Page 68 of Critical Strike
She turned to the keyboard and clicked the key to continue the decryption program. Luke had asked her to put it on pause—for once, she shouldn’t have listened to him. They were losing valuable time. Every second she wasted was one more second in which the Patterson brothers risked their lives.
If anything, starting the process again would mean drawing security away from them and toward her.
Could she stand that? Could she take that onto herself?
“Yes,” she decided. “Because they’re doing this for me.” Khan meowed, signaling his agreement.
Every second lasted an hour. Claire’s gaze darted back and forth between the tablet and her screen. Luke had vanished from sight.
She couldn’t breathe. Her lungs wouldn’t take in air.
No, there he was. Darting up a flight of stairs, hugging the wall. Weston was behind him. The pressure in her chest lessened.
But they weren’t out of the woods yet, not even close.Those guards must have cloned themselves,she decided. They were spreading everywhere.
Just another minute. Maybe two. That was all they needed.
Her head snapped up at the sound of a door closing. She held her breath. Her muscles froze, like the first few seconds after waking up from a nightmare.
Only this was no nightmare...this was very, very real. And somebody was on the floor with her.
Her head might not have moved, but her eyes did. She looked down at the tablet and could still see Luke, Weston. Chance. Brax.
It wasn’t one of them.
One of the guards? There was no telling how many of them existed, so it could’ve been one of them. The progress bar crept so slowly. Could she stall?
Footfalls. Closer now. Tears filled her eyes, but she found the ability to move in time to knuckle them away. There was no time for tears.
What would Luke do? What would he want her to do?
She turned away from the computer with her hands raised, blocking the screen as best she could with her body.
Her heart stopped when she saw who she was facing.
No wonder he’d moved so slowly. He’d been playing with her. Again.
“Hello, Claire.” Vance Ballard flashed the sort of smile he usually saved for the media with his Mr. Good Guy persona. “You have no idea how hard I’ve been looking for you. How you’ve inconvenienced me. And I don’t enjoy being inconvenienced.”
“You don’t look surprised to see me,” she whispered. Every ounce of her wanted to look at her screen, at the tablet, but she didn’t dare take her eyes off him.
Only an idiot would take their eyes off a snake when it slithered its way closer.
“That’s because I’m not surprised.” He came to a stop, his feet planted and arms folded. With his chin raised, he looked at her over the tip of his nose. “I didn’t buy that whole fake death for even a second.”
She gulped. What did that mean for Arellano’s wife? And why was she worried about either of them right now? “Y-you didn’t?”
Tipping his head to the side, he looked like a disappointed parent. “Oh, come on, Claire. We both know you. You aren’t brave enough to face down two armed law enforcement officers without there being another plan in place. The moment those two nitwits came to me with the news, I suspected you had something up your sleeve.”
“You could’ve come after me right away. Could’ve put my name back on the news, offered a larger reward—”
“No. That wouldn’t do.” He shook his head. “You had to believe that I believed it—which meant releasing that detective’s wife, as much as I hated doing so.”
At least that part had worked. “Why let her go?” she asked. “If you knew it was all a trick?”
“Detective Arellano had outlived his usefulness—and I couldn’t run the risk of him alerting you. I let him leave town with his wife, let him leave and never come back. I don’t care very much.” He snickered. “It’s not like anyone would believe his story anyway...”
Where were the guys? Where were the guards?