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CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

A lyssa bent to Peri’s level. “You’ll have a blast at our house with Brooklynn. Your daddy and I will see you soon.”

They were in the country club foyer. The guests had left, and Uncle Roger and Aunt Peggy had taken Gram and Pops, so only Alyssa’s immediate family remained.

The little girl held on tightly. “You promise?”

Alyssa kissed her forehead. “I promise.” She backed away, and Callan swooped Peri into his arms and walked away with her.

Alyssa hugged her sisters and Mom goodbye.

Dad stood a few feet away, watching with a guarded expression. She hadn’t learned what he and Callan had talked about, but she had a feeling Dad knew everything now.

Fear had her approaching slowly. He must be furious with her. And so disappointed. But she didn’t see either of those emotions on his face, only worry.

“Great party, Dad.”

He grunted and pulled her into a tight embrace. “Call me if you need anything.”

Yes, Callan had told him. But…but he wasn’t angry with her.

“I’m sorry you’re involved in this.” He held her tight, so tight, as if he feared letting her go. “You be careful.” His whisper was so low that she had to strain to hear him. “Take care of yourself.” And then, even lower, “You’re important…to me. To our family. I tried to protect you, and…I failed.”

Oh.

Tears filled her eyes, embarrassing tears that he saw when he held her away from himself.

“None of this is your fault, Dad.”

“All of it is my fault.”

What? How?

But he didn’t explain, just pressed a kiss to her forehead. “I love you.”

He was scared. For her.

Her anxiety spiked.

“I love you, too, Dad.” She wanted to ask him to explain, but Callan was waiting at the door, eager to leave.

She joined him for the walk along the pretty grounds to his Mustang.

They were far outside of earshot when she said, “What did Dad say?”

Callan smiled at her but shook his head.

In the car, he talked about the people he’d met, the event, the news they’d shared.

“Your dad grilled me good.” Callan’s laugh sounded authentic. “He was ticked I didn’t talk to him before I proposed. And I think he’s worried it’s too soon, but you can’t blame him for that. It probably feels sudden.”

Callan must've thought the car was bugged.

She didn’t ask where they were going but was certainly curious what he was thinking when they reached the Portland Headlight, an iconic lighthouse just down the coast.

He parked and then took her hand and led her away from the Mustang, but not inside the keepers-quarters-turned-museum, instead wandering around the side of the building. When they were near the shore, the crashing of waves breaking against the rocks below, he told her everything he’d shared with her father, and everything he’d learned.

She struggled to take it all in.

Lavrentiy was a double-agent called Sputnik. He’d fed Dad bad intel that led to the bombing that killed Ghazi’s girlfriend.

Ghazi was still seeking revenge, twenty years later. Somehow, he’d put together the connection between Alyssa’s father and the Russian double-agent.

“Talk about playing the long game,” she said.

Callan faced the churning Atlantic.

Now they knew Ghazi’s motivation, but how could the information help? What should they do with it?

Why now? Why the deadline? Just to keep her from talking? To keep her moving fast, or was there something going on?

“The meeting,” she said. “Monday.”

Callan’s gaze snapped to hers. “What meeting?”

“Dad has to be in DC for something on Monday. That’s why we had the anniversary party today instead of on Gram and Pop’s actual anniversary. Well, that and Dad wanted to do the whole big party. But I remember them talking about it at Michael’s wedding, how my grandparents would’ve preferred a more intimate gathering, but Dad had insisted. He got defensive and finally admitted that he was going to be out of town on their anniversary.” She shrugged. “It’s probably not related, but Ghazi told me he needed the zero-day exploit working by tomorrow, which would give him plenty of time to ensure he knew what he was doing. And since Dad was Sputnik’s handler?—”

“It could be something. We’ll ask your dad about it.” Callan’s expression softened. “I am sorry about the kiss. I wasn’t sure?—”

“No need to apologize.”

He looked away. She tried to read his thoughts in his profile. His jaw was tight, his lips pressed closed. Had the kiss meant more to him than he’d said?

