the past? Would it change who she was or what she wanted? Would it change what she felt for Rafe?
She already knew the answer to every question running through her mind. For the first time since she’d heard the news Doug had lived through that crash, she was able to think clearly.
The Furies meant nothing to her. She wasn’t in this for the prestige or to prove Doug’s theory correct. They were a trophy, one she didn’t need and didn’t even want anymore. The money wasn’t important. Whether Doug was alive or dead didn’t change how she felt. The only thing that really mattered was the man she’d let walk out the door because she’d been too stupid to stop him.
Heart pounding, she glanced at her watch. She still had time. If she radioed Billy, maybe she could stop Rafe before he went after Tisiphone.
She slammed the refrigerator door and turned.
Then stopped cold as ice blue eyes peered back at her.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Stone’s Coral Gables estate sat amid a grove of palms just off Biscayne Bay. A sliver of moonlight cast shadows over the grounds. Dark clouds had rolled in from the east, bringing a brisk evening breeze that whistled through the palm fronds and swept over the beach.
Across the bay, the lights of Key Biscayne twinkled in the dark. Rafe grimaced at how close they’d been to Stone all this time. If Lisa had known Stone was only a few miles away, would she have come to him in the shower? Would she have made her move at all?
He pushed the thought aside and refocused. He couldn’t think about Lisa now. He needed to concentrate so he could get this job done.
He’d waited in the shadows until Billy had signaled that Swanson had left the grounds in a green Mercedes. Lights burned in the east wing. A shadow passed in front of a first-floor window. House keeper, he knew from his research. Probably watching CSI at this hour. The rest of the sprawling house appeared quiet and dark.
He shook off the strange feeling of dread that had been dogging him all afternoon and moved silently across the grounds. Staying in the shadows, he reached the corner of the building, turned and pressed his back against the wall. “In position,” he said quietly into the microphone.
“Gotcha,” Billy replied in his earpiece. “You’re clear until you reach the second-floor balcony. Camera’s perched in the corner just above the door. You’ve got twenty-two seconds once it sweeps away.”
“Copy.”
For all Billy’s shortcomings, Rafe was glad he was here. He’d come through for him in the Bahamas, had been nothing but focused when they’d been planning the job, and now he was sitting in the van parked across the street from Stone’s main gate watching Rafe’s back. When something mattered, the kid was a stickler for details. A sense of pride swelled through Rafe.
He pulled the pack from his back, unzipped the pouch and extracted the rope and attached grappling hook. He tossed the hook over the balcony rail and pulled until he met resistance. After replacing his pack, he looped the rope around one hand and pulled himself up the wall, using his feet for traction.
He reached the veranda and hauled himself over the edge, then checked his watch. He counted seconds in his head as the camera took a long sweep. The machine clicked and whirred and turned the other direction. Rafe darted around the corner, pressed his body against the side of the building and slithered into the shadows, pausing directly under the camera to extract his tools.
The glass balcony doors were to his left. A camera scanned the entrance to the house, then swept across the space once more. Rafe hesitated a fraction of a second and said his usual prayer that Pete’s connections would come through for him. Not once in all the years they’d worked together had Pete ever let him down. He hoped this wouldn’t be the first. Fifteen seconds later, he was inside the second-floor office suite, closing the door at his back without a sound.
He paused to let his eyes adjust to the dark, to tune in to the building. Ventilation fans whirred almost soundlessly in the ceiling. A clock ticked on the wall across the room. If he’d tripped a silent alarm it would only be a matter of seconds before he was discovered. His adrenaline spiked. Familiar excitement prickled his skin.
“I’m in,” he said into his mike.
“Third floor,” Billy replied in his ear. “Northwest