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But one person remained silent. Frankie watched me, frowning.

I knew what she was thinking—I still intended to break into Remington’s house. I wasn’t going to risk him staying on the main floor to take that call, and she knew me well enough to figure that out.

Sometimes, it sucked having to insist on an unpopular strategy.

Before everyone dispersed, I asked everyone to sit down. “I need to say one more thing. While you and your black bags of technological wonders totally rock, Mike, we can’t plan only for a best-case scenario that Remington takes the call in his living room or kitchen. If he goes upstairs to his office or bedroom, or even down to the basement, we’re sunk.”

“Which means you still want to break into his house,” Jax finished, getting right to the point. Guess he knew me pretty well, too.

I wasn’t going to sugarcoat it. “Yes.”

“I, for one, don’t like that scenario at all,” Bo said, frowning. “Think about it. Remington’s house is a fortress. He has a decent security system, and before you interrupt to remind me that we could hack it and disable the alarms on his windows and doors, we still have to expect they’re going to be locked. So, even if you disable the alarms, his cameras would still likely be recording video that’s difficult to intercept or disable. His outside cameras would see you coming and send an alert. He’d be waiting for you when you entered the house, or he’d call the police before you were even in. Let’s face it, Remington isn’t stupid.”

That was, in fact, the longest speech I’d ever heard Bo give. I could feel the sincerity and concern in his voice. As I scanned the team’s faces, it was obvious he’d laid it out clearly for them, too. Now, I had to use all my persuasion powers to make my case.

“I know that, Bo. But it still doesn’t change the fact that we need someone on the inside.”

“Is it really worth the extra risk, Angel?” he persisted. “If so, we’ll support you, but we don’t want you to get hurt. Remember, Remington would love to get his hands on you, too.”

“If we’re keeping it real, I’ve seen you sneak around,” Kira said. “Let’s just say that agility and stealth are not two of your better qualities.”

She had a point butouch, that hurt. My face burned in shame, but I spoke firmly. “Thanks for pointing that out, Kira, but Ihaveto do this. We must cover every contingency, so I’m going in to make sure we don’t miss hearing that conversation. Since it’s my mom, it’s my risk. I know that any of you would volunteer to take my place, but this is my responsibility. Going insidewillbe a part of our operational plan. As team leader for this operation, that’s my call.”

I paused, waiting for the argument, but none came. Either the team had decided, correctly, that they couldn’t budge me, or they’d just decided to go with it.

Relief swept through me, so I forged ahead before anyone changed their mind. “Okay. Now, all we need is a plan that includes listening from outside and inside the house.” I sat on the couch and opened my laptop, pulling up some files. “I downloaded the photos of Remington’s house and garden. My initial idea was to approach the house from the back, sneaking in through the neighbor’s yard and trying the doors to his kitchen and off his deck. If those are locked, I could break the small window in the door to the garage and unlock the door. As far as I can tell, it’s not alarmed and should be distant enough from the house to not be heard.”

The group herded around me, trying to see the photos.

“What if the door between the garage and the house is locked?” Jax asked.

“And how would you avoid the security cameras covering the kitchen and deck doors?” Bo asked. “If this is your plan, then my assessment of the risks has gone up exponentially.”

“Come on, give me a break, guys,” I said, exasperated. “I’m thinking on the fly. I’m open to suggestions. I can imagine a half dozen ways to break into his home computer, but this James Bond stuff is new to me.”

“If it were James Bond, there wouldn’t be much sneaking around,” Wally sniffed. “His plan would involve tuxedos and a shaken, not stirred, martini, the evidence of which would be destroyed after he set off the bomb he’d hidden in his ballpoint pen.”

I rolled my eyes at him when Hala leaned over my shoulder to look at the house photos. She tapped something on the screen. “Guys, I see something that might work.”

Chapter Thirty-Two

ANGEL SINCLAIR

I zeroed in on the end of her pointing finger. “The trellis?”

“The trellis,” Hala confirmed. “We could climb it and use the window above it to enter the house. If we come into the backyard at that small gap in the fence, we could potentially avoid detection by the two cameras in the back. We could stay low behind this line of bushes, and it should get us within forty feet of the house. We could then use the black silicon cloak to mask us for the short distance to the house.”

“That’s brilliant,” I said. “It doesn’t appear there are any cameras on that side of the house either, so my climb would go undetected.”

“Your climb?” Wally repeated. “You’d be detected when you fell off it.”

I glared at him, but he was right. Iwasthe least qualified person in the room to climb that trellis. But I wouldn’t let that stop me.

“I’m not going to fall off.” Wally didn’t look convinced, but he didn’t comment further.

“An additional benefit of using a trellis is that most houses are alarmed only on the first floor and the basement,” Mike mused. “Second stories are assumed to be out of reach and are typically not alarmed.”

“Good observation,” I noted.