It’d meant way too much to her.

Even if her body survived whatever happened next, her heart was in serious jeopardy.

“Out of curiosity,” she said to change the subject, “why are we here?”

“Leaving the car unattended was a risk.”

“The club is very well guarded,” she said. “I doubt somebody could’ve snuck out to the lot.”

He gave her a look—chin down, eyebrows up. “Always assume your enemy is one step ahead.” He turned his attention to the sea again. “Even if they didn’t bug it, it’s likely they put a tracker on it. I assume they did since I didn’t pick up a tail. I rented a car under another alias, which will be delivered to a hotel. We’ll take an Uber there, and we’ll get a room so you can build the zero-day exploit.”

“The false zero-day.”

“Right. I just wanted to stop here and make sure we weren’t followed. While you’re working on that, I’ll try to put all these pieces together and figure out what happens next.”

Amazing what a strategic thinker Callan was. Alyssa was good at the tech side of things, but her mind didn’t work the way his did, seeing the entire chess board and all the possible moves in advance.

She prayed Callan wouldn’t miss anything. And prayed she could do her part, little as it might be, to keep them all safe.

That thought was still resonating inside her when her phone rang. She showed Callan the screen, then put it on speaker so he could hear. “Hey, Dad.”

“You need to get back here, now.”

Alyssa was used to her father issuing commands. But she’d never heard that tone. He sounded…afraid.

Her stomach clenched.

Callan snatched the phone. “What happened?”

“Their car was ambushed on the way out of the club. With Evelyn and Brooklynn and…and Peri. Jock is dead. Your daughter… Peri was taken.”

* * *

Alyssa drove much faster than was wise on the winding roads.

Beside her, Callan was on the phone. “Now. Take him now!”

Issuing orders to his boss.

Malcolm’s voice was clear and calm over the car’s speakers. “I’ve already contacted law enforcement?—”

“You’re giving him time to prepare!” His shout bounced off the windows and metal in the small car. “Get in there. Get the information.”

“I know what I’m?—”

“This is my daughter!” His voice cracked. “My child. Find her. You have to find her. Do whatever you have to do. Or I’ll do it. He has to tell us where she is.”

Callan was banking on the idea that Ghazi was still in the Brookline house. Malcolm had agents watching the gated entrance. According to them, Ghazi hadn’t left the property.

Malcolm had confirmed that they’d picked up the typical noises from within—the grinding of beans, the steaming of the coffee maker, the ding of the microwave. People’s voices, always talking about nothing important. As if they knew they were being surveilled.

It was that last part that worried her. If Ghazi knew, then would he sit there and wait to be taken into custody?

Alyssa doubted it, but she wasn’t about to say so to Callan, who was already out of his mind with worry. Instead, she drove and prayed hard. She couldn’t stand the thought of sweet little Peri in the hands of those evil, evil men.

It seemed hours had passed since they’d left the country club by the time she whipped the Mustang to the gate. Normally, Dirk would wave her through. This time, he came out of his guard shack, peered into the backseat, then directed her to open the trunk.

He was taking security very seriously, just a little too late.

“We need to get in there.” Callan vibrated with fury and fear. When he reached for the door handle, she slipped her hand around his arm.

“It’s because of Peri. They’re ensuring no other enemies get inside.”

Callan pierced her with a look of murder, with the eyes of a lion whose cub was threatened. Anybody who got between Callan and Peri would not survive.

“I know you’re scared.” She kept her voice low so Dirk wouldn’t hear through the open windows. “But you need to think. Your daughter needs you to think.”

He pulled his lips in, closed his eyes. He shifted to take her hand, gripping it like it was his only hold on sanity.

“You’re all set, Ms. Wright.”

She thanked Dirk and accelerated through the gate and down the long driveway, not letting Callan go. Up ahead, police cars lined the circle drive. She and Callan were about to walk into total pandemonium.

She stopped a hundred yards from the entrance.

