“Mati? Is everything all right?”
“Reese,” Mati gasped, her voice distant and muffled, as if she held the phone away from her mouth. Something about the house. In the house…
“Mati?” Reese said again, louder. He spun toward Rupert, his heart pounding.
“What’s wrong?” Rupert asked.
Reese shook his head. “Mati? Matilda, are you there?”
Rupert took Eleanor from Reese and passed her off to Mike, his eyes never leaving Reese’s face.
Reese could hear someone running and a door closing. He was about to call Mati’s name again when she spoke in a furious whisper.
“There’s someone in the house. There’s someone in the house with me. I don’t know what to do.”
Reese’s heart stopped. Panic crawled over his skin like ants, like fire. He couldn’t breathe.
Strong fingers dug into his arm. “Reese,” Rupert barked sharply.
Fuck, he had to help Mati. He had to keep her safe.
This is all my fault.
He swallowed back the bile rising in his throat and turned to Rupert. “Call the police. Get them to the house as quickly as possible. Tell them it’s a home invasion. Then I need your tablet.” Rupert took off toward his office. Reese turned to Callum and Alexei next. “Go get Hodges. Now. Tell him to bring his tablet.”
Alexei and Callum tore from the apartment.
“Mati, where are you?” he asked, trying to keep his voice calm.
“At the house,” she said sharply and maybe like he was a moron.
“No, I mean where in the house.”
“Upstairs. I ran up the back stairs when I realized someone had gotten in. I was in the kitchen. I hit the panic button on the alarm box by the back door.”
“Good. That’s good. The silent alarm will have alerted the police. Rupert will tell them what’s happening.” Reese thought furiously, trying to imagine what the hell was happening. “Do you think you were followed?”
“What?” she cried.
“Hush,” he said as gently as possible. “Don’t shout, sweetheart. Okay? What room are you in?”
“The back guestroom. The one by the servants’ stairs.”
The one that had a single exit. Reese swore under his breath.
“What?” Mati asked and it sounded close to a sob.
“Nothing. Tell me more, okay? Do you think the person in the house with you knows you’re in that room?”
Mike quickly gathered the children and moved them toward the kitchen. Reese closed his eyes, hoping he hadn’t frightened the boys. He’d thank Mike later for pulling them away.
“I don’t think so. I don’t think he saw me,” Mati said quietly. “But maybe he heard me run? Or close the door?”
Reese silently agreed, while hoping that wasn’t the case. He told himself to stay focused on what he could do. What he could fix. “He…you’re sure it’s a he?”
“I think so?”
“And there was only one?”
She told him what she’d seen and heard.
“That’s good. I’m glad you were in the kitchen and not in your office.” He couldn’t stomach the idea of her caught somewhere she couldn’t escape. “Can you hear anything now? Can you tell where he is in the house?”
“No. I don’t know.”
He shuddered to think the bastard could be outside the door listening. He didn’t say that, not wanting to frighten Mati more, but the odds were good that the guy knew she was there. Reese had heard the door shut over the phone. The house was big, but the intruder could easily have heard it, too.
“Mati, sweetheart—”
He cut off when Alexei burst through the door with Hodges right behind him and Callum bringing up the rear. Hodges had his tablet in hand, scowling at it as he ran to Reese. Everyone gave Hodges enough room to operate but crowded close.
Reese looked at the screen, and there, standing in the middle of his office, rifling through the papers on his desk and yanking out drawers, was the man Mati had described.
“Okay, Mati, I can see him on the cameras now.”
“You can?” Mati asked.
“Yes, Hodges and I can access the security system from anywhere.”
“Why can’t I do that?” she asked.
Reese smiled. Rupert thought Reese was a control freak, but he had nothing on Mati.
“We’ll see you get access as soon as we get back, okay? But right now, we need to get you safe.”
“Okay,” she whispered.
