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Within half a mile, they came upon the fence. It was, at first glance, not much of a thing . . . more an annoyance than a barrier. But they both paused and took a closer look. It was for show, of course; the real security came from proximity sensors that would feed directly into the house’s security. There were probably motion-activated cameras, too.
Patrick took her hand in a very natural sort of motion, and they strolled a little ways down the fence line to a clearing, where he pressed her against a tree and kissed her. That was nice. More than nice, actually. She had a sudden fantasy of sex in the soft grass, but she knew what he was doing . . . creating a plausible show for the cameras. “So,” he said, as he kissed her neck. She didn’t have any difficulty showing enthusiasm for that move. “Recon is probably a bust, unless you want to spend a couple of days camping out and watching the comings and goings. ”
“That’s a no. It just gives them more time to trace us. ”
“Then we just go?”
“We just go,” she said.
“Now?”
“Dark won’t help. ” These days, the serious security had night vision cameras, and motion sensors never slept. Without tech help, they wouldn’t be able to overcome it anyway.
What they had left was pure ferocity and nerve. Unknown odds, unknown conditions, and they didn’t even know if their target was on-site.
“I love you,” he murmured, and kissed her again, with real heat. “Let’s go. ”
She felt her adrenaline surge, and a smile form without any direction from her conscious brain. And then, without more than a breath to prepare, they both turned, leaped the fence, and began running for their target.
There was no outcry, no ba
rking dogs or sirens to give alarm. The two of them were fast, and Bryn faster than Patrick, although he worked hard to catch up when he could. The uphill course crossed a couple of small streams flowing the other way, and she leaped them easily without much of a pause. It felt good, this run. This hunt. It felt like she’d been born for it. Engineered for it, at the very least.
When she flushed a rabbit out of her path, the urge to chase it down and feast was strong, insanely so, and she had to struggle to tamp it down. The distraction allowed Patrick to catch and pass her, and she took a deep breath to center herself again.
Then they both reached the top of the ridge together, shaded and concealed by the tree line, and looked down on a steep slope that led to a pasture. A large one, marked by a genuinely serious fence that marked this as an estate, and maybe a compound. The pasture was a glass-smooth expanse of lush green, no cover, no protection. The wall was eight feet high and reinforced with razor wire at the top.
“Shit,” Patrick said, which pretty much summed it up. “We can’t wait. They’ll know we’re coming. ”
Maybe they did, but if so, there wasn’t the response that Bryn would have expected to see—no boiling-up of security personnel, no vehicles, no dogs. Nothing. She didn’t see a thing moving, anywhere.
“You getting a bad feeling?” she asked him. Patrick didn’t take his eyes off the scene lying before them.
“Yeah. Either this guy is supremely confident his fence will keep us out, he’s got something in place we can’t see that he knows will kill us, or . . . ”
“. . . or there’s something very wrong here,” Bryn finished. He nodded. “Well. Only one way to find out. You stay behind me, no matter what. ”
He drew his sidearm and nodded; no macho arguments, which was a relief. He knew she could take the abuse.
She jumped out onto the downslope and ran down, hearing a tumble of rocks and soil behind her. As soon as she cleared the tree line she felt exposed and cold, despite the warm morning sun. Any second, she expected to feel bullets striking, followed by the time-delayed chatter of a machine pistol . . . but she reached the fence easily, without any kind of attack or alarm.
Patrick said, “Bryn! On your nine!” She turned left, expecting to see an enemy, but there was nothing but fence, and . . . and a gate.
And the gate was a whole lot easier to scale than the wall itself.
Bryn climbed, slipped down the other side, and unlocked it to swing it open for Patrick, who eased in with his eyes darting from one side of the interior pasture area to the other. Nothing to see, not even a dog or a gardener. Eerily quiet.
“Maybe he’s gone,” she said. “This may not be his full-time home. ”
“You know us rich people with our vagabond ways,” Patrick said, but he wasn’t disagreeing. “Go. I’ll cover you. ”
There wasn’t any need. There were no booby traps, no ambushes, no hidden deadly enemies. They simply ran—and then walked—right up to the front door.
The mansion was big, and conventionally built for this part of the country. . . . It was what the well-to-do thought of as “rustic” despite being completely modern, just with rougher log finish. All the lights were on inside. Bryn thought about opening the door, but then, on a whim, decided to just . . . knock.
The door was answered by a boy.
Bryn blinked. Yes, that was a boy, all right, about ten years old, brown hair, a coffee-and-cream skin tone, eyes so darkly colored it was hard to tell iris from pupil. He stared at her for a second, then turned and yelled at ear-piercing volume, “Dad! They’re here!”
