“Thanks, Morganna.” Arthur took the phone from Merlin. “We owe you.”
“You owe me a corner office and a signing bonus, Arthur. If I find anything else, I’ll call.” She hung up.
Dmitry cleared a space on the table, pushing aside Caulfield’s scattered tools, and started sketching on a blank sheet in the notebook. The property perimeter first, a rough oval with the main entrance to the west. Then the house itself, a central structure with two wings. He marked the collection room on the east side, where Kessler displayed his acquisitions.
“There’s a secondary approach through the gardens here.” He drew a dotted line. “The security was concentrated at the main gate when I visited. Professional, but not military. Private guards, maybe six or eight.”
“Safe room?”
Dmitry tapped a spot on the map. “Accessible from a stairwell near the kitchen. Steel-reinforced walls, two feet deep. Kessler showed it to me once. He was proud of it.”
“How fast can he get to it?” I asked.
“From anywhere on the ground floor, perhaps a minute.”
“So he doesn’t get a minute.”
Merlin leaned over his shoulder, comparing the sketch to the satellite imagery on his phone, and pointing to the west side. “Looks like tree cover along this approach.”
I paced to the open garden doors while the other men worked. It was barely six o’clock, so we had hours of daylight left. Evenwithtree cover, we couldn’t assault in broad daylight. No matter how much I wanted to charge out through these doors and take our rental to Kessler’sright now, I had to be smart. That’s what would save Grace.
Her voice circled inside my brain.‘Would iced coffee be too much trouble?’
Trouble. That’s what she thought she was. Had she always been like that, or was it because of me? Because I’d grumbled and complained through our first few days? Was she afraid of upsetting me? No. Grace Laurent wasn’t the type who hid things. She was open and welcoming, and she was my fucking ray of sunshine.
Sunshine? What, do you think you’re a poet now?
It was nothing but brain chemistry. Forced proximity and adrenaline created chemical reactions that mimicked real emotion. What I was feeling was nothing more than survival instinct mixed with some hormones. Poetry was just another way to get laid.
That’s all it was.
She’d wanted iced coffee in the heat. I’d crossed fifteen feet of room to ask the housekeeper to bring it. Fifteen feet. And by the time Grace had said my name, Caulfield had already been out ofhis chair, and the men with the guns had already been crossing the garden.
I should have snapped Caulfield’s neck. But no. Conrad Richter had held a gun at her chest, and the second Arthur arrived, Richter had put a knife to her throat. Standing down had been the only fucking choice I had. Even if Aleš had woken up faster or Radek had shown up and put a bullet through his head, the body did things when it died. He could have spasmed and slit her throat just as easily as he might have dropped the knife.
Why did they take Grace, though? They had the egg, so why takeher? Was it exclusively to keep us off them? If they didn’t need her once they’d gotten away, she was now a liability.
My stomach churned as visions of blood and green eyes flooded my memory.
She’ll be okay, Garrett. She will be okay.
Arthur was on another call now, speaking rapid German. The Pendragon Security name came up a few times, so he must have been pulling in additional assets he could mobilize on short notice. Merlin and Dmitry were refining the approach plan, marking entry points and fallback positions on the satellite overlay.
I forced myself to engage. “What’s the guard rotation look like?”
“Unknown,” Dmitry admitted. “When I visited, there were two at the main gate, two monitoring the grounds. But that was for a social call, not a security situation.”
“So we assume they’ve doubled it.” I studied the satellite image over Merlin’s shoulder. “Or tripled. If Kessler suspects we’re coming?—”
“Slow down.” Arthur finished his call and joined us at the table. “We call the police first.”
“We will do no?—”
He held up a hand, and I stopped. “We prepare to go in. We travel to the location and scout it. When we confirm she’s there—because we don’tknowthat’s where they went—we call the police. If we can end this peacefully, we should.”
Peacefully? I wanted to snap both Richter’s and Kessler’s necks for touching her, and then deal with Dr. Fucking Caulfield. But Arthur was right. He was always fucking right.
Arthur pulled me aside while Merlin and Dmitry discussed Kessler with Henri. He lowered his voice, “I need to know you’re operational, Galahad.”