“What are you doing? We have to?—”

“Callan.” She used her left hand to shift into Park. “Look at me.”

He did, and the torture in his expression had her own heart ripping in two.

She closed her eyes. “Father, we need You now. Be a shadow over Peri. Wherever she is, let her rest beneath Your divine wings. Direct Your angels to guard her. Be a hedge surrounding her, not just her body, but her heart, her mind, her spirit. Let no harm come to her. You are Peri’s refuge and fortress, even now. Even in this.” Emotion cracked her words. “Lord, You are our only hope. Use our gifts and talents, the information we’ve gathered, the expertise You’ve given us, to guide us to her. Let nothing, nothing prevent us from finding Peri. Shine a spotlight on her, and take us right there. You are able, Father. We trust…” She swallowed a rise of emotion. “We will trust in You. In Jesus’s name, amen.”

When she opened her eyes, Callan was bent beside her, still gripping her hand. “Amen.” He looked up, blinking back moisture.

“You need to focus. I know it’s unthinkable, but you need?—”

“I know. You’re right.” He took a breath, blew it out. And his face transformed from tortured father to something else. Something powerful and beautiful and terrifying. “Let’s go.”

She pulled around the circle drive. There were no waiting valets now, just cops, everywhere.

Dad jogged down the front steps toward them.

Callan opened the door, and she slammed the brakes to keep him from jumping out of the still-moving car.

He charged her father. “You promised me you’d protect her.”

Dad lifted his hands. “I sent them with Jock?—”

“ You were supposed to protect her!” Callan’s shout was loud enough that golfers on the seventh hole probably heard.

Alyssa pocketed the keys and hurried around the car. “Callan, Dad’s not your enemy.”

By the pressed-together lips, he wasn’t convinced, but he stormed past her father and into the building.

She flashed Dad a look, expecting to see anger. But Dad surprised her.

He looked nearly as tortured as Callan.

She couldn’t process that as she followed Callan into the foyer.

Her mother was there, and her sisters. Grant and Summer.

Callan marched straight past them to…Robert?

The club manager’s eyes widened, and he stepped back.

Callan gripped him by the neck, shoved him across the floor and against the wall. “Where is she?”

“I don’t… I didn’t…” The man’s words were choked—literally. Callan lifted him so that his feet barely touched the floor. His face turned a deep shade of red.

“Son.” Dad’s voice was surprisingly gentle. “I trust Robert. Let him go.”

If Callan heard, he made no indication.

Alyssa started to move to Callan’s other side, to try to coax him down, but Grant gripped her arm and shook his head.

What was happening?

Had Callan lost his mind?

Had everyone?

“I won’t kill you,” Callan said. “But you’ll wish you were dead. You have three seconds to decide.”

“Agent Templeton.” Dad had shifted from kind to authoritative. “Let him go.”

Callan moved closer to Robert. “Three. Two. On?—”

“I didn’t know!” The manager’s rough whisper was desperate. “I didn’t know what he was going to do.”

Alyssa gasped, and she wasn’t the only one.

Dad uttered an epithet.

Callan’s knuckles whitened, squeezing harder.

Robert’s eyes widened, the eyes of a man who realized he was about to take his final breath. “I swear.” He had no volume, nothing but scant air.

Grant gripped Callan’s arm. “We need him alive. For now.”

Maybe it was the implied promise, but Callan let up his hold.

Robert crumpled to the floor, sucking lungfuls of air.

Nobody moved to help him.

The marble foyer, the overlarge flower arrangement, the ornate moldings. The foyer was just as it’d been when they’d left an hour earlier.

But everything had changed.

Mom and Alyssa’s sisters must know the truth now. They must know Alyssa and Callan had lied. That it’d all been an elaborate—and useless—ruse.

Summer stood beside them, tall and powerful. Alyssa had secretly admired the tough warrior-woman ever since she’d married Grant. Summer was pregnant, due in a couple of months, but that didn’t make her look vulnerable.

This woman was no less fierce than her husband and Callan.

