Page 66 of Critical Strike
“While you go to work, you mean.”
She took a second to kiss his cheek before turning back to the security feed. “You’re too sweet. We both know darn well you’ll be working, too.” No way would she walk into the building alone. Even if she had the nerve to go in on her own, Luke wouldn’t allow it.
“If you do your job fast, there won’t be anything to do on my end. I’ll be downright bored.”
She withheld her comment. It was nice to imagine things going smoothly, but a beaten dog still flinched when a hand came its way, even if it hadn’t been beaten in a long time.
It hadn’t been too long since Ballard had killed people who used to mean a lot to Claire.
She couldn’t shake the pit of fear in her stomach when she imagined Ballard taking the person who meant the most.
For his sake, she kept a positive attitude—on the outside, at least.
It was after midnight by the time they rolled out, taking two cars. She rode with Luke and Weston, while Brax and Chance took the second vehicle. If anything went south, it was better to have two cars involved, so whoever was in a position to flee might be able to.
However, she strongly doubted any one of the four Patterson brothers would leave any of the others behind. They might not have shared blood, but they were brothers in every other respect.
This would be the last time she’d ever visit Passage Digital. Rolling into the adjoining parking garage was like stepping back in time, reminding her of better days. She might never have exactly been thrilled to work here—it was always a means to an end, a stepping-stone, a paycheck—but life had been much less complicated then.
And lonelier.There was no Luke back then. He’d been nothing more than a memory.
In the end, it seemed like a fair trade-off.
“You ready?” He put the car in Park and turned to look at her. The hard set of his jaw and narrowed eyes spoke to his strain and his worry for her.
The least she could do was stiffen her spine. “Yes. I’m ready.” She carefully slung the pack onto her back, knowing Khan didn’t like being jostled around too hard. He’d already been through enough, the poor thing. They both had.
“You sure it was a good idea to bring him?” Weston asked in his “concerned dad” voice. He was such a cop.
Luke knew better. “There’s no separating those two. She’d sooner leave me at home than she would that cat-dog hybrid of hers.” She smiled, but didn’t bother correcting him. He wasn’t entirely wrong.
They used the key card that Brax had swiped from the girl he’d flirted with earlier to access the building without setting off any alarms. Though even with the easy entrance, there was no time to dawdle.
They dashed to the elevator and picked the floors in question, planning to split up. “You have your terminal numbers and access codes?” she asked, though she knew they would. They were professionals, not about to lose something so important. Still, double-checking put her mind at ease.
Brax took one floor. Chance, the next. Weston exited after him, leaving Luke and Claire to get off the elevator on the floor she used to work on. Again, the sense of past and present overlapping threatened to overwhelm her. She took a deep breath and pushed it aside.
Luke kept watch, using his earpiece to confirm his brothers were in place and had successfully logged into their machines. “They’re in,” he muttered. Claire took a seat, leaving Khan and the pack under the desk. She then opened the laptop and plugged in the precious drive she’d been guarding with her life—the one holding the files Julia had lost her life over.
Something inside her took over. Something bigger than her, some deeper intelligence in her subconscious. So long as she could relax and trust her instincts, she’d be fine.
It was the rest of them she worried about.
“Okay. Phase one.” She clicked the button and let the program run. Each of the computer terminals Luke’s brothers had accessed would appear to be the ones attempting to access the network, to dig deep into the files in which Claire had hidden the video of Julia’s murder.
Meanwhile, Luke used a tablet to monitor the building’s real-time security feed rather than the loop Claire fed to the security guards’ monitors. “They’re unaware,” he reported. “Business as usual.” She only half heard him, now facing the almost impenetrable layers of security put in place to stop her.
Almost impenetrable...but not entirely.
“Phones are cut,” she whispered. “There’s no communication out of the building. Radio frequencies jammed, too.” Luke reported this to his brothers, confirming the next phase’s completion. Even if the security guards caught wind of their presence, they wouldn’t be able to call the police or request backup from Ballard’s cronies. There wouldn’t be any communication among them, either.
However, there was the risk of one of them trying to check in with another for some other reason, and she knew it. They would probably confirm all was well at the quarter hour and more likely at the half, and they’d know there was a problem when their radios didn’t work.
It was twenty-four minutes past.
Was that sweat trickling down the back of her neck?
“How’s it going?” Luke whispered behind her.