but also not her usual taste. Sylvie eyed it intently. Then she flipped back to the other video and watched again. “Clever, clever girl,” she muttered under her breath as she realized what Rachel had done.

The chat icon blinked in the corner of her screen.
What do you see?
Ty had typed the question again.

See the dark line at her knee?
Sylvie wrote.
When she raises her arms, her skirt lifts, too. She’s wearing rolled-up leggings under her dress. And a shirt.

You sure?

She looks heavier than usual when she enters. And she’s sweating. She’s got layers on.
She waited for Ty’s response. From the very beginning, Rachel’s disappearance had felt wrong. It made no sense for a kidnapper to try to take her out of AlecCorp in the middle of a party. Kidnappers stopped cars, shot bodyguards, grabbed the kid and ran.

But if Rachel was running away? Sylvie glanced at the clock in the bottom-right corner of the screen. It was already past noon. Rachel had managed to delay a real search for something like fifteen hours. If she’d run away to her mother . . . .

We need to check plane tickets,
Sylvie typed.
Ask Lucas for help.
Whatever reason Chesney had for not wanting the FBI involved, it was a moot point if Rachel had run away. Sylvie took a deep breath, relief washing through her.

Rachel was still at risk. A teenage girl crossing the country by herself? That was bad news. But no kidnapper would be cutting off her fingers to prove his possession. And if her mother knew nothing about Rachel’s escapade, as seemed likely, she wouldn’t get into trouble, but she might get to spend a little time with her daughter.

For a moment, Sylvie considered not saying anything to Chesney right away. It wasn’t the same, she knew, but a few hours with Dillon would have been precious to her.

Upraised voices caught her attention. Behind the closed office door, Chesney was shouting in Spanish. Sylvie tried to make out the words. “The best defense is offense. We attack them!”

Sylvie looked back at the computer screen and tried to think. Chesney didn’t want to contact the FBI. He’d come immediately to Florida. He believed he knew who his enemies were and that they had kidnapped Rachel. If he was involved in drug trafficking as well as weapon sales, could he possibly think that his enemies were the drug cartels?

Sylvie didn’t know much about them, but she knew the Zetas were famous for kidnappings. She’d ruled them out as a threat because of the difficulty of getting into AlecCorp’s party, but Chesney knew more than she did. Maybe he knew that there were others at AlecCorp who were compromised and that he could be vulnerable to attack from within.

She licked her lips, mouth suddenly dry. Was Chesney planning on attacking the Zetas? That seemed like a very bad idea to her.

“Lucas,” came a voice from behind her, speaking unaccented English. “Who is this Lucas?”

Sylvie didn’t quite jump. It was entirely unlike her to not notice someone moving up behind her, but she’d been so focused on her thoughts that she’d blocked everything else out. Rafe stood at her back, reading over her shoulder.

“A friend,” Sylvie said stiffly, closing the laptop screen. She met his dark eyes with her own steady gaze, telegraphing as strongly as she could her best back-off message. He fell back a step or two, frowning.

Standing, Sylvie pulled the plug out of the back of the laptop and picked the computer up. She needed to show Chesney the footage and explain to him what she thought it meant. She pushed past the man standing in her way and crossed to the closed office door.

But she paused before knocking. “I don’t care about the risk,” Chesney was saying. Or maybe that word meant danger? Sylvie wasn’t sure. But as she raised one hand, laptop tucked under the other arm, she heard more. “She’s a stupid little bitch.”

Sylvie’s fist clenched and she knocked harder than she intended. Was Chesney talking about Rachel or her?

“She’s your daughter,” the other man said, before adding a sharp, “What is it?” That answered her question, but should Sylvie answer his? Would a response reveal that she understood Spanish?

She hesitated, then turned the knob and pushed open the door. “I’m sorry for interrupting, sir,” she said to Chesney. “I have some video footage that I think you should see.”

“What is it?”

“I’d prefer to show it to you and let you draw your own conclusions, sir.” Sylvie glanced around the well-appointed office. To the right, Mateo sat in a comfortable-looking chair behind a wide desk. Two chairs were angled in front of it, but Chesney stood as if he’d been pacing. One wall was lined with bookshelves, but the other held a side table. She gestured to it and looked to the man behind the desk. “May I?”

He looked to Chesney who waved irritably and said, “Fine, fine.”

Sylvie crossed to the table and placed the laptop on it. Her back was to the men, but while she opened up the computer, she tried to decide what they were feeling. Chesney was determined with a core of rage, but Mateo felt watchful, worried. She sympathized. She felt worried herself.

Once opened, the computer screen stayed dark. Sylvie pressed the power button. Nothing happened. Maybe the battery hadn’t charged? “I need the power cord. I’ll be right back.”

