Chapter 18

EIGHTEEN

SATURDAY, 1:00 A.M.

Ivy was alive.

Juliette's first instinct was to throw her arms around Caleb's neck and kiss him until sunrise.

Then reality set in. Caleb's lips weren't hers to claim. Back at the marina, he'd made it clear. Despite his confession of being all-in, Caleb's heart would be walled off to her. Forever.

"Do you know where she is?" Juliette asked.

He stared at her with a blank expression, but she could see his thoughts reeling in a thousand directions. He finally nodded but said nothing. Of course he didn't want Juliette to get involved, because in his mind, she was a target. And he wouldn't risk her life.

But when would he learn that sometimes risks paid off? That with great risks came even greater rewards.

Like love.

His words of rejection had stung like a thousand bee stings, but for the sake of Ivy, she wouldn't let Caleb do this alone.

"I'm going with you. And we're doing it my way and involving the police this time," she said, hands on hips.

He nodded. "We'll do it your way." He sat back at the desk and pulled up a map. "Ivy didn't have an exact location, but check this place out. She mentioned hearing trucks and saw a sign about loading docks."

Juliette read over his shoulder. "This place is a warehouse facility that ships goods all over the southeast. We can go stake out the place and see if she's there while we wait for the police."

Caleb stood. "We've got to go. I'll drive. You drive like a grandmother. No wonder you kept the Lincoln Town Car." He snatched the keys from the desk, and before she could protest, he headed out the door.

"I don't drive like a grandmother," she muttered, then chased after him. Had Caleb just made a joke? No, he really must think she drove like an old lady.

She texted Alana and Noelle for backup. They'd both left to get some rest.

He hopped in the driver's seat. "Just so you know," Caleb said as he slid behind the steering wheel and moved the seat back from Juliette's short-person position, "I sent the data to the FBI so their cybersecurity analysts could get to work stopping the program. They have the same information we do."

At least they'd be on the up-and-up this time. She used the speaker on her phone to apprise Matt of the situation so the police could set up a perimeter to catch these guys.

"I'm at the scene of a car accident," Matt said over the phone. "I'll be there as soon as I can. I need to get a warrant, and I'm not sure the judge will approve it without more evidence. But do not approach. Wait for the police." He hung up before they could get a word in.

"They must have convinced Ivy to finish their program," Caleb said. "Her code tried to warn me that the marina was a trap. She probably had no choice but to comply in order to get that message out to me. I just hope we get there in time to stop them from…from…"

"Yeah," Juliette whispered. "I know."

Caleb navigated the Savannah backroads like he'd lived there his whole life. If only he'd talk to her, open up and let her in. But they drove in silence.

When this ordeal ended and Ivy was safe at home, would she and Caleb at least go back to being friends? Or had that ship sunk like an exploded yacht?

He turned onto a road that headed to the warehouse district. A massive building complex spread out over the property with rows of garage doors stretched out for what seemed like a mile. Caleb cut the lights and pulled the car into the wooded area on the side of the street before the entrance to the warehouse. They'd have to stake out the place from here. He pulled off the road as close to the trees as he could for concealment, while still allowing them to watch the activity below the hill leading to the facility.

"We really should wait for the FBI and the police," Juliette said as she texted Matt.

Matt texted back, the three little dots indicating that he was writing a novel.

Getting a search warrant approved. SWAT team is assembling but Decia and I are stuck at the scene of a five car pile-up. Waiting for backup and we'll head your way. ETA fifteen minutes. FBI is also on the way, but it takes time to mobilize. Do not do anything stupid. This means you, Montgomery.

Caleb shook his head. "The hackers are going to kill her. Ivy's only bargaining chip was the program. Now that they've launched it—verified it's doing what they want—they won't need her and will assume that she can identify most if not all of the hackers."

"I know," Juliette repeated. Ivy was expendable. Her phone buzzed with an incoming text.

"Alana and Noelle are a few minutes behind us. Let's at least wait for them." She'd learned her lesson about teamwork. They needed all the manpower they could get.

Caleb unbuckled his seat belt and shifted to face her. "I meant what I said earlier. I'm not leaving you, Jules. Not now or in the future. I can't imagine my life without you in it. I'm so sorry I hurt you with my words. The truth is, I love you. I think I always have. You're worth all of the risks in the world, whether we're together on this planet for an hour or the rest of our lives."

"I love you too, Caleb. I just didn't realize it all those years ago. But we can make up for lost time, right?"

