"Then I"m not leaving."
"You don"t have a choice."
"Why do you care?"
LeGrand approached. "Yes, Skye, why do you care?"
"He needs to be focused."
LeGrand a.s.sessed Sean. "You have a plan."
"Yes."
"And it will work?"
"Probably."
"Probably isn"t good enough."
"Let me rephrase: There"s no other way to breach this building unless you go in guns blazing and know exactly where your data is. I"m not going to set off any alarms, the guard won"t see me, but if there"s an unknown variable-like a third guard, or a staff member working late, or you gave me the wrong security system to memorize, then I may fail."
"I appreciate your honesty." He motioned to the goon named Eric. "Tie him up with his girlfriend. We have a few hours."
As Sean was being led upstairs, he overheard LeGrand tell Skye, "The buyer is waiting at his ship. As soon as we get the book, we"ll leave. But we need to be at the dock by midnight."
Buyer. Buyer-why use that word? LeGrand wouldn"t be selling the account information when it was worth millions.
The toxin. He couldn"t access his money here in the states; he needed the bio-toxin to buy pa.s.sage on a private ship. That was the only explanation that made sense.
If Kurt LeGrand knew Lucy had overheard as much detail to his plan as she had, he would have killed her as soon as Skye left with Sean. Fortunately, his men were talkative even if LeGrand wasn"t.
"You seem like a nice girl," LeGrand said, standing in front of her as he checked her restraints. "Sean Rogan is not worth your tears."
She didn"t say anything.
LeGrand sighed, walked over to the desk, and finished packing up his computer. "Do you know what he did?" LeGrand said.
She didn"t respond.
"You want to be a cop, and you"re okay with dating a criminal." He smiled. "You"re not my type, but I could like you. Situational ethics and all that."
Don"t let him bait you.
"I would never have known it was Sean Rogan who stole my money ten years ago if it wasn"t for Skye." He laughed. "A woman scorned if I ever saw one. She pretends to care about me, but I"m not a fool. I"m actually putting a lot of faith in Sean right now. I suspect, when he gets the account codes, that Skye will make him an offer to disappear with all my money. I was planning to go with him because I don"t trust her. Except I realized after seeing you and your boyfriend together that he really does love you. And I think he wants to kill Skye. That would actually help me out.
"Still, Evan will keep her in line. He"s been my rock, truly. Without his intel I"d never have known that Skye kept pictures of her and Sean under her bed. He"s the only one I trust to make sure I get my money. And if he has to kill them both-" LeGrand shrugged his shoulders and grinned.
An involuntary moan escaped Lucy"s chest. She bit it back and glared at LeGrand.
"I"m sorry. But Sean Rogan stole the last decade of my life. Do you know how hard it was for me to divert all that money from that old p.r.i.c.k Robert Martin? He wasn"t stupid. But neither was I. And then Rogan comes in and gives it back? Is he insane? Then sends Martin a letter that he has proof, but doesn"t go to the police? For the longest time, I thought Rogan just took the money for himself. But when no one filed a lawsuit I realized he did exactly what he"d said.
"It took me years to rebuild from that loss. I didn"t know it was Rogan at the time-not until I met Skye. She sought me out. She came up with the plan. I knew my bosses were crooks, so it wasn"t too hard to create a third set of books, then turn whistle-blower."
"Why didn"t you take the money and disappear then?"
He sighed dramatically. "Skye created the accounts and left the coded address book in her desk. The FBI raided the day before we"d been told, and we lost the book. Two f.u.c.king years."
"Why Sean?"
"Because I"ve been following his career for a long time and I knew he was one of the few people who could break into a secure building like the FBI warehouse. Once I learned where the book was and what the FBI planned to do with the evidence, I intended to blackmail him. Skye had proof he stole the money from Martin Holdings, and I was going to create a money trail so it looked like he kept it. But when Colton convinced him to work on this ridiculous prove-my-dying-brother-was-murdered gig, I came up with a better plan. As I began to understand Sean, I didn"t think he would be easy to blackmail. Until I realized he"d fallen in love. Love makes men stupid."
Lucy watched LeGrand closely. The way he talked, the way he specifically talked about Sean. He hated Sean. He had an admiration for his skill, but he hated that Sean was a better thief than him, and he held Sean personally responsible for his own failures.
"I don"t take pleasure in having you killed, Ms. Kincaid. Tommy is quite upset that you shot him."
