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"We can't." She turned around. "Can anyone here help us get into that house?"
Eagle stepped toward her. "Don't you dare--"
Elena had him by the neck, two feet off the ground, pinned to the wall, before he could get another word out.
There were two other officers plus the tech guy in the hayloft. Tech guy decided his equipment looked very interesting and busied himself with it. The officers both turned to Clay.
"Don't look at me," he said. "I'm getting involved only if you decide to do the same. But remember, whatever our kids think, I'm definitely the scarier one."
They stayed seated. Elena looked at Eagle, still suspended by his throat.
"I'm a reasonable person, so I let you try to contact the Cortezes. But it is not reasonable of you to expect me to wait for a callback when our target may be infected. Oh, and a word of advice?" She brought him down to eye level. "You may think it's clever to accuse a woman of being hysterical, but it's only going to piss her off."
She dropped him. He landed on his ass, wheezing and clutching his throat. When she turned away, he muttered, "Bitch."
I looked at Elena. "Note that he didn't dare say that until you turned your back."
"They never do." She went over to the technician. "Can you contact the guys over in the attic? Tell them I know they aren't ready, but we need to come in."
"Yes, ma'am."
She turned to the two officers and didn't even get a chance to open her mouth before one said, "We'll get the rappel system in place and have some men watch for the patrolling guards. You should be able to get over there quickly and safely."
"Thank you."
THIRTY-FOUR
We did get over quickly and safely. At least Adam and I did. Clay took one look at the flimsy rig and decided to stay behind and handle radio contact. Elena was game--she'd done some rock climbing with us--but quickly realized she wouldn't be fast enough on the traverse to avoid being spotted if my blur spell failed. She decided to stay with Clay.
Adam and I crossed and crawled through the dormer window into the attic, which was dusty and as hot as hell. I suppose no matter how wealthy you are, you don't clean or air-condition your attic. It was also full of crap. Boxes of old clothing. Stacks of LPs and VHS tapes. Piles of toys and baby furniture. I had to wonder at the last. Were they planning to drag this old stuff down when they had grandkids? I think their sons--and certainly future daughters-in-law--would expect them to buy new, considering they were billionaires and all.
The technicians met us at the window and led us over to where they'd tapped into the security system. One showed us the laptop screen displaying the view of all six cameras. They were all aimed outside the house.
"Do we have any interior views?"
"We've been drilling holes and threading cams through. I can give you the boys' rooms and the guest rooms."
"What we need is the master suite."
"It's at the far end of the second floor. The attic doesn't extend that far, so we haven't managed to get a line in." He picked up a pair of headphones. "We have sound, though. Just got that snaked through far enough to pick up decent levels."
His partner grunted. "Which would be a lot more useful if that kid would turn off the damned video game."
He was right. We could hear the music blasting even without headphones. One of the Grand Theft Auto titles, it sounded like.
"And here's the upstairs," the tech said, as he flipped a switch.
The music now sounded slightly farther away. Then, as I was about to take the headset off, I heard the muffled click of pumps growing louder.
"Do we have more than one feed on the second floor?" I asked.
He nodded.
"Is this the one closest to the master suite?"
He shook his head and hit a button on the laptop. "We're still in the hall here, but this is a bit closer."
When he switched the feeds, the pump-clicking quieted. Then it grew louder again as the footsteps approached the master suite. A pause. Then a rap on a door.
