Chapter 7 · The Break-In (Megan)

Megan lay on the floor, listening to her heart pound like a drum.

Reed crouched and slid along the wall, gesturing for her to crawl toward the kitchen. She crawled past the dining table, her knee hitting a chair leg, and she bit her lip to stay quiet.

The back door burst open.

A flashlight beam swept in. From the kitchen angle, Megan saw a pair of mud-caked boots step through the door. She held her breath.

“Mr. Colter,” a man’s voice filled the room—a deliberately fake politeness. “We know you’re in there. Hand over the box and we’ll leave.”

It was Cole.

Reed didn’t make a sound. Megan saw him pressed to the wall, slowly circling behind the old bookcase in the living room.

The flashlight swept the floor, swept the fireplace, and finally settled on the kitchen where she was hiding.

“Come on out, Ms. Harper,” Cole said. “Our boss doesn’t want to be rough with a lady.”

Megan’s hand found something on the floor—a cast-iron skillet. She closed her fingers around the handle.

The flashlight got closer. She could hear boots crunching on the broken doorframe.

Just then, Reed burst from behind the bookcase.

What Megan remembered later was only chaos: the flashlight spinning on the floor, the two men crashing into the dining table, chairs flying, the fire spitting a shower of sparks from the impact. Reed was half a head shorter than Cole, but he’d trained in close combat at the FBI. He threw Cole over his shoulder and slammed him onto the floor.

But Cole hadn’t come alone.

A second person stepped through the door. Megan recognized him—the Blackwoods’ driver, a silent man who always wore a gray jacket.

In his hand: an iron pipe.

“Get down!” Reed roared.

Megan didn’t hesitate. She swung the skillet with every ounce of strength she had and hit the gray-jacketed man’s back knee. He grunted and went down. Reed seized the moment, hauled Cole up from the floor, and twisted his wrist behind his back—

“Get out.” Reed’s voice was low as thunder. “Tell your boss the evidence is already out there. He’ll never find it.”

Cole was breathing hard. He stared at Reed for a long time. Then he smiled.

“Evidence?” he said. “Mister, you think a few waterlogged sheets of paper are going to do anything? Our boss is having dinner with a state senator this week. You want to guess who gets this case?”

He wrenched free of Reed’s grip and got up off the floor. He glanced at Megan.

“Little girl,” he said, “your grandfather knew how to behave. You don’t.”

The two of them backed out the door. The car engine turned over and drove off.

Megan’s legs gave out and she sat on the floor.

Reed walked over and crouched in front of her. His lip was split, a line of blood running down his chin. But the way he looked at her was the softest she’d seen in the days she’d known him.

“That move you just pulled,” he said. “Beautiful.”

Megan only then realized she was shaking. Not from fear—the kind of full-body activation she’d never experienced before. For the first time, she didn’t feel like the one being protected.

Reed reached out and brushed a smudge of ash off her cheek with his thumb.

His fingers stopped on her cheekbone.

Neither of them moved.

Outside, the rain started again.