“To kill Hunter,” Ireplied.
“You'll do no such thing. You'll come to my lab with me and help me watch cameras to try to find him before Griffin goes in.” Ellion reached behind me and handed something toGriffin.
I turned to see Griffin put an earpiece in his ear. “It's on the closed circuit internal WiFi system. It’s not affected by theoutage.”
I raised an eyebrow. They were prepared for anything. What made them think to be prepared for something like Hunter? There was more going on than three guys who ran a company hanging outtogether.
Griffin brushed past me, sending tingles across my body. He was one giant—and I meant giant—muscle. I bet he could pick me up and push me against the wall with noproblems.
I shook my head to get my mind out of the gutter, though it really, really wanted to stay there. The pain from knocking my head about brought me back to the situation at hand. Ellion was halfway down thehall.
He turned to give me a weird look. “Are you coming,Linda?”
I grinned, knowing full well he was including me to keep me out of trouble. For once, I was going to do the smart thing and avoid the trouble—ifpossible.
The chairsin Ellion’s lab had wheels, so of course, I amused myself by rolling around. He was busy booting up the myriad of computers, and monitors, and speakers, and good grief, there was a lot of hardware in that room. And software. I spun the chair while trying to forget that Griffin and, I assumed Chandler, were heading into an incredibly dangerous situation. I paused the chair in its rotation. The false fun was leaving me as the severity of the situation hit me. “They know what they're doing,right?”
Ellion pulled up camera angles from all over the house on his monitors. I scooted closer so I couldsee.
“They do know what they're doing.” He fiddled with controls on the screen, and the cameras panned, moved, sharpened, widened, and basically did everything he wanted them to do. It was an extremely sophisticated system. “I never expected to be doing this now,” he said, venom in his voice. “He sure planned the element of surprise, doing this during Alaska's long night, in ablizzard.”
“Surely the blizzard threw him for a loop,” I said. “But how’s he been surviving? Eating? Stayingwarm?”
“I have no idea,” Ellion muttered, pulling up the creepy passageway and interior of the barn. He pressed a button, and all the lights came on. There were even lights on in the creepyhallway.
“That stupid passageway has lighting?” I asked. When I'd been in it, it had only had dim lights at our feet that looked like they ran on some sort of battery or solarconnection.
“Yeah, but we don't use it often. We like the illusion of it being a secret passageway.” Ellion laughed at my expression. “A long time ago, when Griffin and Amanda built this house, they were newly rich. His toy company had exploded, and they were building a house here, out of the limelight.” His gaze jerked back to the screens. Griffin and Chandler entered the hallway. They had on helmets, vests, goggles, and earpieces. They both carried handguns with more strapped to their waists. I would've bet a dollar they had more guns and kniveshidden.
The camera views were excellent. If I zoomed in, I probably could’ve counted Griffin's nose hair. Ellion moved his gaze to the screen showing the barn, searching every inch the screenoffered.
He pressed a button on the keyboard and put on a headset with microphone. “No sign of movement inside,” hewhispered.
Chandler's lips moved and Griffin's head nodded. He pressed the button again to turn off his microphone while they creptforward.
Tears pricked the back of my eyes. My anxiety raged behind the scenes of my mind, but my adrenaline and worry for the idiots creeping to the barn kept it at bay. “So, why’d they need out of the limelight?” I asked to break thetension.
Ellion tapped his hands on the table nervously. “Oh, wealthy people kind of attention. But Amanda insisted they have a library. Griffin loves to read, so he was fine with it. But she was browsing online one day and found a quote that said something like, 'if you have a library without a secret passageway in your home, you need to give me your money, because you're spending itwrong.'”
I burst out laughing. With my emotional state it came out like a hyena on crack. “Amanda sounds like my kind ofpeople.”
Ellion grabbed my hand. He recognized my laugh for what it was—terror. “They're going to befine.”
They were finally approaching the door to thebarn.
He switched his microphone back on. “Guys, I'll disarm the alarm for you. I've still not seen any signs of life, but you know I can't see the loft. We need to get that weak point on camera as soon aspossible.”
“You’re really serious about your security,” I whispered. I didn't want to speak too loudly and distract them. Ellion hit the mute button. “We have to be. Griffin is too wealthy now to be left defenseless. He's the kind of wealthy peoplekidnap.”
I raised my eyebrows. “Damn,” I muttered. “That's rich.” He might even be richer than Ellie. How the hell did I get mixed in with exactly the type of people I had no desire to be around? I wasn't about that life—frivolity and vanity. Though I had to admit, none of them seemed to be particularlyvain.
Regardless of my thoughts about wealthy people, my heart beat to a rhythm of terror. I'd begun to care for them—despite my treatment and screw-ups since I'd arrived. I definitely didn't want them hurt. My thoughts made my head and ribs pound in sync with myheart.
Ellion typed in a bunch of codes and unmuted his mic. “Alarm is disabled. Everything I can see is clear. I recommend going immediately to the right and clocking the loft firstthing.”
Griffin and Chandler nodded. Chandler stepped forward and pushed the door open. Griffin ran through and to the right, gun trained up and to the left, on the loft, like Ellion recommended. Chandler went to the left, under the loft, and quickly jogged the perimeter, mainly looking in between vehicles and behind the stacks of totes. He joined Griffin in the front rightcorner.
They walked toward the loft. Griffin stayed well back, so he could keep the entirety of the loft in his sights. Chandler climbed the ladder and went out of oursight.
