Page 42 of Princess of Thieves

“You’ve seen an actual dragon, and this is what impresses you?” LJ scoffs and pulls me forward.

He does have a point. But I don’t have long to dwell on it, because we emerge into a room that distracts me entirely.

It’s small, maybe half the size of one of the bedrooms, and crammed with all kinds of security equipment: screens with CCTVs, a desk with a command center chair like in a Mission Impossible movie, and a variety of heavy-duty filing cabinets with thick locking mechanisms.

“Whoa,” I say again.

LJ barks out a laugh. “I’ll never understand you, Princess.”

He slips behind me to where the mirror door is closing and presses his palm to another reader on the right side. There’s a hiss and a click, and I get the sense that we’re locked in.

“So this has been here the whole time?” I ask. “The cameras, the...panic room?”

“I wouldn’t call it a panic room,” LJ starts, but then he cocks his head to the side and reconsiders. “Actually, maybe I would.”

“You think it’s a bit of an overreaction?” I ask.

LJ snorts. “The guys sometimes have more money than sense. Tuck likes his gadgets and Will likes security.” He shrugs. “But I can’t deny it does what it needs to, for the most part. Most secure room in the house—reinforced walls, completely soundproof. If we’re gonna hide you, it’s gotta be here.”

My eyes snap to the wall of screens, showing fuzzy images of everywhere on the property, mostly outside perimeter stuff: outside the fence, ghostly-looking tree trunks, and the occasional shuffle of leaves in the breeze. But there’s one screen that draws my attention immediately—the front porch, angled from some upper corner, where Will is speaking with a man in a familiar-looking uniform.

My heart plunges to my stomach. It’s him, the deputy—Deputy Rashad. The same one. The one who let me get away. I’d recognize him anywhere after that.

I creep up to the screen, like I’m magnetized, and look around for a knob or a dial. “Is there a way to get sound on this thing?”

“I think so.” LJ pulls out a hidden keypad from the side of the desk and taps a few buttons.

Suddenly, the audio comes in, surprisingly crisp.

“I’m telling you, he’s not coming to the door,” Will says. “No matter how many times you ask, and you have no right to demand it anyway.”

“I understand that, sir,” the deputy replies, “but we have reason to believe he may have information related to a missing persons case.”

At that, Will stiffens on screen, but credit to him, he keeps his cool. “And do you have any proof of his involvement?”

The sheriff says nothing, and I think I can see his jaw working, even on the screen. “Not to my knowledge, sir.”

“Pardon my French, but that’s what I fucking thought,” Will says.

“Sir, if you could just—”

“Come back with a warrant,” Will snaps. “Otherwise, Rob’s not talking to you. Good day, sir. Please leave the property.”

With that, he steps back into the house and shuts the front door resolutely.

Holy shit, they put that together quickly.

Next to me, I feel LJ stiffen. “God damn it,” he mutters.

We stand there in silence, watching as the deputy steps down the front steps and gets into his Sheriff’s Department SUV, the edge of which is just barely visible in the CCTV. The car departs, jumping from screen to screen as it drives down the long stretch of driveway and back into the woods. As soon as the exit gate seals behind him, LJ wheels on the door and practically kicks it open.

“Where the fuck are you, Will?” he calls.

THREE MINUTES LATER, we’re all sitting in the living room.

Well, all except Rob.

Tuck’s looking from face to face, anxious, while LJ stares Will down. Will, for his part, is rubbing his jaw and looking out the window, and I’m sitting on the couch, not sure what the fuck I’m supposed to do.

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