Page 55 of Until the End

Echo picked it up and typed on the keyboard. “The program finally finished the search. No current hits, but I’ve got footage of Katherine Westcott entering a downtown FedEx store on Saturday. She mailed a package. Paid in cash.”

“Bingo,” Bravo said. “I bet she mailed the hard drives.” When it had been time to sanitize the Outliers’ Lair, he’d gone to the mainframe room to drill holes through each hard drive to be certain no recoverable data survived the fire and discovered she’d taken not one, not two, but three of the damned things.

“Good.” Delta played with his beard. “Now maybe we can get the hell out of here.”

The tiny hairs on Bravo’s nape snapped to attention and his focus split. Like something had struck his internal tuning fork and awareness resonated through him.

Another ping on his senses. But he had no idea what caused it. Then a sound—a low click, maybe a door shutting, something easily missed—had his focus dialing in.

The others hadn’t heard it and were still yammering, but Bravo was certain.

Someone was here.

Adrenaline sparked through him. He adjusted the glasses on the bridge of his nose, straining to source the sound. They were in the dead center of the apartment and it could’ve come from either end. Lifting a finger to his lips, he gave a warning for the others to stop flapping their jaws and stay silent.

His men immediately fell back on their training. They stopped squabbling, put in their communications earpieces, and drew their guns in response.

It would’ve been difficult for someone to creep past the kitchen where they had been a moment ago to the right side of the apartment, but not impossible with the bellyaching and bickering they’d been doing. Bravo should’ve solved that problem yesterday by putting a bullet in Delta.

Bravo directed Delta to go clear that section of the apartment just in case.

There was a Faraday cage back there—an enclosure used to block electromagnetic fields—and a large game room. Places for people to hide.

Bravo motioned for Echo to head downstairs and cover the ground floor in the event anyone slipped past them out of the apartment. Then he gestured for Charlie to move with him to the left side of the penthouse toward the bedrooms.

Each of his men acknowledged the orders with a curt head nod and leapt into action.

17

Kit’s thoughts collided together, her mind racing in time with her frantic pulse. What were they going to do? How were they going to get out of there in one piece?

Her bedroom was in shambles, the same as the rest of the penthouse. She didn’t care about the furniture—it was all meaningless without the Outliers. This place had been for them. Their home. Together.

Her life was as wrecked as her apartment. Trapped on this roller coaster of stress and danger, how much more could she handle?

Emotions piled up in her chest. The upheaval of the last two days, the awful things she’d witnessed, the mental duress, and anger subsumed the terror. She wanted to punch someone in the face. Wanted to kick the universe in the gut the way it kept doing to her.

Castle set her down and she sank against the wall. He was strong, lethal, fearless. Not a glimmer of worry in his eyes. There wasn’t a doubt in her mind he’d do anything to protect her. And she’d dragged him into this position with a lie.

With her bad luck, he’d be the one to get shot.

Her throat tightened at the thought. She couldn’t let that happen. If only one of them got out of this alive, it had to be him.

“Where’s your medication?”

“Bathroom counter. I need the Nitrostat too.”

“Ditch those boots. Do you have sneakers? Any shoes without heels that won’t make noise on the floor?”

No dice on tennis shoes, but she had a pair of ballet flats. “Yes.”

“Change. I’ll grab the pills.” Castle headed to her en suite. Brusque, six-four, two-hundred-twenty-pounds-plus of mean muscle and he didn’t make a sound as he moved.

Kit unzipped her boots and pulled them off. Tiptoeing to her closet, she avoided anything shiny or that looked sharp on the floor.

Her usually immaculately organized closet was chaos. They’d gone through everything.

She spotted the door to the wall safe was open. And all her cash was gone.