“Wecan’tcall the police,” came my father’s low reply. “I’ve already pushed them as far as they’ll go to cover up this mess, and I won’t have my name dragged through the mud because ofyou, Anaïs.”
I understood my father in that moment more than I ever had before. His reputation was more important to him than his own children. When I’d spoken to him on the phone earlier that day, his fear had been genuine—but it wasn’t fear for me. It wasn’t even fear for Annie. He was only afraid for himself.
For what the public might think if they found out about any of this.
Jack moved forward, pulling me with him, but I hesitated, glancing behind me. “Comeon,” I hissed at Annie, and heard her shuffling her way into the hallway behind me.
We crept carefully down the dark hall with Jack in the lead, then me and Annie, with my father bringing up the rear. I wondered if Jack could even see anything in the dark. But his eyes were obviously better than mine, because when we got to the staircase leading down to the foyer, he stopped, and held up a hand for the rest of us to stop as well. None of us were as well trained as Jack would have liked, I bet, because we all bumped into each other.
A lightning strike outside lit up the foyer downstairs. I was distracted by the smashed porcelain vase spread over the marble floor, distracted enough that when Jack murmured, “Stay here,” I had no idea where he was going.
I watched his dark figure move swiftly across the mouth of the staircase to the hallway opposite, and then I spotted his quarry as the sky lit up outside again. Thunder crashed just as Jack grappled with his target: a dark-clad figure, lurking in the hallway.
I felt Annie clutching my shoulders, hard enough to make me wince, and I grabbed at her, too, keeping her behind me in some overpowering protective instinct.
Despite everything, shewasmy twin sister.
The silent struggle ahead was silhouetted intermittently by the lightning strikes through the windows at the very end of the hallway. All I could hear was the storm outside, so it was like I was watching a shadow play in the cramped confines of the corridor ahead—except that this was my boyfriend I was watching, my boyfriend fighting to the death. To protectme.
And then one figure made a sharp, sudden movement, and the other crumpled to the floor.
I felt sick with anxiety as the victor ran silently toward us, recognizing Jack only a moment before he grabbed my wrist. “Move,” he said. I caught Annie’s hand in mine as Jack pulled us on past the—I assumed—dead body on the floor.
I’d known intellectually that people had come in here intending to kill us, but it was a different thing entirely to see proof of it lying there on the carpet.
“What happened to him?” I whispered.
“I broke his neck,” came the response.
Maybe it should have chilled me, the casual way Jack said it. But it didn’t. All I felt was respect for his skills, and a deep gratitude that he was onmyside.
“Where’s your father?” Jack muttered, as we came to a halt before the next corner. Annie and I both glanced behind us. The hallway was empty.
“He must have gone for help,” Annie said uncertainly. “Maybe he decided to call the cops after all.”
Magical thinking. Annie was still prone to it. She’d always been the favorite, after all. It was a new experience for her to be abandoned by Dad.
“We don’t have time to hang around,” Jack said. “Two down, one left,” he muttered to me. He ducked his head around the corner to check it, then motioned me forward.
I pulled Annie along.
“You got a panic room?” Jack asked me quietly as we hurried down the dark corridor.
“No.”
“I need somewhere I can hide you two. You and your sister will stay put somewhere safe, while I take care of this last asshole.”
“How do youknowthere’s only one more?” Annie demanded.
Jack ignored her. “We need a room with at least two doors in and out, so you’re not sitting ducks,” he said, as we slid down the next corridor.
“We should just get out of here as fast as we can,” Annie said, her voice high.
I finally heard impatience in Jack’s voice when he replied. “Can’t take the chance that these guys haven’t called up a fresh crew at the exits, waiting for us to do just that.”
“We could go tomywing,” I offered. “My art room has a door in on each side, and the French doors on the windows open out to a balcony if things getreallyhairy.”
I didn’twantto throw myself off a balcony, but I’d sure take that over the alternative.
