CHAPTER
SIXTEEN
Brooke tried to call Miranda once more, but the woman still wasn’t answering. “She must turn her phone off at night or something. Let’s go. We’re not that far from her house.”
Gavin and Asher looked at her like she was crazy.
“Guys, assuming I’m right about the bracelet, these people have tried three times now to get it. First in my office where they accidentally”—she wiggled air quotes—“killed Sharon and then when they broke into my house, and finally, when they ran us off the road and chased us to the barn. Seems to me someone wants that bracelet pretty bad.”
“If that’s what they’re after,” Asher said.
“Yes. If. If I’m wrong, fine. But if I’m right, I don’t want it in Miranda’s possession a moment longer. If someone figures out we went to see her, she’s in major danger.”
“I don’t see how anyone could know,” Asher said.
“But what if they do?”
“Brooke—”
“What if, Asher? You want to risk her life on that? Her kids?”
He and Gavin exchanged a glance. Then Asher stood and Gavin followed him to the door. Asher looked back at her. “What are you waiting on? Let’s go.”
With a huff, she grabbed her purse and hurried after the men.
Once she’d buckled up in the back seat of Gavin’s Hummer, she laid her head against the rest, relaxed, and closed her eyes. Please, God, I know I keep coming to you with panicked emergency prayers, but please keep Miranda—and us—safe.
Asher’s phone rang and he snagged it. “It’s Caden.”
“Put it on speaker,” Gavin said.
“Caden, this is Asher. Gavin and Brooke are here too. What’s up?”
“When Sarah called about Brooke, she also said she needed my help with something. I know an agent, Felicia Wilson, who’s in Afghanistan training Afghan police in investigations. She got back to me about that security footage Sarah was talking about.”
“What about it?” Brooke asked.
“Very clear footage of Michaels going into a Dr. Madad’s office and sitting in front of his computer.”
“So they immediately knew that Isaiah was on to something.”
“On to Dr. Madad anyway. It looks like Michaels was downloading something, and just as he left, he dropped an item at the door before he picked it up and shoved it into his pocket. Looked like a bracelet of some kind.”
Gavin shot a look at Brooke. “Guess you were right. It’s the bracelet they’re after.”
Victor followed Buzz around to the back of the house. Most homeowners were conscientious about locking their front doors. Sometimes they left the back door open. He waited while Buzz tried it.
“Locked,” Buzz whispered.
“Yeah, guess she’s more careful because of the kids.”
“Or she watched the news before she went to bed,” the man muttered. “Nothing but home invasions and shootings. Even I check my locks before I go to sleep.”
“Shut up and find a way in.”
One by one they tried the windows. All locked. “Going to have to break one,” Buzz said.
“Do the one in the kitchen then. It’s farthest away from her bedroom.”
“All the tools in the world and you don’t have a glass cutter?”
“Just do this, okay?”
“So, does she need to die?” Buzz asked. “I’m okay killing her, but I’m not killing kids.”
Victor had no desire to kill kids either. Hopefully, they’d sleep through the whole thing, but if not . . . “I guess it depends on how cooperative she is.”
“Yeah.”
Buzz pulled his fist back into his sleeve and gave the glass pane over the doorknob a firm tap. It fell to the tile floor and shattered. He reached through the hole and unlocked the dead bolt, then the knob. Victor stepped around the man and slipped inside. If Miranda heard the glass shatter and came to investigate, he wanted to be able to grab her before she could do something stupid like start screaming and alert her neighbors.
But no sound came from the back of the house. He swept the flashlight around the kitchen and noted the sink full of dishes and the laundry piled high in the corner next to a closed door he assumed hid the washer and dryer. Toys lay scattered over every surface. All signs of a grieving woman too overwhelmed to do anything except survive and make it to the next day. Too bad Michaels’s family had to suffer for his actions. But . . . not his problem.
Buzz nodded toward the bedrooms, and Victor fell in behind the man. He didn’t bother pulling his weapon. Two men in ski masks would be terrifying for the young mother. He paused. Then again, she had two children she’d probably fight to the death for. He pulled the gun.
Buzz peered in the first room on the left. “Kid,” he whispered. Second room was the baby’s. The room across the hall had to be the master. The door was cracked. Buzz nudged it with his elbow and it opened on silent hinges.
Victor could see Miranda in the bed. He turned to Buzz and motioned for the man to stand outside the room. “Cover the kids, we may need to use them.” He kept his voice low, almost nonexistent, but the woman gasped and sat up.
Victor strode to her side and placed the gun against her chin. She froze, eyes wide, fully awake and so scared he wondered if she’d be able to tell him anything. She trembled but didn’t make a sound. Probably afraid she’d wake her kids. Good. He needed her afraid.
A car door slammed, and without taking his gaze from Miranda, he jerked a hand at Buzz, who strode down the hallway.
“Now,” Victor whispered, “we can do this the easy way or the hard way. It’s up to you.”
Her eyes flashed to the door, then back to him. “What do you want?” she croaked.
“The bracelet.”
“Bracelet?” Confusion chased the fear from her eyes for a brief moment, and Victor wondered if they’d guessed wrong after all. Then her gaze hardened and slowly moved to her dresser. Elation swept over him. “Get it,” he said. “Now.”
She swallowed. “Who are you? Why are you doing this?”
Buzz returned to his side. “Three people in a Hummer just pulled up and they’re standing on the porch,” he murmured. “Looks like Asher James and Gavin Black. Couldn’t see the woman, but it’s probably Brooke Adams.”
Someone knocked on the front door. Miranda hesitated.
“The bracelet. Now!” Victor yelled and she flinched back against the headboard, then scrambled out of the bed.
“Mama?”
The little voice behind him spun his attention to the child staring at the two men in her mother’s bedroom. Buzz grabbed the kid and wrapped an arm around her waist, keeping her back to him. She screamed, struggled, and reached out her arms. “Mama! Mama!”
The knocking on the front door increased in intensity.
“I don’t want to hurt her,” Buzz said between gritted teeth, “but I will.” His words were dead. No inflection or indication that killing the three-year-old would bother him any more than swatting a gnat. He lifted his weapon to the little girl’s head.
“No!” Miranda bolted to the dresser, grabbed the jewelry box, and dumped the contents onto the undisturbed part of the bottom of the comforter. She flipped the lamp on. “There!” she said. “Take it all, just don’t hurt her, please!” Tears tracked down her cheeks. The kid still screamed.
Victor spotted the bracelet and snatched it as the front door crashed in.