Spy Games (Tarnished Heroes #1)(79)

“Yeah, sorry, I’m not willing to bet their lives on your honor.” She had to think of something. She glanced from Wei to Ping.

Think.

Where would Rand go? After keeping her safe, what were his priorities?

He’d want to get the protocols back, and that meant coming for her. But he’d also likely know the danger her family was in if they remained at home. Therefore, it wasn’t completely unreasonable to think that he might go there to root them out and on the road before gathering his friends to take back the briefcase.

Sarah couldn’t imagine a world where she mattered more than the company or Rand’s job. Whatever it was they had, whatever their feelings were, they had to come second, no matter how it hurt to know that.

“I’ll give you half the code now, then half when that thing is out of their house and my family is safe.” She licked her lips.

The first half could be correct. The second half didn’t have to be.

Ping stared at her. Could he see her deception in her eyes? Did he know she only meant to be half honest with him?

“Wei? See to it.”

The man’s footsteps clanked on the ground, growing softer, more distant until she could feel more than hear him.

“You’d better be telling me the truth, Ms. Collins.” Ping leaned forward, his gaze sharp, predatory. “You won’t like what happens if you lie to me.”

“I’m not lying.” She swallowed. “Got a pen?”

It wasn’t as if a code was all they needed, anyway.

Please be there, Rand. Please…





Chapter Eighteen


Rand hefted himself up the electric pole with nothing more than a thick climber’s sling.

The red light mocked him.

Someone was watching the Collins’ house, and Rand was willing to bet it was the same people who’d stolen Sarah from him.

Cold rage narrowed his field of vision to that last two feet of space.

The sky was light enough that he could see the camera plainly…and the transmitter perched atop the pole.

Bless the Collinses for turning into nosy neighbors. Sarah’s dad had remarked to Matt about so much work being done on the power lines yesterday. It was too coincidental. Sure enough, the cameras in the house and the transmitter posted on the electric pole were dead giveaways.

“You just about got it,” Andy called up to him.

Yeah, fuckface, I can see that.

Rand grunted and hauled himself up a little farther before dragging the sling up the post. Once it was high enough, he allowed his weight to settle in the sling, testing it a bit at a time until it held him firmly in place.

“Got it?” Andy paced back and forth. They’d identified the cameras on first pass. Neither of them could approach the house without being caught onscreen. Even the most distant lines to the house eventually wound up crossing paths with other cameras.

Rand wished they didn’t need to waste time this way, but they had no other leads. There was no way to track Sarah or the people who’d taken her. Right now, their best bet was to take the transmitter and figure out where it was sending to. Hopefully, that would lead them to Sarah.

He shrugged the bag on his back off one shoulder until he could get a hand into it.

Andy was the guy to go to when gadgets were needed, and he’d come through this time, too. If Rand could position the piggybacking transmitter to the one set up on the pole…they could track whoever was watching the Collins’ house and hopefully find Sarah. Alive.

Rand had to tell himself she was still out there. That he’d get the chance to tell her he loved her. That she was the reason he’d taken the job with the company in the first place, that he was fast losing sight of his priorities because of her.

If Sarah was gone… He couldn’t fathom a world without her in it. Without her poking and prodding him, without her smiles or laughter. He had to find her.

That they could still find her floating face down in the ocean, or not at all. Nope. Couldn’t go there.

“Be very, very careful. You have to get the connections just right.”

“Shut up, Andy.”

Did he want to wake up the whole neighborhood?

People would be up and moving any moment. His parents included, and that was not a conversation he wanted to have right now. How the hell was he going to explain being on the same continent, much less on the street outside their house? With any luck, they were still snug in bed like all the rest of the people, save Matt’s family.

Rand shook the cords free of the transmitter and grasped the end.

One wrong move, and he’d knock it off-line, then the Chinese would know they were on to them. This had to be done very carefully, and here he was hanging by a nylon loop. It all came down to being as careful as possible. No mistakes, no slipping, no nudges.

“Come on, man,” Andy said.

Rand pinched the alligator clip open and stared at the transmitter, the exposed wires. It was a hack job, but likely something they’d done as fast as possible. It wasn’t like they’d had any more time to set this up than Rand had to escape them.

He held his breath and eased the clamp around the wires on one side. There. One side done.

The other side was trickier. He needed to lean forward, which would throw off his balance in the sling.

Rand wrapped his arm around and over the pole, squeezing with his knees. The sling went slack, hanging uselessly down around his thighs. He’d have cursed if he had the breath.