As she walked through the living room and into the dining room, she tried to ignore the two men staring at her. Their heads were together, Rafe holding a phone as if they’d been looking at the screen. But their feelings had changed, Sylvie realized. The grim man was now excited, satisfied, while Ari’s mild curiosity had turned to anxiety. By the time she gathered up the cord, Rafe had entered the office and was showing the phone to Mateo and Chesney, talking animatedly. She recognized a few words including
Washington Post
. He’d recognized her from the article. But so what?

Sylvie looked for an outlet, found one, plugged the cord in, shifted the computer closer, plugged it in, pressed the on switch, waited, all the while pretending to ignore the men behind her as she felt them react to Rafe’s words. Her hands were trembling, she realized, and she tried to still them. Almost unconsciously, her right hand drifted under the chiffon layers of her dress.

“Go.” The word was a command from Mateo to Rafe. Sylvie felt Rafe exit the room and heard the door closing behind him.

“We know the man in this image.” He was speaking to Chesney now, his words slower. “He works for the government. Your woman is a spy.”

Every cell in Sylvie’s body felt focused on the scene behind her, her senses all poised for the slightest hint of information, even as she stared at the computer screen coming to life.

Chesney swore, fluently, the angry words almost covering up the sound of a desk drawer opening, but nothing could cover the sense of grim resolve she felt from the man behind the desk. Sylvie shifted position, hand reaching inside the concealed pocket in the leather of her dress, closing firmly around her gun.

“Not here,” Chesney snapped. “And not that way. It has to look like an accident.”

Sylvie moved.

No deep breath, no conscious thought, just movement.

Gun sliding out, she turned, saw the weapon in the hand of the man behind the desk, fell automatically into a proper shooting stance with both hands on her gun, and fired.

Once.

Twice.

As a pink mist of blood rose around him while a red stain spread across his chest and his eyes opened wide in shock, she flung herself at the door, found the lock, turned it, and backed into the corner of the room, positioning herself so that when the door opened, she’d have a clean shot.

No more than ten seconds had passed, and the man behind the desk was still gasping out his last breath while Chesney stood, jaw dropped and disbelief freezing him in place.

“First person through the door dies,” Sylvie shouted over the ringing in her ears. She couldn’t hear her own words, but the men outside would have been farther away from the shot. They should still have some hearing left. “Your boss is dead and I’m calling 911. If you move quickly, you may get away before the police get here.”

It was a little too soon to say that Mateo was dead—he was trying to lift his hand, the gun held loosely. But it had been two good shots in easy range: he would bleed out long before an ambulance could arrive and aiming the gun and pulling the trigger should be beyond him. Even as she had the thought, his hand dropped and his head fell back, lifeless eyes still open and the feelings she’d had from him—regret and pain, mostly—faded away.

Sylvie stared at the door, willing it not to move. Locked or not, the men outside could kick it down easily enough. And her Glock 36 held exactly six bullets—four now. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Chesney take a sidling step toward the desk and Mateo’s weapon. Without moving her feet or changing her semi-crouched posture, she swiveled her hands so that her gun pointed directly at him.

“Don’t even think about it.”

She waited. She could feel the fear and the fury and the indecision from the men outside, and then they were moving out of her range. She took a deep, shuddering breath. It felt like her first in a lifetime.

Maybe a minute had passed.

Her heart was pounding, her ears still ringing, and the adrenaline coursing through her system was like ice water cooling her from the inside out.

She’d just murdered a man.

It wasn’t the first time she’d fired her gun. She’d shot at people in Iraq. Maybe she’d even killed a few. But not up close. Not like this.

She turned toward Chesney, keeping her gun aimed at him. He was still angry, she realized, with only a trace of fear under a surface that was trying to look affable and conciliatory. His hands were half up, half making a placating air-patting gesture.

“What in God’s name did you just do?” he demanded.

“Killed a man,” Sylvie replied in her execrable Spanish.

“You speak Spanish?” Chesney stilled and his fear deepened. “I don’t know what you think you heard, but this is a misunderstanding.”

Sylvie stared at him, incredulous. He was going to try to brazen it out, she realized, to pretend that he hadn’t just agreed to kill her.

“I would have stopped him. I wouldn’t have let him harm you,” he continued, words spilling one over another in his haste.

“The best defense is offense,” Sylvie quoted the words he’d said earlier. Her heart rate was starting to slow, but her breath was quick and shallow, as if she were trying to sprint at the end of a ten-mile run.

Chesney’s eyes narrowed. “You can’t be wearing a wire. If you were, you wouldn’t have pulled that trigger. Your back-up would be smashing down the doors.”

Sylvie didn’t answer him. Part of her attention was focused on the room behind her, on making sure that Ari and Rafe weren’t returning, and the continued ringing in her ears made it hard to hear. She wondered if she’d done permanent damage to them, but the thought was fleeting.

She’d done permanent damage to Mateo. That felt much more important. He’d been going to kill her, but somehow she didn’t hate him for it. Chesney was the one who had brought her here, walked her into this danger, created this ugly situation. Chesney was responsible; Mateo had just paid the price.