Page 38 of The Rough Ride (Sanctuary, Inc. #3)

I llusia hurled the vase of daisies at the marble fireplace. Shards of broken glass scattered across the gleaming wood floors of the open living area. You fooled me, Liz Nelson. Shame on you.

She touched the locator on her phone to be certain and looked around for her black running shoes.

That vase was only the beginning of the destruction if Liz’s phone pinged a location again.

And ping it did. She enlarged the screen, and traced the map.

The phone was in Nick’s building. She slumped onto the bench in her small foyer and closed her eyes.

Logically, if the phone had been in the purse she’d seen on Liz’s shoulder in the parking lot, and Liz died in the blaze, then the phone should’ve melted right alongside her.

From the vantage point she’d had through the binoculars, Liz didn’t have even a second to heave the purse aside and scream save my new iPhone.

Illusia frowned. Gallows humor was not her forté.

Liz lived, and that was an unacceptable outcome.

Period. Illusia hadn’t come this far to accept defeat.

She’d need to work smarter to complete the assignment Jazz had left behind.

The diary on his computer specifically stated that if he died overseas and Liz lived, then she, as his sister and only living relative, would need to avenge his death.

She would not deny her brother his last request. Not when Jazz had sprung them from the endless system of foster homes they’d grown up in when they were only sixteen.

He’d supported them both by hacking. He’d always had at least three new identities in his pocket and even paid for her beauty school tuition with some dead guy’s credit card.

And yeah, Jazz’d been a little extreme in his attitudes about women, the government, and the military, but still, he’d been the greatest freaking brother on earth . Guilt swarmed her body, and she groaned. She hadn’t even been there to help him when he’d needed her at the end.

Illusia stood, rolled her shoulders, and stretched against the wall, taking a deep breath.

She’d figure this out. Nick’s place wouldn’t be a piece of cake to infiltrate.

He’d invented a new layered alarm system with sequences that randomly shifted and rearranged.

She’d captured the sequence a few times, but two seconds later, it had updated and locked her out.

And forget about obtaining blueprints of the building.

She’d tried. The building inspectors acted like they didn’t exist anymore, considering it’d been built in 1910.

Even the guy she’d promised a little something-something couldn’t uncover anything on the recent rehab.

Like the place was some kind of urban Camp David.

She would get in eventually. But that required the luxury of time she didn’t have.

She yanked Jazz’s military duffle from the front closet and planned while she packed.

Balaclava, rope, handcuffs, loaded gun, black tape, blanket to cover the body, sensors she’d need to read the security system, extra cell phones, voice distortion equipment, climbing rope, rooftop anchor.

Shit. She hated climbing and heights.

She slipped into a black ensemble, including her custom-made jacket with the protective pockets for her electronic notebooks, and thought a minute. This might take a while. She crammed extra chargers into the big pockets and found her black lipstick. She’d need it in the dark.

While the coffee brewed, she stuffed her curly hair into a black cap.

With thermos in hand, rope slung over one shoulder, and Jazz’s duffle weighing down the other, Illusia avoided the elevator and trotted down the service stairwell to her parking garage.

This time, she’d succeed in eliminating Liz Nelson.

Because—fool her twice—shame on her.

Illusia drove past Nick as he pulled out of the lot and turned left in a hurry. Within seconds, he was gone.

She drove the block a few times before parking in the darkest corner of the lot behind his building. She put her sun shield across the front window to keep the motion sensor lights and cameras from detecting her before she got to work.

Liz’s phone pinged from inside the building. Hmm. Nick had left her alone. She checked his location. He’d entered the highway. Good. He wasn’t on a short run for Chinese food or something. Even so, she’d work fast. No telling where he was going or when he’d be home.

She didn’t want Liz calling Nick for help tonight.

She’d make sure of it. She contacted the chip she’d left in Liz’s phone at the zoo and tapped disable phone.

On second thought, Liz wouldn’t need the phone from now on anyway.

She may as well erase the damn thing . Illusia cocked her head and thought a few seconds.

Sure, it was spiteful, but what the hell ?

She tapped erase memory . If only she could’ve erased Jazz’s mistakes this easily, he would’ve come home, and they’d be working together again.

Illusia set up her tablets and got to work. She’d investigated Nick’s security one other time and navigated quickly, casually leaning toward the side window to peer up at the fourth floor. Not a light on in the place. That had to be a smoke and mirrors effect, because Liz was definitely in there.

Just like the previous time, the security grids were spaced every few inches or so and rotated constantly.

Illusia checked her watch. They were shifting every four seconds.

She scanned the four entrances on her monitor.

There was the main lobby, a side entrance that led to the service elevator, and two entrances in the underground parking garage.

Last time, she’d tried to crack the code for the parking garage and couldn’t get in. Tonight, she wouldn’t give up until she strolled inside one of the first-floor doors or Liz came out.

Illusia slammed the notebooks shut and scooted down in her seat as the high beams from a sports car on the road illuminated her parked car. It was probably some neighbor, because Nick didn’t have tenants.

During the next half hour, she isolated the security grid and endeavored to freeze it.

The second she caught the sequence, the grid shifted from vertical to horizontal or vice versa and shut her out.

Nick’s system had the unique quality of unpredictability.

It never repeated an algorithm. She slammed the notebook against the steering wheel and took a deep breath.

The feds could learn a thing or two from Nick’s program. Their programs lumbered along like cyber manatees, changing only when challenged by an intruder. Nick’s setup never stopped moving. It was like trying to catch grasshoppers.

She grabbed her coffee and sipped. A joint would really help her narrow her focus, but she didn’t dare open the windows. And the last thing she needed was a clambake rendering her useless instead of a few mellow tokes.

She shook her head. There’d be no climb up the building tonight either.

If she could even get the fire escape down, the stairs contained an electric current similar to the precision of a large dog’s collar.

Same thing with the windows and rooftop.

And she’d bet her life that he’d replaced the old windows with bulletproof glass, because hey—Nick was just enough of a detailed freak to do that.

But Illusia hadn’t earned her reputation by giving up.

There had to be vulnerability somewhere.

She poked and prodded for anything she might have missed previously.

There was a possible back door she’d ignored during her searches thinking it a dead end.

She backtracked through a dozen saved pages and found the spot.

One line in the system sat inactive. She worked on it for a few minutes and turned it on. The pulses resembled an old phone or intercom system. A quick search for public info on the property stated it had been a sewing machine factory in its heyday and converted to office space in the 1970s.

For the next ten minutes, Illusia traced the old cables to the fourth floor and activated them.

They fired right up. But the only way she’d know if the wall boxes were intact was to listen and see if she heard anything.

She clicked the first circuit and nothing.

She tried the second and heard the faint sound of a hairdryer in the distance.

When she checked out the third circuit, footsteps echoed on a wood floor.

Illusia snatched a pad and made notes on which circuits worked and those that didn’t.

She was a freaking genius. Yes, sir, the truly intelligent in this world adapted to their circumstances and overcame.

If she couldn’t get in the building—she’d motivate Liz to come out.