"How about right now?"

The fake leather seat squeaked as he leaned over the center console of the aging Town Car. She mirrored his movements. Her hand entwined with his. His eyes burned with an intensity she'd never seen. The car smelled like her grandmother's perfume mixed with ten years of dust. Their view out the windshield overlooked a warehouse dumpster.

But this moment was as perfect as it could get.

Their lips met over the cracked plastic divider, and her surroundings faded into a blur. Years of longing were satisfied through the taste of his lips. He ran his hand through her hair, drawing her closer to him. She melted against him as he deepened the kiss. Electricity shot from her toes to the tips of her hair.

She didn't have an eidetic memory, but every detail of this moment would remain etched in her memory forever. From the contours of his face to the way his stubble tickled her neck when he kissed it.

She wanted to live in this moment forever. Until a knock on her window nearly sent her through the roof.

Noelle and Alana stood outside the car. She hit the unlock button, and the two jumped into the back seat.

"To be continued," Caleb whispered, still holding her hand.

"Sorry for the bad timing." Alana racked her nine-millimeter Ruger. "But we've got some bad guys to take down."

"Caleb and I were just talking about how we don't have time to wait for backup."

"Yes, we could see you were talking," Noelle chimed in while Alana racked a second gun.

Time to get her head out of the clouds and focus on the mission ahead of them.

"We know they will kill Ivy now that they have what they want." Juliette glanced in the back seat, glad to have friends and coworkers like these two. Always ready to cover her no matter what.

Caleb scrolled on his phone. "I have a map of the interior of the warehouse. This place is a massive online store. Almost seven hundred thousand square feet of space. It'll take us forever to search."

"What if two of us take the front and two of us take the back and start searching?" Juliette eyed her crew. "That way when the police come, we can hopefully have a place to send them. Then we're not sitting around waiting."

They all agreed. Caleb and Alana would search the back, and Juliette and Noelle would head to the front.

Juliette and Noelle crept toward the loading docks. Some of the two-story garage doors had trucks sticking out of them, and others were closed tight. She counted thirty trucks before darkness obstructed her vision, despite the blinding white security lights strategically placed every fifty feet.

Every fifth or sixth loading bay, they'd spot a solid door granting access to the warehouse. Of course, each door had a keypad with a glowing red light.

Noelle nodded at one of the doors—it had a window at the top. She cupped her hands together to boost Juliette up. Too bad Juliette hadn't been a cheerleader in high school, because she wobbled a bit and clutched the minuscule ledge of the window for stability.

She wanted to scream at her disappointment. All she saw were boxes and crates ready to ship. Nothing they could use. Just as she was about to hop down, a light flickered inside.

Juliette watched. Another flicker, but this time someone walked by a door, dead-center inside the warehouse.

Noelle's arms started to shake, so Juliette jumped down. "I see movement inside."

Click. "Should have spotted the movement outside." A man emerged from the shadow of the building with a gun pointed at Noelle's head.

Juliette couldn't make out the man's face in the darkness, but the voice sounded familiar.

The man kept to the shadows, but the gun never wavered. "Well, it's your lucky day. The General thinks you might be useful to us alive. Hostages might make good bargaining chips for our final escape."

The General? Who was this guy taking orders from? Juliette heard footsteps approaching from behind her, but by the time she could turn around, someone had jabbed a needle in her neck. Ten seconds later, her legs gave out and she crumpled to the ground.

* * *

SATURDAY, 2:30 A.M.

This had bad idea written all over it.

Caleb and Alana crept around the back of the property. The giant warehouse complex stretched out as far as they could see. Rows of garages lined the back wall of the building where trucks pulled in to load or unload.

"The police will be here soon," Caleb whispered to Alana. "Maybe we split up to cover more ground."

Alana nodded her consent and rattled off her phone number. Caleb quickly added her to his contacts. "Text me if you find anything," she said. "Don't go in alone. I know you're an Army man, but you wait for me." She stared him down until he nodded.

"I agree we wait for the police before going in." He wanted to be able to give the police something useful to get to these hackers before they killed Ivy.

He pushed out all the worst-case scenarios from his head. Ivy was alive. Every fiber in his body believed this.

After a minute, he lost sight of Alana, who had sprinted to the opposite side of the complex. He checked doors and windows and found nothing. But as he headed up the ramp to one of the closed garage doors, he heard something.

Voices.

