Elise said, “go over and open the safe. I need to keep you both in my sight.”
Elise had a look in her eye.
Lucy followed Jonathan to the safe. “Was this worth it, Jonathan? Was setting Sean up worth all this?”
He looked at her. “Yes. I only regret that I couldn’t prove to you that he’s no better than any of them.” He waved his hand toward Elise.
Elise laughed. “That’s funny. Open the safe, Mr. Senator.”
Lucy had to call in the FBI. They should be close, if they’d been listening.
Of course they were listening.
She gave the code phrase.
“Jonathan, I love my husband. I will never forgive you.”
How long was it going to take? Where were they? How many of Jonathan’s men would attempt to stop them?
Jonathan put his finger on the safe and it clicked.
“Back off,” Elise said. “How do I know you don’t have a gun in there or something?”
She kept her gun aimed at them and walked to the safe. Looked inside. “Wow, fabulous. Good-bye, Lucy.”
She pulled the trigger.
The bullet hit Lucy in her chest, pushing her to the ground and knocking the wind out of her. If she hadn’t had her vest on, she would have been in serious trouble.
“No!” Jonathan screamed and rushed Elise.
She fired twice, hitting Jonathan both times.
Lucy struggled to pull her gun from her rear holster. She watched as Jonathan staggered backward, his chest red. She aimed at Elise and fired three times in rapid succession. The third bullet hit her in the face.
Elise fell to the floor, dead.
Lucy crawled over to Elise, pushed her gun away though she was clearly dead, then crawled over to Jonathan as she fought to catch her breath.
“Jonathan,” she breathed awkwardly. “Stay with me. Oh God, dammit! Where is everybody?”
She put her hands on his chest, trying to stop the blood.
His eyes were wide.
“Lucy.”
“Where’s Sean? Dammit, don’t die! Where’s Sean? Please, Jonathan—please tell me. I love him so much. Tell me what you did to him.”
“You. Don’t need him.”
His eyes closed.
“Don’t you die! Don’t you dare die!” She shook him. “Tell me where Sean is!”
“Monique,” he whispered. Blood dripped from his mouth. “I love you, Monique. Forgive me.”
“No!” she screamed.
She hadn’t heard SWAT burst into the house, but they now came through the library doors. Steven Pierce led the team.
“Kincaid! Are you shot?”
“He wouldn’t tell me. Dammit! Jonathan!”
One of the cops checked his pulse then shook his head.
Lucy jumped up.
“Kincaid, you’re bleeding.”
“It’s his. She shot me in the vest.”
It hurt and it would bruise, but it didn’t hurt a fraction as much as her heart right now. “We have to find Sean.”
Though the radio, Pierce ordered his team to search the grounds for additional hostiles and one hostage.
“We got most of his team, if not all of them. No one engaged us. They put down their weapons as soon as we approached. One unconscious suspect in the garage. We think she hit him with a shovel. One unconscious woman in the kitchen. Ambulance is on their way. Do you need a medic?”
“No. Let me search the house.”
“With me,” Pierce said.
They started downstairs and were halfway down when Pierce got a call on the radio. “Sir, I found something, come to the gatehouse at the front of the garage stat.”
Lucy followed Pierce out and they walked briskly across the courtyard to the gatehouse, right outside the interior gates.
It was a security room. Cameras were everywhere, inside and out, rotating images on four screens. “I don’t know how this works, they rotate, but this one”—he pointed to one—“will show what you need to see.”
The next thirty seconds nearly killed Lucy as she waited, staring at the screen, as it rotated through five second shots of multiple places on the property.
Then, there was Sean.
He was chained in a prison. An actual cage, somewhere on the property.
Pierce relayed this discovery to his team. No one had found it yet.
“Where’s Colton Thayer?” Lucy asked.
“Detained in the garage, we have a man on him,” Pierce said.
Lucy went out; Pierce followed. He didn’t try to stop her. “We’ll find him—there are only so many places he can be.”
She went to the garage. Colton was leaning against the wall, eyes closed, blood caked on his head.
He looked at her. “The senator.”
“Elise Hunt killed him. Where is Sean?”
He didn’t say anything.
“You were his best friend. You did this to him? Locked him in a cage? Framed him for murder? Why?”
“Jonathan loved you, Lucy. He knew you’d be better off without Sean. We all would have been better