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Of course he would say that. Of course he would use the one thing I wanted the most to try to keep me from getting myself killed. It was his best leverage.
Except for one thing. The thing I wanted most wasn’t London anymore.
The thing I wanted most was Jack.
I hung up the phone.
Screw London.
I was already running.
I KNEW THEdoor code. I let myself in.
The ground floor was empty. There’s a stillness you recognize in an empty room once you’ve been doing this for a while. But I checked everything anyway—every closet and nook. Even the pantry.
Nothing.
Passing the dining table, I saw a charcuterie board with a bottle of cabernet, open and breathing, next to it. And next to the wine bottle? A corkscrew.
At last. A weapon. I grabbed it as I went by, without missing a step, and—because women in this world somehow don’t deserve pockets—shoved it into the side of my bra.
The second floor was empty, too.
They’d either left the house, or—
They were on the roof.
I took the stairs to the third-floor game room two at a time.
I edged my way past the pool table to the door that led to the rooftop patio.
I cracked the door to peek out and evaluate the scene—and, there, I beheld the most surreal sight: The bulb lights strung up around the roof’s edge were glowing, the downtown skyline was lit up by the setting sun, the sky was deepening purple as it gave itself over to night… and there stood Jack Stapleton, his wrists and ankles bound by zip ties, and facing, maybe six feet away, a man exactly his same height, dressed in a ripped T-shirt and dirty jeans, aiming a gun at him, finger on the trigger.
Any other agent would’ve waited for the police.
But there wasn’t any time. A finger on a trigger was one impulse—or one itch, or cough, or sneeze—away from doing irreversible things.
Time to intervene. However I could.
I was just slipping out, ready to gently announce my presence with my hands up so I didn’t startle the gunman, when three things happened at once.
One: As I slid through the doorway, a burst of wind flashed across the rooftop from nowhere, yanked the door handle from my fingers, and slammed the door closed with an almost sonic boom that startled even me.
Two: At the sound, the gunman jerked in my direction and apparently pulled the trigger as he did, because…
Three: He shot me.
