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Her life was everything.
He could not let anything happen to keep him from returning to her. Maybe that was what kept him on his feet, kept him from feeling the pain in his bad leg and letting it collapse under him.
The house stood silent against the steel-gray sky. Behind it, the wind whipped a stand of trees into a frenzy. A couple of hundred yards away, the ocean frothed against a desolate stretch of sand.
When he reached the house, he flattened himself against the wall beside the door. He took a couple of breaths, let them out, then keyed the code Chay had given him into the lock.
The door swung open.
Virtually everyone on the teams and in STUD agreed that nobody ever really grew accustomed to this one moment. Walking into a yawning space where nobody knew what awaited you…
No matter how many times you’d done it, you could still feel your heartbeat accelerate, your balls tighten, your mouth go dry.
Every nerve ending in your lizard brain knew how vulnerable you were at that moment.
MP7 up and ready, Tanner entered the house.
He was greeted by a silence broken only by the moan of the wind and the beat of the rain.
Instinct told him it was the kind of silence that said he was alone, but even though instinct was important, he’d learned it was sometimes unwise to rely on it.
He’d known too many good men who’d thought a house was empty when it wasn’t.
He was in a long hallway. Polished wood floor. White-painted walls. Bright abstract paintings on the walls.
Civilization, after the savagery of the last few days.
He elbowed the door shut. Then he moved forward, one cautious step at a time.
An arched doorway to his left opened onto the living room. Leather sofa. Leather lounge chairs. Shelves of books. A fireplace with wood neatly stacked on the hearth. A wine rack. A couple of small, elegant sculptures. A wall of windows, covered by closed metal security shutters.
A bank of small security monitors, showing nothing but empty rooms and the storm outside
Chay was right. So far, the accommodations looked mighty fine.
Back in the hallway, a door to the right stood open revealing a half-bath. Dark blue tile, white fixtures, white towels.
A right-angle turn and the hall widened. Became a small dining room. Modern furniture. More windows, also shuttered. Beyond the dining room, a kitchen. Small, modern and very efficient-looking. Two walls of shiny appliances. A bank of monitors.
Tanner was hardly an expert on kitchens or cooking, but this one all but bristled with invisible dollar signs.
The entire place did.
Tech billionaires sure knew how to live.
There was a utility room off the kitchen. He took a quick visual survey. A back door that would open onto the beach. Shelves of food. Soups. Juice. Coffee. Cookies, crackers, rice…
His mouth watered.
And, as Chay had said, there was a generator in the corner.
He’d seen generators before, back home on the res, things that stood outside and ran the lights or maybe a fridge—if you were lucky. This generator was a shiny, permanent installation. It would run an entire house. It was the reason all those expensive appliances were here in the middle of nowhere.
That meant hot water. Hot food.
So far, this place was the next best thing to paradise.
Tanner went down a hallway that led away from the kitchen. It ended in a bedroom with an enormous