Callan was breathing hard.

Dad wore a look of utter shock.

Robert was curled in the fetal position.

Nobody spoke, all frozen, waiting to see where the next bomb would land.

And then the bartender from the party stepped into the room on the far side, and Callan’s wild eyes were back. He marched in that direction.

The guy looked like he could handle himself, but he lifted his hands. “I’m with you.”

Dad stepped in front of the man. “He’s FBI. Counterterrorism.”

Callan blinked. “Why? Why are you?—?”

“We’re being investigated.” His gaze flicked to Alyssa. “Both you and me.”

Oh. Oh.

Of course she was. But Dad?

The FBI distrusted them so much that they’d planted an agent at an anniversary party.

Two hours before, that information would have sent Alyssa into a tailspin of terror.

Right now, she was just grateful the FBI was already there. It didn’t matter what happened to her. If she was prosecuted for working with Ghazi… Well, she deserved nothing better.

As long as Peri was rescued, that was all that mattered.

Everyone seemed to wait for her to react, so she said, “Any chance it was you guys who stole my equipment?”

The agent/bartender paused for a long moment, then nodded.

“I assume you haven’t gotten into it yet.”

His lips quirked in an almost-smile. “We’ve had a team working on it for days.”

“Security is sort of my thing. I’ll write down the passwords, but what you really need is a thumb drive.” She pulled the tiny thing out of the lavender purse Brooklynn had loaned her and held it out. “Next time, just ask.”

The man pocketed it.

Dad focused on Mom and Alyssa’s sisters. “Can you wait in the library? I don’t want anyone leaving here. The club is safe right now, but out there…?” His gaze flicked to the glass doors, the police cars lined along the drive. “I know it’s inconvenient, but please, just stay here where it’s safe.”

“We will, of course.” Mom kissed his cheek, then spoke to Callan. “I am so, so sorry. We tried to protect her but…”

“It wasn’t your fault.” He glared at Dad but didn’t say what he was thinking.

Mom squeezed Alyssa’s hand. Alyssa saw no judgment, no anger, just love and concern.

Her mother, who’d witnessed an ambush, who’d probably seen a man shot, was worried about Alyssa. She turned to her other daughters. “Come on, girls.”

Mom and Alyssa’s sisters walked out.

“You too.” Grant turned to his wife. “Just in case.”

“Are you worried about their safety,” Summer asked, “or mine?”

“Can it be both?”

She smirked, then squeezed his hand and followed Mom.

“You, too, sweetheart.” Dad spoke to Alyssa.

“Sure. Okay.” Not a chance, but Alyssa saw no point in arguing. The country club was crawling with police, one of whom was standing guard at the massive front doors.

She made to follow her mom and sisters but waited around a corner until Callan, Grant, and Dad had taken Robert the other direction.

Then she returned to the foyer and asked one of the police officers to accompany her to the Mustang, just in case Robert wasn’t the only person at the club on Ghazi’s payroll.

She grabbed her bag and then went to the locker room to change back into her jeans, T-shirt, and cardigan, then spent a few minutes dealing with the package Grant had given her earlier, thankful she’d thought to pilfer a needle and thread from Callan’s mother’s sewing room. She was no seamstress, but she could make this work.

A few minutes with a knife she’d pocketed during lunch and her shoe-polish-black tennis shoes, and she was ready.

She desperately wanted to find out what was going on with Callan and Dad. Instead, she carried the dress, purse, and shoes she’d borrowed from her sister, along with her bag and Callan’s—with a second thumb drive in his jeans pocket—to the library.

She needed to face the music.

The members who’d been at the club that day had all been dealt with and sent home, so Alyssa’s family were the only people there, seated on sofas and in wingback chairs.

They’d been talking, but when the door opened, they silenced and turned her way.

Mom stood. “Any news?”

Shaking her head, Alyssa dropped the bags inside the door, approaching her mother. Her sweet, kind, generous mother. “I’m sorry I lied to you.” She scanned her sisters, eyes filling with tears for the first time since they’d gotten that terrible call. “I didn’t want to do it. We hoped… It’s such a long story, but I would never have…”

“Precious daughter.” Mom crossed the room and pulled her close.

