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CHAPTER ELEVEN

O n the second floor, Charles led Alyssa to an office. The room was wider than it was deep with floor-to-ceiling windows along the back wall interrupted only by glass French doors in the center that led out to a narrow balcony overlooking a rear garden.

Bookshelves lined the wall to her right adjacent to the windows.

On one side of the room, an antique desk faced the door, a leather rolling chair behind it. The desk held three screens, angled toward the chair, which would block the view of whomever worked there from the rest of the room. Perhaps that was why the two nearby chairs were situated in front of the windows to the side of the desk instead of across from it.

On the opposite wall, a redbrick fireplace rose to the ceiling with built-in shelves on either side. A cozy-looking couch and two club chairs were arranged in a little seating area in front of it. There were a couple of tufted footrests and side tables that held vintage lamps. She could picture a tabby cat curled on the rag rug in front of the hearth, flames dancing merrily inside.

Under different circumstances, this library would be the perfect place to relax and read a book.

Sadly, Alyssa wouldn’t be doing much relaxing.

There was nothing personal, though. No photographs, though that made sense. This was a rental house, after all. But also, no open books. No pens or notepads. She imagined it looked exactly as it had when the decorator had drawn it up.

“This is a lovely space.”

“Indeed. I hoped you’d like it.” Charles closed the door. “The computer equipment is ready for you. I wasn’t sure what you’d need.” He gave her a self-effacing smile. “I should have asked. We had a few things lying around, and I sent my driver to the computer store to get what I didn’t already have. So the iMac is brand new. I hope we haven’t missed anything.”

She walked around the desk and settled in the rolling chair, scanning the equipment. To go with the three state-of-the-art screens were a desktop PC, an iMac, and a laptop.

He settled into the chair by the window that was nearest the computer. “I trust this will be suitable?”

“I won’t know for sure until I power everything up—and until I know what you want me to do.”

“If you find you need something, simply let me know and I’ll have it delivered immediately.”

“Okay.” She pressed power buttons to get the systems running, then checked the different systems’ specs. These were better than anything she had at home.

Or had had at home, considering the break-in the night before.

It felt like a week had passed since then, not less than a day.

She swiveled to face Charles. “What is it you want me to do?”

“Straight to business. I like that.”

“Caleb and I have plans, so I don’t have a lot of time. The sooner I get started?—”

“I understand.” He pulled something from his breast pocket and held it out.

She took the small piece of paper and studied it. It was an embossed business card with Charles’s name, a cell phone number she recognized, a website, and a logo bearing the letters SJSS.

“What’s this?”

“Among my many businesses, I own and operate a security company. We provide protection for high-value and well-known individuals—A-list actors, owners of multimillion-dollar businesses, politicians, and the like.”

“You must meet some interesting people.”

He brushed off her remark as if it weren’t relevant. “Some people hire us because they’re paranoid. More people hire us because they want to seem important, though there is little true threat. But sometimes, we are tasked with protecting people who are legitimate targets. We have one such assignment coming up next week.”

He paused, perhaps expecting her to ask who the client was. And then he’d tell her he couldn’t say. She wasn’t one to follow a script. “Okay.”

“We have reason to believe there’s a vulnerability in our system. As you can imagine, it’s very important that no bad actors gain access to our schedules and plans. It’s even more important that they don’t gain access to our drone system. We always use drones for overwatch. If somebody were to hack their way into those drones, they could redirect them or even upload bogus video to hide behind.”

“You want me to check your system and make sure it’s secure.” Seemed like a simple enough job. She’d done similar work for corporations in the past.

Footsteps sounded on the hardwood, then voices carried down the hallway. Callan asked a question about the house’s owners. He sounded fine, which meant he hadn’t been taken to a back room and roughed up or threatened.

Alyssa missed the housekeeper’s response, but she felt better knowing he was all right.

Charles waited until their voices faded. “When you find a glitch, it’s very important that you identify each step you used to get there. We need to know about every vulnerability.”

A sick feeling churned in her stomach.

Why had she thought this might be a legitimate job? The man was a terrorist. He wasn’t looking for problems to fix.

He was looking for vulnerabilities to exploit.

She turned her attention to the screens, hoping her epiphany didn’t show in her expression, and navigated to the website on the card.

It led to a typical corporate home page. There was nothing that identified what SJSS stood for, but that didn’t matter.

If she didn’t know who Charles Sanders really was, what would she do now?

She’d never made a habit of praying when she worked. After all, why ask for God’s help when you could do the job all by yourself?

She didn’t stop to consider the arrogance of that thought.

Father, help me know how to handle this. I need words and wisdom now so I don’t give away that I know who he is.

She found a drop-down menu, clicked to the About page, and read a short history of the security business and the names of its founders.

A quick perusal told her what she’d already guessed. “I don’t see your name here.”

“I like to keep a low profile. Those are the people who run the company. I am an owner.”

“Hmm. The thing is”—she turned to face him—“for all I know, you’re asking me to hack into a rival’s company in order to do damage or glean proprietary information.”

She wasn’t sure what she expected. Feigned shock or insult? Defensiveness? Anger?

She definitely didn’t expect the way he settled back against the chair, comfortable as could be. “It seems to me that your best course of action right now would be to trust me. We both know you’re going to do this job for me—you’ve already agreed. And I’ve already transferred a sizable amount of money into your bank account.”

What did he mean by sizable? She reached for her phone to check her bank balance, but the driver hadn’t given it back.

“We hadn’t come to terms on this job yet.”

“You won’t be disappointed.”

“I already told you”—she gestured to the center screen—“I won’t do anything illegal.”

He smiled. “Of course not, Alyssa. I would never ask you to. This is a standard job. You look for open doors and show me where you found them so my team can close them up.”

He was lying. She knew he was lying. He knew she knew he was lying. And yet…

And yet, he was convinced he had her. He’d put money into her account. She was here—and her fiancé was too. From his perspective, she was trapped.

She could refuse, find Callan, and walk away. Theoretically, she could contact the authorities and tell them everything.

He would deny it, of course.

Leave the country.

And disappear, which he’d done often enough, according to Michael.

But would he do that before exacting revenge on her? Doubtful.

More to the point, would he let her leave before she completed the task? Certainly not.

He was betting she would do as he demanded.

She looked past him, out the leaded windows that distorted the world beyond. “He can never know.” She met Charles’s eyes. “Caleb wouldn’t understand. And my family… You would have no way of knowing this, but my father spent years in intelligence. It’s critical that nobody ever finds out.”

“You have no reason to fear me, Alyssa. You will keep quiet about what you did, and I will certainly never tell a soul.”

“That means you have to let Caleb do whatever he needs to do. He brought his laptop, and he needs to work. You’ll let him work, right? Otherwise, he’s going to get suspicious.”

“My security people will look at his laptop. As long as they find nothing concerning, he’ll be free to work.”

“And our phones?”

“Yes, yes.” He brushed off her question. “When you’re finished with this—and when you’ve found the name of the Russian. How long do you think it will take?”

“Too soon to tell. I’ll let you know if I need anything.”

His lips quirked at the corners as if he found her dismissal amusing.

She focused on the website and got to work, ignoring Charles’s presence beside her.

She had no idea how to play this. She couldn’t give him what he wanted. And she couldn’t not give him what he wanted.

Despite the ergonomic chair, the cozy space, and the cheerful spring garden outside, there was nothing comfortable about this.