His heart ached at the shake in her voice. Hodges dug his elbow into Reese’s side, and he saw the tablet screen was split and now also showed the kitchen. A second man was walking toward the back stairs. He was much shorter and stockier, but, like his partner, he wore dark clothes and a ski mask.
“Mati, I want you to go out into the hallway, as quietly and quickly as you can, and head for the master bedroom. Do it now.”
Hodges added the upstairs hallway camera and they watched Mati poke her head out of the bedroom door. Her glasses gleamed in the light so Reese couldn’t see her expression well, but he was achingly aware of how small she looked. How short—though she’d insist the correct word was petite.
On the other half of the screen, the stocky man mounted the back stairs.
Mati looked up at the camera at the end of the hall. “Are you sure I shouldn’t go back downstairs?”
Reese didn’t want to tell her why that was a bad idea for fear of panicking her further. He just said, “Go to my room, Matilda. Please. Right now,” as firmly and urgently as he could without yelling.
“Oh, no. I can hear footsteps,” she whispered back. She still wasn’t moving. Her voice was hoarse and shaky.
Reese’s heart broke. “Yes, my love, and we can see him headed toward you. Please hurry. You have enough time.”
Reese didn’t breathe until Mati took off down the hallway. He noted with relief that she was barefoot, instead of wearing her usual towering high heels.
He looked at Hodges, who cocked his head and mouthed, my love?
Reese pinned his eyes back to the tablet as Mati slipped into the master bedroom and closed the door. The stockier man popped into the hallway a second later.
“We need to distract them,” he muttered to Hodges.
Rupert ran out of his office with his tablet. “The police are on their way.”
Unfortunately, that still meant they were at least a half-hour out.
Hodges took the tablet from Rupert and handed his to Reese. Reese gripped it with both hands and watched Mati’s pursuer step into the back bedroom. The one Mati had just fled. Reese cursed the fact he didn’t have cameras in the bedrooms. So what if it would be creepy as hell? It would be worth it.
When the man didn’t reappear, Reese guessed he was doing a thorough search. For Mati or for something else, Reese didn’t know.
“Mati, very soon I’m going to ask you to run down the front stairs and into my office.”
“What?” she asked breathlessly. “Why?”
Reese looked at the group of men surrounding him. Two knew. The others didn’t, but it wasn’t like Reese’s eccentricities would be news to them.
He sighed. He’d begun to believe it had all been for nothing. That he had been needlessly on guard and overly cautious for all these years.
Guess not.
“I have a panic room. A safe room. In the bookcase wall.”
“What?”
“Just…trust me. It’s going to be okay. We’re going to get you into that room, and you’re going to lock yourself in, and you’re not going to come out until I get there, okay? I’ll make sure you’re safe.”
“Okay. I do. I trust you,” she said firmly.
He swallowed hard. “Thank you.”
His stomach lurched when the man stepped out of the back bedroom and into the one across the hall, one room closer to Mati.
Reese pressed the phone to his shoulder. “We really need a distraction.”
&nb
sp; He ignored the varying looks of alarm and sympathy on everyone’s faces. They would feed his panic.
“What about the intercom?” Mati asked.
Reese brought the phone back to his ear. “What?”
“You said a distraction, right? The old intercom system still works. If I say something into this box here, I can make it sound like someone is out front or in the kitchen, right?”
Hodges loaded the house’s automation system onto Rupert’s tablet.
“That’s a good idea,” Reese said. “But I don’t want you to say a word, Mati. We can do that from here.”
“You can?”
He felt guilty for not having shown her how much Hodges had tricked out the house, but he shoved that aside. It was an oversight he would correct—if she was willing to stay with him after this. If he should even ask her to.
He shoved aside that thought, too, as it made him nauseous.
He looked at Alexei. “When Hodges hits this button,” he said, gesturing at Hodges’ screen, “can you shout something like, what the hell are you doing in my house?”
Alexei looked totally freaked out but he nodded.
