Part 11 (1/2)
She had just gotten into bed when she heard the faint, but unmistakable sound of gla.s.s breaking. She sat up, heart pounding. The sound had come from someplace downstairs.
She flew from the bed and took the stairs two at a time. She couldn't be certain, but she thought the sound had come from the back of the house, in the living room area.
As she entered the living room she turned on the light switch and saw movement at the French doors that led out to the patio. The pane of gla.s.s next to the door lock was broken out. Apparently that's what she'd heard shattering.
She didn't hesitate, but ran to the doors, unlocked them and threw them open. In the shadows of the night she saw a figure racing away. Without conscious thought, she took off after the dark figure.
She ran as fast as she could, surprised that she gained nothing on the intruder, who flew like the wind. When she was halfway to the high wall that surrounded the perimeter of the compound, bright floodlights lit the area enough for her to see the figure leap to the top of the wall then disappear over it.
She slowed, her breath coming in labored gasps as she realized by the time she reached the wall, the intruder would be long gone.
”Lynn!”
She whirled around to see Nick running toward her. ”Somebody tried to break into the house,” she gasped as she tried to catch her breath.
He touched her arm, his features as hard and set as she'd ever seen them. ”Are you all right?”
She nodded. ”Whoever it was is gone.” She pointed toward the wall. ”He went over the top.” She drew several more deep breaths, then continued. ”I've never seen anyone so fast. It was inhuman!”
Nick stared at her for a long moment, but before he could say anything else to her, several other security guards came running toward them.
His gaze raked the length of her and he tightened his grip on her arm. ”Scan the perimeter then go back to your posts,” he yelled to the approaching men, then looked at her once again. ”Let's get you inside.”
It wasn't until that moment that she realized how skimpily she was dressed. The silk nightgown clung to her, making her look almost naked with her nipples hardened by the night air and her exertions.
She was grateful he'd kept the other men away. She didn't mind Nick seeing her in this condition, but she certainly didn't want any of the other men to see her like this.
Together they walked back to the house. ”What I'd like to know is how the intruder got past the security cameras,” he said more to himself than to her.
Lynn said nothing. Her mind whirled with troubling thoughts. At least she knew now she hadn't been paranoid. She'd sensed somebody watching her and somebody had been out there. But who? And why would they want to get into the house?
And who could run so fast...as fast as she could?
When they reached the French doors Lynn excused herself to run upstairs and get a robe as Nick studied the broken gla.s.s.
Minutes later when she returned, he'd positioned a piece of wood over the broken pane of gla.s.s and stood at the edge of the patio, staring out into the darkness. ”I need to check the security tapes, although I was sitting at the desk watching the cameras and didn't see anyone come or go over the wall.”
”I'd like to go with you,” she replied. She wanted to know how somebody had managed to slip past security. She needed to see if the cameras had caught a picture of who had been on the property.
She followed him around the side of the house and to the shed that served as security headquarters. Lynn had never been in the shed before and was astonished by the elaborate bank of monitors that lined one wall.
”The cameras monitor the front gate and all along the perimeter of the compound,” he said. ”There are a total of twenty cameras.” He pointed to one of the monitors. ”That's the one that should have shown me our intruder going over the wall to escape.” He pushed several b.u.t.tons on a large console.
”I know it sounds crazy, but when I got out of my car and was walking to the front door, I sensed somebody nearby,” she said.
He frowned thoughtfully and sat in the chair in front of the control panel. ”We got here around eleven-thirty, and if you sensed somebody hanging around, that means whoever it was came over the wall sometime before eleven-thirty.”
The picture on the monitor began to rewind, small numbers in the corner providing a time stamp. ”Is everything recorded?” she asked, wondering how many times they had recorded her leaving the premises for one of her middle-of-the-night retrievals.
”Yeah, everything is on a seventy-two-hour loop, so the recorded images are kept for three days, then the tape is recorded over.” He stopped the tape. The time stamp in the corner read 10:00 p.m.
”Can you tell by this picture where exactly he went over the wall?” he asked.
She frowned and studied the frozen picture intently. ”There,” she said and pointed. ”It was just to the right of that tree.”
Nick fast-forwarded the picture and they both watched the screen. Lynn gasped as the dark figure appeared and seemed to fly over the wall.
Nick stopped the tape, rewound it and played it again. He played it a total of three times, then stopped the tape and turned to Lynn. ”I've never seen anyone move that fast in my life. What do you think-male or female?”
”Hard to say. With the mask and all it could be either.” Whoever it was had been wearing black clothing, and with the darkness of night it was hard to discern a distinctive body shape.
”We see how he got out, but we don't see how he got in.” Once again Nick rewound the tape and they watched it in fast motion, beginning at eight in the evening. Nothing. Nick checked all the camera angles, but they couldn't find out how the intruder had entered the premises.
A muscle ticked in Nick's jaw. ”There must be a flaw in the security. And the only way an outsider could know about a flaw is if they studied the entire system or somebody from the security team identified the flaw and told them. Both situations concern me.”
What concerned Lynn was the speed with which the figure had shot across the lawn. Lynn had never met another person in her life that she couldn't outrun...until now.
”So what happens now?” she asked.
He leaned back in his chair, a frown furrowing his forehead. ”I need to write a report and talk to Jonas and see what he wants to do.”
”When I spoke to him this morning, he said he wouldn't be contacting me for the next few days and I wouldn't be able to get in touch with him.”
”Did he say when he'd be back here?”
She nodded. ”He said he'd be back sometime on Monday.”
”Then I guess I'll talk to him when he returns.” He swiped a hand through his thick, dark hair. ”In the meantime, I'll add a couple of extra guards to walk the perimeter during the nighttime hours.”
His features were taut as his gaze once again raked over the length of her. ”You were foolish to chase after him.” There was anger in his gaze coupled with the heat of a deeper emotion.
”I didn't think. I just reacted. I had just gotten into bed when I heard the sound of breaking gla.s.s.” Every inch of bared skin p.r.i.c.kled beneath the heat of his gaze.
”I know there's a panic room in the house. You should have immediately locked yourself inside and called for security.”
Lynn thought of the small room that was hidden inside Jonas's bedroom closet. The bulletproof, fireproof panic room was another of Jonas's whims.
She wasn't going to argue with Nick, but there was no way she'd lock herself into that tiny room and wait for help to reach her. She suffered from just enough claustrophobia that the very idea caused her skin to crawl.
She would much prefer to depend on her physical skills and face head-on whatever danger might be present, instead of hiding in what felt far too much like a small, steel-enclosed coffin.
Nick stood and held out a hand toward her. ”Come on, I'll walk you back to the house. There's nothing more that can be done tonight.”
She allowed him to pull her up from her chair, and together they left the shed and walked to the back of the house. She saw several guards in the distance, walking the perimeter of the back wall.
When they reached the back door he turned to face her, his gaze solemn. He reached out and grabbed the ends of the robe belt and pulled them to tighten the robe around her. ”Promise me you won't ever do anything so foolish again,” he said. ”I don't want anything bad to happen to you.”