Half-way back to the estate, I noticed his muscles relaxing a little.
“I checked the first two numbers, and then I tried three more,” Jett finally said, breaking the silence. “They’re not bank accounts. The file we found is a dead end.”
“Maybe they’re passcodes,” Kenny suggested.
“Passcodes to what?” Jett’s frown line deepened.
Unaffected by Jett’s frostiness, Kenny leaned back into his seat and shrugged as Sylvie and I kept swapping curious glances.
“Maybe someone deliberated created confusion, so you wouldn’t find out the answer,” Kenny said. “The right combination could be linking the first three digits of the first half of the list with the last three digits of the second half. It’s just a suggestion. I doubt anyone would make this easy on you.”
“Or they could be different kind of accounts. Not necessarily bank accounts,” I chimed in.
“I can’t go back without raising suspicion,” Jett muttered. “Either you find out more, or you hack into wherever you think is necessary to give me something I can work with.”
“That was exactly my plan, bro.” Kenny opened a foil wrapper and shoved a piece of chewing gum into his mouth, before tossing the whole pack to me and Sylvie, leaving a piece near the gearshift for Jett.
Chapter 26
By the time we reached the estate, Jett’s bad mood had lifted. We walked up the stairs, when Jett pushed me behind his back and motioned Kenny to be quiet. I scanned the area anxiously and my gaze fell on the front door. It stood ajar, just a few inches, but funnily enough, my first thought was that I might have forgotten to lock it when we left.
In spite of my heartbeat spiking, my mind remained surprisingly calm. Maybe because the rain had stopped, and the sun was shining, clearing the dark clouds and making it seem surreal that someone could have broken in in the middle of the day.
Pulling out his gun, Jett instructed me to hide with Sylvie behind the bushes on the other side of the house and stay there no matter what. And then, in the blink of an eye, he and Kenny were gone.
“Come on,” I whispered to Sylvie, dragging her to the nearby bushes. We fought our way through the dense undergrowth, careful not to scratch our arms and legs. Reaching the backyard, we stooped down and I wrapped my arm around Sylvie. Our gazes remained glued to the closed balcony door and the house beyond while I listened for any sounds.
I began to count the seconds inside my head when a gunshot echoed to my right, then another, and a startled yelp escaped my lips. My heart stopped dead in my chest and I found myself leaping up and running across the open terrain around the house and through the front door—my legs shaking bad, my lips trembling with Jett’s name on them, my mind unaware of the fact that if anyone decided to shoot I was an easy target.
“Jett,” I shouted, running straight into his arms, happy to find him safe. The foyer was as silent as a tomb and Jett was alone—the realization sent a jolt of ice through my veins. “Where’s Kenny?”
“He took off after the guy.”
“Are you hurt?” I brushed my fingers over Jett’s arms and chest, checking for any wounds.
“No, but listen. I need you to stay inside, hidden. Okay?” He kissed me absentmindedly and turned to leave. I gripped his upper arm, a rather feeble attempt at stopping him. “Please, don’t go. I don’t want you to get hurt.”
“I’m not getting hurt, baby,” he whispered.
“What’s going on?” Sylvie asked, her face a ghastly shade of white.
“Kenny’s following the intruder,” I said.
Her hands moved up to her chest. I wrapped my arms around her and pulled her aside. “He’ll be okay.”
For the first time I noticed the place was ransacked. Almost every drawer had been opened and the contents scattered onto the floor.
“Maybe we should lock ourselves up in the kitchen,” I whispered to Sylvie, figuring that was the only place with an escape exit through the backdoor and plenty of weapons in case we needed to defend ourselves.
We waited in the kitchen in silence until we heard footsteps departing. Ever so gently, I locked the kitchen door behind us, grabbed a big butcher-like knife from the knife rack, and motioned Sylvie to hide behind the kitchen cupboards. Forcing myself to breathe quietly, I listened for any sounds.
***
“Brooke?” Jett’s voice called from the hall. The strained undertones betrayed his worry.
“We’re in here,” Sylvie shouted.
My hand still clasped around the knife, I unlocked the door and opened it. Jett and Kenny were standing in the hall, their faces hard, betraying nothing. Sylvie jumped into Kenny’s arms. I was tempted to do the same with Jett, but refrained from it.
“Are you guys okay?” she asked, clinging to Kenny for dear life. “We’ve been worried sick about you. Thank God no one’s dead.”
“We’re okay,” Jett said. “We couldn’t get them though.”
Them?
I raised my eyebrows and hid my hands behind my back so he wouldn’t see the knife, or my shaking fingers. “How many are we talking about?”
“Two. One broke in; the other one waited in the car. They sped off.”
“Was it the same car that chased us?” I asked.
“I don’t think so,” Jett said. “They wore ski masks and the car had no license plate, but I’m pretty sure it wasn’t the same car.”