“In your thickest accent?” Reese added.
“Sure?” Alexei agreed, now freaked out and confused.
Hodges nodded, no doubt understanding what Reese was thinking. They’d talked through a lot of contingencies, but had never once considered how they would respond if neither of them were home but someone else was, let alone someone as precious to them as Mati.
“What do we have in the kitchen that can make noise, aside from the intercom?” Reese asked, racking his brain.
Hodges shrugged. “Some appliances?”
Reese nodded. “Okay, do them all. Ready?”
Alexei stared back wide-eyed.
Good enough.
“Mati,” Reese said, his voice gentle and even, “stay by the door. When I say go, I want you to run down the front stairs and directly into my office. Don’t stop and don’t look back. When you get there, go to the right of the fireplace, and one of the bookcases will swing open.”
“Are you for real?” she whispered furiously.
“I am.”
“Okay,” she agreed, clearly dubious.
Reese nodded at Hodges, and together they watched for the guy to come out of the second bedroom. The guy on the first floor was still searching Reese’s office, including peeking behind the paintings.
The safe is in the floor, asshole, Reese thought with satisfaction. There was no way this guy would find it.
Reese saw a shadow move across the bedroom door on the other video feed and held his breath.
The man stepped out of the bedroom and Hodges hit the button for the intercom.
Alexei’s voice boomed, his Russian accent thick. “What the fuck are you doing in my house! Get out of here, you motherfuckers!”
Both men spun toward the back of the house. Hodges’ fingers flew over the screen, and the blender, of all fucking things, turned on.
The man in Reese’s office ran.
Reese smiled grimly when the trash compactor and dishwasher kicked on. As a defense strategy, it was pathetic, but it was doing the job. He switched to the front hall camera in time to see one guy sprint by. Hodges pumped his fist in triumph when the man in the upstairs hallway took off for the back stairs.
He’d barely disappeared into the stairwell when Reese said, “Run, Matilda. Run now.”
Mati ran.
She flung herself into the upstairs hallway and took off for the main stairs, sailing down the first three steps before getting a decent grip on the banister to fly down the rest.
She heard strange noises coming from the kitchen, and a Russian voice boomed, “I can seeee youuu!”
That would have been really creepy if Mati didn’t know Alexei’s voice. She swallowed back hysterical laughter as her feet hit the freezing cold floor of the front hallway and she almost landed on her ass.
She clutched the newel post for dear life, got her legs under her, straightened her glasses, and sprinted down the hallway toward Reese’s office.
Reese. She put the phone back to her ear and gasped his name.
“I see you, Mati. I see you. You’re doing great.”
A door slammed somewhere behind her, followed by the echoing thump of running feet on the slate in the front hall.
Her knees turned to jelly, but she kept running, bursting through the door into Reese’s office. She went straight for the fireplace.
There was no fucking door.
“It’s there, sweetheart. On the right. Do you see the crack?”
Apparently, she’d made that observation aloud.
She was almost to the wall, the footsteps getting closer in the hallway.
There. One bookcase was no longer flush to the wall. She thrust her fingers into the gap and pulled.
The bookcase, and the heavy steel door to which it was bolted, swung open.
“Get in!” Reese shouted. “Get in the room!”
She leaped inside, trying to close the door behind her. A hand wrapped around her wrist. Mati let out a helpless and terrified whine.
“Pull his arm in with you,” Reese shouted.
She did, jerking her arm hard to try to wrench it free.
“Close it!” Reese ordered. “Not you, Mati! Keep your hands free of the door.”
“But—”
The door swung closed on its own, fast. She stumbled back, barely getting herself clear of the thick metal door jamb while still trying to pry the fingers from her wrist.
The door pinned her assailant’s arm with a loud crack, his fingers going instantly slack. His bellow of pain and outrage was cut off when he yanked his arm back through the door and it sealed shut with an ominous clang and a series of thuds as the deadbolts engaged.