"I wish the bullet had hit his heart," Lucy said. "Oh, he doesn"t have one."
"I"m glad you"ve kept your spirits up." LeGrand"s phone rang and he answered, "h.e.l.lo, darling." He winked at Lucy. "Very good. I"ll see you at the slip."
He hung up, picked up his briefcase, and walked to the door. "Your boyfriend made it inside. As soon as we have the book, you"ll be dead. I told them you should suffer a bit. Sorry about that. But I want to gut Sean, and this is the best way." He winked. "Good-bye, Lucy."
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE.
Breaking into the FBI evidence warehouse worked as well as Sean had planned. He supposed he wasn"t surprised, considering he did this for a living. But that didn"t make the pressure any less intense. Sean was sweating by the time he made it to the main computer room. This was a place most people who worked in the building didn"t even know about, but it was the hub of the property, and, ironically, like the private offices, there were no internal cameras. The door was coded, but it was easy to crack with the RCK admin code.
Skye had wired Sean, which was another distraction for him; otherwise Sean could have found a phone and called Noah. Except there was no doubt in Sean"s mind that LeGrand would kill Lucy if Sean didn"t return with the book.
First, Sean had to find where the evidence files from Avery & Block were stored. The facility was huge-over one hundred thousand square feet. He logged into the main database and it took him a good five minutes to figure out how the FBI catalogued their evidence. Once he understood the structure he searched for the files. He found the aisle number and shelves, then turned to the security console and opened up the programmer"s back door. This enabled RCK to monitor the system when they first installed it, but it was never used except for on-site upgrades. Now Sean reprogrammed the system to avoid rotating the cameras in the sector Sean needed to access. The guard shouldn"t see any difference in the feeds because it was still randomized, just not in the section of the building Sean would be.
His head pounded by the time he was done. He held his breath as he executed the command, waiting for alarms of a system meltdown, a warning, an intruder alert, anything to show that he"d failed.
Silence.
Either it worked or it didn"t, but no one had been alerted to his system changes.
He"d memorized the route he needed to take, but he checked his watch to verify that he was on schedule. He"d told Skye it would take him an hour; she gave him thirty minutes once he entered the facility. He"d used twelve of them reprogramming.
There was no Internet access in the computer room, but because it was an RCK system he could send a message through the hardwired system to the RCK administrator. He had to alert Noah about the sale of the toxin and to tell him where Lucy was being held captive. Though he didn"t have an exact address, he had a street and description. Skye hadn"t blindfolded him when they left.
Jaye-it"s Sean. Please get this message to Noah Armstrong immediately. A b.a.s.t.a.r.d named Kurt LeGrand is holding Lucy hostage and forcing me to steal a file inside the FBI evidence warehouse in Brooklyn. He also has a bio-toxin he stole from PBM that he plans to sell to someone to buy pa.s.sage on a ship that"s leaving at midnight-don"t know which port. LeGrand is NOT planning on using the bio-toxin. Lucy is being held in a small two-story warehouse on Kent south of Flushing. It"s near a church. I don"t have the address, but there"s a partial No Parking sign on the roll-up door that has the P missing. She"s being guarded by at least three men, maybe more.
Duke"s dead. They locked him in an old barn and burned it. Don"t tell Nora yet-I"ll tell her. If I make it.
There"s no way to reach me. Save Lucy.
He hoped Jaye got the message and sent it to Noah. He hoped they went to save Lucy instead of coming here. A lot of wishing.
Sean left the computer room and listened for trouble. He walked as quickly as he dared, relying on the blueprints he"d copied, his a.n.a.lysis of the storage system, and the reprogramming of the cameras. He wasn"t trying to hide his tracks-but that hadn"t been their request. As soon as someone ran a diagnostic on the system, they"d see the breach. But that wouldn"t happen tonight.
The filing system organized evidence by the date the original investigation was opened. There were some adjustments based on the size of the files or if special storage was needed, but this warehouse housed evidence for all federal cases except capital cases or weapons storage.
Luck would have it that Sean found the section immediately. The problem was that while he knew what he was looking for, there were thirty-six boxes of information and data. The labels were not very descriptive. He pulled out the log of information that Skye had given him. He needed an address book. The address book was coded with the bank accounts and pa.s.swords to access the money they stole. It should be in the files seized from Block"s personal a.s.sistant.
The evidence log was in the first box. He scoured it for information. That"s why he didn"t hear the footsteps.
"Sean."
