Page 5 of Five

Oliver considers this. “OK. Let’s go.” He turns and starts walking towards the house, but then looks back and finds my feet haven’t moved. “You coming?”

“You get it,” I say. “I’ll wait. You never know with your father, right? He probably dusts the place for fingerprints weekly. Or has a hidden security camera. I don’t want him to know I’m here.”

“Right.” Oliver laughs. Like this weird paranoid shit his father does is normal everyday Shrike business. “Be back in ten.”

Ten minutes is more than I need. And Spencer Shrike does have cameras. All over this damn place. In fact, if I hadn’t disabled the app he uses to monitor the farm, he’d know we were here right the fuck now because the second you drive through his gate at the main road, you’re tracked.

But I did disable that app. Because I’m fucking Five and I think of everything.

As soon as Oliver disappears into the house, I turn to the workshop. There’s a keypad to open the door, but I hacked it remotely last night, so I punch in the code, look over my shoulder one more time, and go inside.

The stairs that lead to the second-floor apartment are off to the left. I take them three at a time, then key the code to get into that place too.

I’m down to eight and a half minutes now. So I don’t waste time, just head straight to the bedroom at the end of the hall, bend down to the outlet cover nearest the door, and pull the mini screwdriver out of my suit coat pocket.

Thirty second later I’m reaching inside the wall, feeling around.

Please. Please tell me you’re still here, you little fucking piece of—there. My fingers brush against the smooth metal case, and I carefully maneuver it so it fits through the hole.

Thirty more seconds and I have the outlet cover back on. One more minute and I’m rekeying the code to the apartment to the one it’s supposed to have, and twenty-four seconds after that I’m doing the same thing to the one at the main door.

When Oliver appears at the front door of the house I’m sitting in the car, waiting impatiently. Three minutes to spare. That little shit is quick.

But he learned from the best, so I can’t complain about that.

“Here,” he says, getting in the car and thrusting the gun at me. He pulls out two boxes of ammo from his pockets and places those on the center console.

I laugh. “What the fuck am I gonna do with a hundred rounds of ammo? Jesus, kid. You’ve got some imagination.”

“Dunno,” he says. “Don’t care, either. But if you take a gun you take the ammo too. Even I know that much.”

He’s right. And even though this whole gun thing was mostly for cover, it can’t hurt to be prepared. I pop the magazine out, find it full, then check the chamber. Empty. I reach over, open the glove box, and stuff the gun and ammo inside.

“We good?” Oliver asks. “That all you needed?”

“That’s it,” I say, starting the car.

“Do you need backup?” Oliver asks, serious.

“Nah. It’s just a precaution, that’s all.”

“You got into some trouble over there in England?”

I shoot him a look as I navigate my way back down the driveway. “I’m not taking this gun to the UK, dumbass. I just have a meeting in Denver tonight and I want to go in packing heat.”

Oliver shrugs, like this is the most normal conversation ever. “Cool.”

We drive back to town. It’s a good thirty-minute drive and Oliver fills the time with mindless conversation. I’m zoning him out, thinking about that meeting tonight, when he points and says, “Stop!”

I almost screech on the brakes. Only my inherited Aston indifference keeps my foot off that pedal. “What the fuck, Ollie? You’re gonna make me crash the goddamned car.”

“It’s Rory!” He points to the steps leading up to Anna Ameci’s restaurant. And yup, sure enough, like a page out of a story book gone wrong, there she is. The one girl in this world I really didn’t want to see today.

Princess Shrike is here. In the same town as me.

How the fuck did that happen?

“Rory!” Oliver yells out the window.