door. The mic was jammed into my chest and would be a source of a significant bruise if I survived this. I closed my eyes, praying the mic and I were hidden enough to avoid detection if he looked inside.
I could hear Remington walking around the room and the creak of the leather chair as he sat down. “Did she see him, or was he wearing his mask and voice modulator?”
There was a short stretch of silence. “Good. Well, at least he did one thing right. If she’d seen him, we’d have had a bigger problem on our hands. Make sure you keep your mask handy, too.”
I closed my eyes. Had my mom tried to escape and failed? At least she was fighting back and working hard to get away.
“Serves her right for trying to escape,” Remington said. “This is an important wake-up call for us. We need to get this wrapped up as soon as possible. The longer we keep the bird, the greater the risk.”
The chair creaked as he shifted his weight in it. “Unfortunately, I’m having trouble getting the message to the target. I’m also being stonewalled by Candace. She gives excuses, but I’m concerned she might suspect something. We may have to take another approach, and soon.”
The room fell silent before Isaac snorted. “How could two sixteen-year-old girls disappear like that? Camping? I don’t like it. This entire situation must be wrapped up in the next forty-eight hours or we discard the bird and move on the next target. I don’t care if we have to go to Brazil to do it. That would complicate things, but the bird’s death would be a message Sinclair wouldn’t miss. Wondering what we’d do next will cause him as much pain as he’s caused us for the last fourteen years.”
I pressed a hand over my mouth in horror. That piece of slime had just confirmed he had my mother, and he was now threatening to kill her and go after my sister, Gwen, who was in Brazil on a work assignment.
I’m not going to let that happen.
Terror gave way to anger. I wanted to rush out of the closet, pummel his face, and force him to tell me where he had my mother. Instead, I stayed in place, my fingers tightening around the microphone, imagining it was his neck.
“No,” Remington said. “I’ll call you tomorrow morning from a different phone. I’ll buy some new burners on the way to work. Stand by for the next instruction.”
The chair creaked as he stood up. I held my breath, flinching when he banged the closet door shut and walked out of the study, snapping off the light. Plunged in darkness, I sat there trembling from the close call.
I wasn’t sure how many minutes passed while I stayed wedged behind the cabinet, afraid to move a muscle. Finally, Wally whispered in my ear, “Target is in the master bathroom. Now might be a good time to get out, before he goes to sleep. I had to turn the alarms back on or he might have noticed something funny when he went to set them before he went to bed. Go out the window and I’ll temporarily disable the alarm again. But make it fast.”
“Okay,” I breathed, hoping he could hear me.
I quietly unwedged myself from behind the filing cabinet, cracked open the closet door and stepped out, careful to push it closed. I tiptoed across the room to retrieve the backpack from under his desk. My hands were shaking so badly, I could barely disassemble the mic and zip it in the backpack. I had to pull myself together or I’d fall out of the window, or off the trellis. Either way, I’d break my neck.
I stood listening in the dark, a few steps from the window and safety, but didn’t hear anything. The burner phone lay on the desk where he’d left it. Stepping carefully, I made my way to the window and slid it up noiselessly. I carefully climbed onto the ledge and found my footing on the trellis, pulling the window back down behind me. I just hoped Remington wouldn’t notice the unlocked latch in the next forty-eight hours. There wasn’t anything we could do about it now.
I began the nerve-racking climb down the trellis, praying I didn’t misstep. When I got closer to the ground, I saw Bo and Jax waiting for me with the cloak. I’d never been so glad to see them.
When I got closer to the