He jumped, reached for a gun that wasn"t there, and whirled around. Noah? He put a finger to his lips.
In Sean"s ear, Skye said, "What was that?"
"I was swearing to myself," he whispered, staring at Noah. "I need more time."
Noah nodded, understanding the danger, and didn"t say anything.
Skye said, "You don"t have more time. Where are you?"
"With the files. There are thirty-six boxes here and the log is a mess."
"Keep me posted. You"re running out of time."
Noah handed him a pen. Sean turned the evidence log over and wrote: Skye Jansen is listening. Open mic. They have Lucy. Duke is dead.
Noah read it and wrote: We found Duke. He"s okay. Colton is in serious but stable condition after surgery.
Relief flooded through Sean. Both Duke and Colton were alive. But they were running out of time for Lucy. Frantically, he wrote: I need an address book that Skye wrote by hand. She"ll know if it"s fake. And if I don"t bring it in He glanced at his watch.
9 minutes, LeGrand will kill Lucy.
Don"t a.s.sume anything. I think he"ll do it anyway, but if I give him the address book, it"ll buy us time. I know where Lucy is being held, a building on Kent south of Flushing.
Noah handed Sean the address book.
Sean mouthed, Is this real?
Noah shook his head, then wrote: It"s a perfect forgery, with the numbers changed. We have our best decoder going through the original now.
In his ear, Sean heard Skye"s voice. "You have five minutes to be in my car, and it"s a four-minute walk."
Sean said, "I think I found it. Is it a small pink address book with gold embossing and on the first page it says My little pink book."
"That"s it!" Her voice went up an octave in excitement. "Get out. Now."
"Tell LeGrand to stand down."
"Just meet me. I have a plan. I"m so excited!"
Sean wrote: Get to Lucy.
He wrote out a rough map of where she was being kept.
Noah stared at Sean for a long moment and nodded. "Be careful," he whispered. Then he wrote: Jack Kincaid already has eyes on Skye"s car. He"ll have your back. I"ll save Lucy.
Noah handed Sean a small phone. Sean pocketed it, turned, and left the way he came. Noah didn"t follow.
Noah had a SWAT team on standby near the FBI evidence locker. The warehouse where Lucy was being held captive was less than a five-minute drive at this time of night. He received a message from Jaye Morgan at RCK with the exact location of the warehouse, including blueprints. He had no idea where she"d gotten it, and he didn"t ask. By the time they reached Kent Avenue, only twelve minutes had pa.s.sed since Noah last saw Sean.
The warehouse was dark, though there was a light upstairs where Morgan indicated there was an office. Likely the office where Lucy was being kept. There was roof access, and Noah sent three of the team to the roof, while he and the other three team members would split and simultaneously go in through the front and back.
Noah gave the go order and the three groups swooped into the facility.
Noah shouted, "FBI! Freeze! Hands where we can see them!"
A quick sweep of the main floor flushed out three suspects sitting on old couches in the corner.
Guns were within reach, but they froze when they saw the men in black with guns aimed at them. Anyone who moved would be leaving in a body bag.
"Smart boys," Noah said as he kept his sight on them until the team from the rear met up with them.
"Back is clear."
"Cuff them," Noah said. He heard the team moving upstairs.
"Hostage is recovered. Upstairs is clear."
Noah ran upstairs, and when he saw Lucy his heart constricted. Lucy was chained to a support beam. She was shivering, wearing only sweats and a tank top that was stained with blood, grease, and dirt. Her feet were bare, her face was bruised, and her lips swollen. He wanted to take her home and put her in a hot bath and take care of her- He stopped himself. He"d been denying for the past year that he had feelings for Lucy. He couldn"t lie to himself anymore. Sean was right. Noah had always thought he would be a better man for Lucy than Sean. He admired and respected her, and he knew he could easily love her. But she loved Sean, and Noah refused to be the runner-up.
And Jack"s words to Duke this morning stuck with Noah.
Sean"s the best thing that"s ever happened to my sister.
Noah wasn"t going to stand in the way. And after the last few weeks, he"d accepted that Sean was a better man than he"d ever given him credit for.
SWAT released Lucy and one of the men helped her to her feet. "We"ve called an ambulance. Do you need help downstairs?"
She shook her head, but accepted the blanket he put over her shoulders. To Noah, she said, "Sean said you"d find us."
"I ran into him at the FBI warehouse." He tried to make his voice light, but failed. "He told me where to find you."