Alyssa was taller than her mom, but in that moment, she felt like a little girl again. And wished, so wished, her mother could make everything better.

“I don’t know what this is all about,” Mom said, “but I know your heart.” She gripped Alyssa’s shoulders and met her eyes. “You have a beautiful heart. I’m certain that when we hear the story, we’ll understand why you did what you did.” Her smile was tentative. “That was a lovely ring, though.”

Alyssa barked a surprised laugh. “It was.” She shifted her gaze to her sisters, who’d all moved closer. None of them glared at her. None of them seemed angry or upset. Just concerned.

She hugged them, repeated her apology four more times. And each of them, in her own special way, offered forgiveness and grace.

How had she forgotten this? How had she forgotten what it meant to be a sister? A daughter? How had she drifted so far away?

There was no time to analyze her decisions now. If she had the chance, she would fix things going forward.

“I have to go check on Callan.”

“Of course. You let us know?—”

“I’m sorry,” Brooklynn said, “but if nobody else is going to say it, I will.”

Delaney’s eyes widened with worry.

Cici crossed her arms, flashing to the stubborn child she’d once been.

Kenzie grinned.

“Sweetheart,” Mom said, “maybe now isn’t the time.”

But Brooklynn wasn’t having it as she scanned the room, turning to include Summer, who’d remained seated on a chair.

The fierce warrior shrugged and smiled.

“What?” Alyssa asked.

“I’m not the only one who saw it, right? How perfect they are together? Her and Caleb. Or…Callan, you said? Wait.” Brooklynn straightened. “Callan, as in?—?”

“It’s nothing.” But Alyssa’s cheeks were warming. She might’ve mentioned her college rival a few times to her sister back then.

“ That’s Callan?” Brooklynn’s eyebrows hiked. “ The Callan?”

“It’s pretend. It was only…” Was she really going to lie to them again?

No. No, she wasn’t. “Fine. Maybe it’s not completely… It started out as pretend, but maybe?—”

“I knew it!” Brooklynn pumped her hand in triumph. “I told you guys they’re perfect together.”

“It’s not like that.” Unfortunately, Alyssa wasn’t lying now. “He’s made it very clear he’s not interested.”

“So he’s a liar too?” Cici asked.

“Be nice, Ci,” Delaney said. “They didn’t mean to hurt us.” Her head tilted to the side. “It’s because of Peri, right? He doesn’t know how to love both of you.”

Wow. How did her little sister do that? It was as if people’s motivations were stamped on their foreheads. “That’s what he said, yes. He has to focus on Peri.”

Brooklynn said, “But he could?—”

“Who’s been kidnapped,” Alyssa added. “I need to go find out what’s going on. Thank you for understanding.” She squeezed her mother’s hand. “I love you.” Shifting to take in the rest of them, she added, “I love you all, and I’m sorry for…”

“Go, sweetheart,” Mom said. “We’ll be here, praying.”

* * *

Outside the library, Alyssa closed the door, then leaned against it.

Something, something deep inside told her she would never see them again.

Lord, please, please…

Just save Peri. Whatever it takes.

She pulled in a deep breath, blew it out, and set out to find Callan and her father. Whatever they were doing, she needed to know.

She was halfway across the foyer when her phone vibrated in her pocket. She glanced at the number.

Unknown .

But…

She knew who it was. And she knew what he was going to say.

Because there was only one reason for Ghazi to kidnap Peri, and that was to get Alyssa to finish the job he’d hired her to do.

She shifted, moving toward the back hallway, then out onto the patio that’d been the scene of a celebration not long before.

Her phone vibrated again.

She was afraid to answer.

But this was the price for all her foolishness. And she wasn’t about to let an innocent eight-year-old pay it.

She swiped to answer and lifted the phone to her ear. “What do you want me to do?”