Page 67 of Scarred By Sin

“I hope someone checked on him,” Brook said, hoping to garner a bit more information.

“Yesterday, actually. Knocked on his door, and he answered right away. Looked rough, if you want to know the truth, but he reassured me that he was on the mend.” Charlie shrugged as he hung his glasses from the front pocket of his uniform. “I’m sure he’ll be back to work in no time.”

“That’s good to hear. Then he won’t be bothered by the movers.” Brook tapped the counter lightly with her fingertips. “I’ll see you tomorrow, Charlie.”

“You, too, Ms. Sloane.”

Brook advanced toward the elevator bank. She pressed the call button, the indicator above the doors displaying numbers as the car descended from the sixth floor. Not once did she glance toward the security camera tucked in the corner.

If she were right, Jacob was monitoring every single feed from every angle.

The realization had come to her right after Gwenyth Ellingham’s arrest. Hiding in plain sight. Brook had asked Bit to pull the building’s exterior camera feeds, starting a few days before the Indiana case. They discovered that Colin had hosted a gathering one evening. At least twenty-some people had arrived over the course of two hours, entering the building in small groups, the way friends did when they were meeting up for drinks or a dinner party. The footage showed the groups coming through the lobby, Lou buzzing them in, and the elevator making its trips.

When the party ended, the guests left in phases.

A group of four around eleven. Another three just before midnight. Stragglers trickling out well after midnight. It was the kind of departure pattern that made counting difficult, because the exits were spread across hours, and the camera angles didn’t always capture faces clearly. It was the reason the footage hadn’t flagged anything unusual.

Twenty-some in, and what appeared to be the same number of people out.

But Brook and Bit had combed through the footage frame by frame. They had counted the arrivals, matching faces to the entry log, timestamping each one. Twenty-three people entered the building for Colin’s party.

Twenty-two people left.

It had been raining that night. Several of the guests had arrived in hoodies and rain jackets, hoods up against the downpour, faces obscured by the angle of the fabric and the low resolution of the exterior cameras. One of the visitors had walked into the building with a group of three, his hood pulled forward, his gait unremarkable, his build close enough to any number of the other guests that nothing about him registered as out of place.

He’d never walked out.

If it were Jacob who had remained behind, he’d altered his posture and gait to not display his injury. Pain aside, he would have done what was necessary to ensure his presence hadn’t been detected.

Brook was just grateful she’d already moved the small box, which was now in a safe place. It would remain that way, too.

Whatever Jacob had planned was scheduled for tomorrow. She didn’t doubt that he was aware of her plans to move, given that he’d almost certainly been monitoring her movements. This was his chance, and he would have set everything in motion down to the second.

The elevator chimed, and the doors swooshed open.

Brook stepped inside and pressed the button for her floor. The doors closed, leaving her alone in the small, mirrored space. Graham’s breathing was barely audible in her ear. He was holding himself back, and she understood the effort it cost him.

He’d wanted to storm the building.

He’d argued for a tactical team, a coordinated entry with an overwhelming force applied to Colin’s unit while Brook was nowhere near the building. She had talked him down, and the conversation had been one of the most difficult of their relationship.

A forced entry would end with Colin Vogel’s body being discovered, and Jacob would somehow manage to be gone before the first officer ever cleared the threshold. Her brother didn’t barricade himself in rooms and wait to be captured.

He adapted.

He moved.

He had contingencies that no tactical plan could anticipate, and if he sensed an operation closing in, the collateral damage would extend well beyond Colin’s unit. Brook believed that with absolute certainty.

The elevator doors slid open.

Brook stepped out into the hallway without hesitation. The wall sconces cast their warm light at even intervals along the corridor, though she didn’t bother to glance to her right. She turned left instead, walking the short distance to her own door.

“Teams are in position.” In her ear, Graham’s voice came through, barely above a whisper. “On your signal.”

She could make out Bit’s breathing, faster than the others. Theo was silent, which meant he was focused. Sylvie would be monitoring the building’s exterior feeds from the van parked across the street.

Given the likelihood that Jacob had found a way to tap into the building’s security system, he’d known the moment she entered the lobby. He was sitting in Colin’s unit right now, listening, watching, tracking her movements through whatever feed he’d compromised, and he was making the same calculation he always made.