Forsaken Duty (Red Team #9)(40)

“Right.” Owen crossed the room and opened the closet, which was nearly half again as large as the boy’s room. Shelves of dormant toys, well worn and much loved, sat in creepy silence. Owen shined his light over them, wondering if any of those were toys that his own son had played with.

“See anything?” Troy called from outside the closet.

“No.” Owen poked around any likely hiding spot, opening cabinets, shoving aside lower racks of clothes. Stepping back into the main room, he shook his head. “No monsters there.”

And then a sound that made the hairs lift across Owen’s neck slipped into the room—a quiet tick-tick-tick sound tapping on the window—the second story window.

Troy gasped. “See?”

“Probably just something hanging loose outside.” He walked over to the window. Pulling the drapes open in a fast motion, he came face to face with a floating black shape.

A drone…with a machine gun suspended in the center of it.

“Shit.” He ran toward the middle of the room where Troy stood exposed. He dove on top of him just as bullets began to pepper the room, shattering glass, sending debris everywhere. He commando-crawled out into the hallway, dragging Troy with him. He wanted to get to Addy’s room, terrified she was going to run into the gunfire. She almost did just that as she hurried into the hall.

“Get down, Addy,” Owen shouted and waved her down. “Get down now!” He dragged Troy with him, like a tiny soldier he was pulling from a battlefield. She slumped down against the wall, reaching her hands out for her son. Owen shoved the boy at her, then gripped the side of her face and pressed her all the way down.

“Do you have a panic room?” he asked, shouting to be heard.

She nodded.

“We need to get to get into it.”

The blaze of gunfire had stopped. He’d noticed it had followed them a short way down the hall. Either the drone operators knew who was in which room, or they were tracking their heat signatures, which meant it was only seconds until they came over the roof and started blasting through the glass conservatory ceiling into the corridor where they were.

“Let’s go.” He took Troy and pulled Addy to her feet, rushing them into her room. They slipped into her dressing room. Addy used a biometric panel to open the door just as gunfire resumed in the hallway, causing an explosion of shattered glass. Owen shoved them inside and closed the door behind them.

Her panic room was right where Owen thought it would be, accessed from inside her dressing room. It had a biometric lock, one only Addy could release, which she did by looking into what appeared to be a standard mirror. A blue light came on inside a glass armory—a smaller version of the one in Jax’s room. Owen shook his head. Typical Jax to be over-prepared. Just who was he prepping to fight?

The small room was fully stocked with water, MREs, and medical supplies. There were two sofas and a bathroom in there as well.

“Wendell changes out supplies from time to time. Oh, my God! Wendell.” She turned panicked eyes on Owen.

“He’s probably fine, sheltering in his own panic room. I’ll find him.”

He opened the case and took out a Mossberg tactical pump-action shotgun. He loaded the magazine, then filled his pockets with several more rounds. He pumped it once to chamber a round.

“I hate banshees,” Troy said, watching him solemnly.

Owen put a hand on his shoulder. “That wasn’t a banshee, son. It’s a drone—a machine run by bad guys somewhere. Nothing mystical about it.”

He took his phone out of his pocket, turned off its security, and left it on a shelf. “If I don’t come back, call Kit Bolanger.” He wrote Kit’s number down.

Addy’s eyes went wide. She hurried over to him. “Owen—”

He caught her face and bent close to say, “I love you, Addy. Never forget that. No matter what happens. No matter who says what.”

“Don’t go out there.” She grabbed his forearms. “We just have to wait them out. They’ll be gone by daylight.”

Owen shook his head. “No one comes to a place where I am and shoots at women and children. Besides, I have to find Jax and check on the staff.” He looked at Troy. “This time, I expect you to follow my order and stay here with your mom.”

“Yes, sir.”

Before he could leave the safe room, the door opened. Jax stood there. “Anyone hurt?”

“No,” Owen said.

“What the fuck was that?” Jax asked.

“A drone. Did it fire at you?” Owen asked.

“No.”

Owen stepped out of the panic room into Addy’s dressing room. “Close it, Addy.” He looked back at her as she shut the door. When he heard the bolt click, he said to Jax, “Let’s find that drone and destroy it. The staff safe?”

Jax gave him a little grin and looked over to Spencer, who was standing with a pistol pointed at the floor. Troy’s nanny was only a few steps behind the butler. “The staff are all part of my crew.”

“Great.” He’d suspected as much. “Don’t know how many drones are out there or the current position of the one that shot at us. It could be inside. Be prepared.”

Jax took Addy’s room. Spencer took her office. Before Owen and the nanny moved down the hall to the other rooms, they checked to make sure the drone wasn’t in the conservatory waiting for them. In the poor light, it was hard to tell. Someone downstairs flipped lights on in there. Owen saw a couple more staff members move into that space.