hell was that?”
“Flash grenade. Can you see? I need your help here. Do you know anything about the surveillance system?”
She shook her head to rid herself of the residual effects. Nathan sounded like he was a mile away but at least her vision was slowly ridding itself of the spots. Her head hurt like a son of a bitch.
“What do you want to do? I know a little. Just what my dad showed me and Grace when he set everything up.”
Nathan pointed to the monitor that showed two men stealthily moving into the kitchen from the garage door. She gasped, her mind becoming sharper as she stared at the guns they held.
“I need to get this surveillance to my brothers. Do you have the passwords to the computer system? We have to be quick. I want to upload the footage of these jokers so we find out what we can about them.”
For a moment she blanked.
“Come on, Shea. Think. We have to get out of here. These aren’t your average baddies here. Your high-tech security system won’t withstand a grenade. They’ll just blow a hole in the damn wall.”
“It’s—it’s DLGSP.”
“That’s it?”
“No. No, just give me a second.”
“We don’t have a second, Shea. Give me the rest of it, damn it.”
She closed her eyes and replayed inputting the password. The first letter of each family member’s name in order of age. Then the number of members.
“It’s 4. The number 4 and then Peterson spelled back-
ward. All uppercase. NOSRETEP. The entire password is DLGSP4NOSRETEP.”
Nathan typed in the letters and then entered a series of commands. He watched one of the monitors and zoomed in one of the men, who moved slowly down the hallway toward the panic room. He took a series of still shots and then captured a thirty-second video.
Shea surged forward. “Oh my God, Nathan. The cameras would have caught Grace when she was here! We’d know what happened to her!”
Nathan cursed and muttered under his breath as his fingers flew across the keyboard. “I’ll have to start the upload of that entire day and just hope it doesn’t get interrupted if they blow this place. We don’t have time to babysit it.”
“They’re coming down the hall,” she said urgently. She frowned and leaned forward as one of the men began attaching something to the wall. “What are they doing?”
“They’re preparing to blow their way in here.”
She glanced frantically around, cursing again that she’d dropped the gun when the flash grenade had gone off. She reached for the pistol tucked into Nathan’s back waistband, pulled it out and pointed it toward the wall.
“Come on, come on,” Nathan murmured as he hunched over the keyboard. He pounded a key and then reached for Shea. “Let’s go.”
He pushed her ahead of him and into the tunnel. After they’d gone just a few steps, another explosion rocked the pathway. The walls shuddered and she stumbled.
“Run!” Nathan urged.
They fled down the passageway. She hit the bottom rung of the ladder and started to scramble up, but Nathan grabbed her ankle.
“Get your gun up. I’ll cover you from behind. Don’t hesitate to shoot. I’ll be right behind you.”
She gripped the pistol tighter and then hauled herself up the rungs. At the top she only hesitated a moment before she leaped through the opening and rolled rapidly away, her gun up.
Seeing no one, she called down to Nathan, “All clear!” But he was already pulling himself over the edge.
“Get to the jeep. They won’t be far behind.”
She got up and ran.
When they got to where Nathan had parked the jeep, to her surprise, he directed her toward the driver’s seat. “How are you behind the wheel?”
“I can drive.”
“You’ll know the area better than I do. Get us the hell out of here and I’ll try to keep any heat off us.”
She jumped into the driver’s seat, still holding the pistol in her left hand. She keyed the ignition and roared onto the bumpy path leading back to the highway.
“Any particular destination?” she yelled.
“Just keep off the main roads and get us as far from here as possible. We’ll figure out the rest later.”
She spun gravel and dirt in a wide arc when she turned onto the highway. She pressed the accelerator to the floor and checked her rearview mirror for any sign they were being followed.
As they approached the driveway to her parents’ house, a black SUV shot forward to block the road. She slammed on the brakes and jerked the wheel to the left to