Mati stood staring at the steel wall, her panting loud in the sudden silence. She wobbled on her feet, staggered by fear and relief.
What the fuck just happened?
She looked down at her hand, still holding her phone. She brought it to her ear.
“What the fuck just happened?” she asked, her voice hoarse.
Reese sounded like he was breathing as hard as she was. “You’re okay. You’re safe. You’ll be safe in that room. It’s going to be okay,” Reese repeated, possibly trying to convince himself as much as her.
“I’m okay,” she agreed. “I’m safe.”
Reese let out a ragged sigh.
Mati spun slowly, searching the room, her eyes catching on the bank of video monitors on one wall. She saw a man standing in the front hall, waving his arms wildly at the door as if to say, “We gotta go!”
A second man, squatter and somehow more menacing, cradled his arm outside the small space in which she was entombed.
She stepped away from the door. She’d been in the house with not one but two intruders. And Reese had saved her ass.
He’d also called her sweetheart, and, if she hadn’t hallucinated it, my love.
All of which she would have to think about later.
“What now?” she asked.
“Look behind you,” he said.
She turned and found the camera in the upper corner of the room. She waved.
Reese snorted. “Rupert, Callum, Hodges, and Alexei are waving back.”
She smiled. That made her feel better, for some reason.
“We don’t have the sound on, so only I can hear you through the phone, okay?”
“Yeah, no. That’s fine.” Better, really. They didn’t usually speak to one another in such soft, sweet voices. She’d rather keep it between them.
“Are you okay? Are you injured in any way?” Reese asked.
She took brief stock. “No, I’m fine.” Other than having aged a decade in five minutes.
“If you discover you’re hurt, there’s a first aid kit in the cabinet.” He waited for her to open the large armoire, where she discovered not only the first aid kit, but food, a laptop, and beddi
ng for the cot in the corner.
She poked through it all and laughed. “An Xbox?”
“Well, one does need entertainment when they’ve locked themselves in,” Reese said mildly, though she could hear the vulnerability hidden beneath.
She could always hear it.
“Have you spent a lot of time locked in here?” She hadn’t dared ask stuff like that when she’d started working for him, back in the days when he rarely left the house. But they’d gotten closer. And he’d gotten better. She hated the idea he might have ever felt the need to lock himself in here to feel safe.
“None, actually,” he said. “You’re the room’s first occupant, if you don’t count regular visits to make sure the food remained edible and to do updates to the electronics.”
She was relieved. “I promise not to break any of your toys.” She grinned at the camera and brandished an Xbox remote. “But I will crush your high scores.”
Reese laughed. “Go ahead. Trash the place.” Then his voice got quieter. “Just, please, don’t leave that room until Hodges and I are there. Not even when the police arrive. They won’t know you’re in there until we show them, okay?”
“But you’re in Moncton.” Which was a five-hour drive.
“I know. It will only be a few hours. Maybe less. Hodges is working on chartering us a plane. I’m sorry. I know it’s not fair. But…I just…I need to know you’re safe until we get there. Please?”
Mati turned her back to the camera and their audience. The please would have been enough to convince her, but the fact that Reese was willing to get on a plane told her how important this was to him, how important she was to him. She didn’t want everyone, including Reese, to see what was showing on her face right then.
“Of course. I can do that,” she promised.
“Thank you,” Reese said with a sigh of relief. “Hodges and I are headed to the car. I’ll stay on the phone as long as I can, then you can call Rupert or whoever you want. Your mother, if you like.”
“No, I’d rather—”
She stopped. Maybe they’d been honest enough for one day.
“Matilda, please tell me. Whatever you want.”
God, she loved the way he said her full name—another way he’d become the exception to every rule. “I’d rather you call me back when you can,” she said in a rush. “I’d rather stay on the phone with you the whole time, if that’s okay?”
Breaking Out Page 2