Best Laid Plans(122)

Kane had drilled a small hole in the wall and inserted a camera so they had eyes in the room. They also had ears because Sean had a microphone attached to that camera.

He whispered, “They have Lucy. I have to go.”

“No,” Kane said. “Do your job.”

“Fuck you.”

Kane glared at him. “SWAT ETA is less than five minutes. I can’t do what you do.”

“I don’t care about the money.”

“You stay here. I’ll go.”

Lucy was the love of his life; if anything happened to her he would never forgive himself. Or Kane.

“I’m trained for this,” Sean said.

“I trained you,” Kane said. “We can both save Lucy, but only you can do this.” He waved his hand at the computer. “Now do it.”

He left before Sean could argue with him anymore.

Sean could barely focus. He closed his eyes and breathed deeply, then stared at the computer, the numbers rapidly scrolling in front of him. Tobias’s people thought they’d only received three point three million, but nearly eight million had gone through, out of nineteen different accounts. Sean had diverted the difference into the escrow he’d set up, but he didn’t like Tobias and his people having any money. They could do a lot of damage.

It was just Sean on-site until the FBI SWAT team arrived. He sent Leo Proctor, the FBI SWAT team leader, another message, updating him on the status of Everett and the money transfer, plus the fact that Elise was getting ready to bolt.

But he couldn’t just let that little bitch go.

He launched an app he’d written and accessed all phones within range. He had to turn on her GPS before she left the building. He found Elise’s phone on the network through the wireless function, then mirrored her chip on his phone.

Everett changed escrow accounts. Sean hesitated.

“See? It’s going faster now,” Everett said next door.

“Good,” Elise said. “Toodles!”

He heard the door in Everett’s office open. He manually typed in computer code that would turn on her GPS. Even if she’d disabled it, there was a factory setting that allowed the company to blind track their customers. Sean hacked into it and programmed his phone to track Elise.

Then she was gone, and the twentieth escrow account was already drained. Shit! Everett switched to another account, and Sean siphoned off more of the funds than previously, but sent false data to Everett’s system so he’d think he had more money.

Sean had to stay on top of the computer transactions. As soon as Everett changed escrow accounts, Sean had to piggyback on the new transaction or lose it.

It had been next to impossible for Sean to let Elise walk out of the building. But Kane was right—the more money Tobias had, the more damage he could do.

That woman was a psycho.

Every passing minute felt like an hour. Proctor finally sent him a message that they had arrived.

Sean informed him of the change, that Elise had left but Jay was holding a gun on Everett, and Lucy and Brad were being held hostage at Everett’s house, along with the Everett family.



Kane is on his way—if he’s not already there. Give your people a heads up.



He heard nothing from Proctor for a minute. Everett switched accounts and started blubbering next door.

“This is the last one,” Everett said. “There were twenty-four, I swear.”

“There’s supposed to be twenty million. Where’s the rest?” Jay said.

“I don’t know! The computer says you should have all the money.”

“My bank says I don’t.”

Jay. He was Mona Hill’s contact. The one to whom she’d sent the ten-second video of Lucy chained up and about to be raped.

Sean wanted to beat the bastard senseless.

He had to control the rage. He wasn’t an angry person. He’d always been fun loving. Carefree.

Not always. He’d been extremely angry when his parents had died.

And then when he’d been expelled from Stanford because he’d hacked into the computer network and exposed one of the professors as a pedophile.

And then when he’d been at MIT and learned someone was stealing the pensions from retirees.

And when he found the foster kids locked up, malnourished, beaten—and some of them dead—in an old Mexican prison.

Yes, he had rage because he hated bullies. He hated people who preyed on the weak and innocent. Who stole money from old people and abused children. But he didn’t just have angry feelings about these bullies, he acted. Because if he didn’t, who would? The FBI couldn’t stop these people, not all of them. The FBI had known about Lucy’s rapist after the bastard raped and killed one of their own agents, but couldn’t find him for five years. Had they done their job right the first time, Lucy would never have been kidnapped and raped.

And that bastard Jay would never have seen her suffer. Even a ten-second clip was ten seconds too many.

Jay was talking too low for Sean to hear. Sean shut down the network completely to buy more time.

He sent Proctor a message.



Now or never—I shut down the network to stall, but Jay just realized that they’re missing seventeen mill.



Sean closed down his laptop and stuffed it in his bag. He walked over to the peephole and saw Everett frantically typing on his computer.