Caleb froze. Where were the police? Why was it taking them so long to get the SWAT team in place? He scanned the area. A field with a retention pond lay at the back of the warehouses. Could the police be lining up behind the fence on the other side of the pond?

There were no windows on this side of the warehouse except for at the top of the building. He spotted some small rectangular windows overlooking the interior. If he climbed onto the roof of the parked eighteen-wheeler, he could pull himself up to the window ledge.

Worth a shot. He texted Alana that he'd heard signs of life coming from warehouse number twenty's loading dock. Without waiting for a response, he hopped over the railing of the ramp and climbed to the top of the truck. Light flickered from the window above, and Caleb's adrenaline pulsed. He reached up and grabbed the ledge. If he made it out of this alive, he vowed to hit the gym more often, because hoisting himself up to the ledge was basically the equivalent of a pull-up. And he hadn't done pull-ups since basic training.

He sucked in a breath and planted his feet on the wall, hoping for some leverage to propel him up. His arms shook, but once his forearms crossed the threshold, he grasped the wrought-iron bars covering the panes of glass. He swung his leg up and over the ledge. His breath came in gasps. The ledge was probably a foot deep and three feet wide, giving him just enough room to stand and take in the expansive warehouse floor below. The place was filled with rows of metal storage racks that held a variety of packaged goods ready to be shipped out. Caleb's perch provided a view over the tops of the shelves.

Where was Alana? He checked his phone and realized the message hadn't gone through. Evidence that he was in the right place, since the hackers liked to jam all signals in or out so they could control communication. This had to be where they were keeping Ivy hostage.

In the middle of the warehouse, there was a walled-off section that looked like offices. A man opened a door at the far left end, and Caleb caught sight of the room filled with monitors and computer equipment.

Jackpot . This was Rushmore's lair. In the middle of a bustling warehouse, they had carved out space to run their operations.

Hiding in plain sight.

Toward the right side of the office area, a different man carried a person over his shoulder. He knocked on a door. It swung open, and Caleb nearly fell off his ledge.

Ivy was strapped to a chair. She turned at the man's entrance and gaped when the person dropped the bundle he was carrying.

Juliette's limp body hit the floor.

Where were the police? Noelle and Alana had called for backup before they'd arrived, so the message should have gotten out.

A second man carried something into the room. Or make that a woman, but from his distance it was hard to tell. Whoever it was, the person struggled with the weight of the load.

He saw a flash of long blonde hair. "Oh no, no, no."

Noelle!

Movement outside his position caught his attention. Alana popped out from behind the truck.

He jumped down from the ledge and onto the roof of the truck, which made more of a crashing sound than he'd have liked. He scampered down and found Alana.

"What did you find?" Alana whispered.

"They've got Ivy, Juliette, and Noelle in a room with no windows in the middle of the warehouse."

Caleb jumped off the dumpster to the lot below. "I think Juliette and Noelle were knocked out—they were both carried in."

Alana growled and motioned for him to follow. They hiked back to the cars.

"I can't call or text," Alana said. "Detective Williams said he'd send backup as soon as he could, but there was that bad accident taking up their time. I wish I had stressed the urgency of the situation."

Caleb blew out a breath, the cool air sending vapors swirling around his face. Every step toward the cars felt like another minute lost.

"How are we going to get them out?" Caleb asked. "Without knowing whether or not backup is on the way, one of us has to go for help."

Alana shook her head. "I'm not letting you run in there all Jack Bauer–like, trying to single-handedly save the day. But the clock is ticking, and we need to do something."

A knock on the window had him airborne in his seat.

Williams and Slaton hopped in the back.

"Wha-da-we-got?" Matthew asked in one word.

Alana turned to the officers. "Ivy, Juliette, and Noelle are being held in an interior room—Juliette and Noelle are unconscious we think, right?"

Caleb nodded. "Looked like it."

"And we can't get a signal to call for backup. Phones worked earlier but not now. I think they jammed the signals in or out of this area. Did you call the cavalry in yet?"

Officer Slaton hissed. "We were at the accident scene and left to check things out here. We got a judge to sign a search warrant, and when I last communicated with SWAT, they were gearing up. That accident has everyone scrambling."

Caleb took charge. "One of you needs to drive until you find a signal to call the FBI and SWAT and get them here now. The rest of us need to go in. I don't think they have much time. The hackers have what they want, and they know we're here. It's clean-up time for them."