“Elise, dammit! Are you there?”
“Sorry. Dropped the phone.” She winked at Jay. “You were saying?”
“Do exactly what I say,” Toby said in a low voice. “Tell Jay to stay until we reach ten mill, then kill Everett and disappear. But you need to leave now.”
“What about the agents? I don’t like Kincaid. She looked at me funny. I think she’s psychic or something.”
“There’s no such thing as psychics.”
“Yeah, well, she was suspicious.”
“Tell Pete to kill them all.”
“Are you sure?
“Do what I say or I will kill you, Elise. You’ve been pushing me this week.”
“I’ll kill you first,” she said in a singsong voice. “Stop, Toby. You know I love you more than anyone in the whole wide world.” She winked at Jay. “You’re my big brother.”
“Then start listening to me, little girl!”
“Hey, I’m moving. You don’t have to be such a bully.” She kissed the phone and hung up.
“Jay, come here.”
The big lug lumbered over. She stood on her tippy toes and whispered, “The boss says when we get to ten mill, you know what to do.”
Jay nodded.
She loved stupid hunks.
She kissed him, because she knew he hated it when she did that, then she turned to Everett. “Good-bye, Jimmy.”
“Please. My family. Don’t hurt them.”
“They’re better off without you.” She didn’t say that they, too, were going to be dead, because then he might not finish giving her brother back his money.
Well, their money, because they were family.
*
Sean heard every word Elise said.
He and Kane were in the office adjoining Everett’s. Sean had hooked up his own computer to the network and was slowing everything down, while simultaneously transferring the money to a different account than what was being shown to Everett and the goon watching him. He estimated that Everett had transferred just over two million dollars to Tobias before Sean set up the account to siphon off the funds. Now every transaction went directly to an FBI-controlled account. He kept the transfer moving slowly because there was no doubt in his mind that Elise would kill Everett as soon as he was finished.
Kane had drilled a small hole in the wall and inserted a camera so they had eyes in the room. They also had ears because Sean had a microphone attached to that camera.
He whispered, “They have Lucy. I have to go.”
“No,” Kane said. “Do your job.”
“Fuck you.”
Kane glared at him. “SWAT ETA is less than five minutes. I can’t do what you do.”
“I don’t care about the money.”
“You stay here. I’ll go.”
Lucy was the love of his life; if anything happened to her he would never forgive himself. Or Kane.
“I’m trained for this,” Sean said.
“I trained you,” Kane said. “We can both save Lucy, but only you can do this.” He waved his hand at the computer. “Now do it.”
He left before Sean could argue with him anymore.
Sean could barely focus. He closed his eyes and breathed deeply, then stared at the computer, the numbers rapidly scrolling in front of him. Tobias’s people thought they’d only received three point three million, but nearly eight million had gone through, out of nineteen different accounts. Sean had diverted the difference into the escrow he’d set up, but he didn’t like Tobias and his people having any money. They could do a lot of damage.
It was just Sean on-site until the FBI SWAT team arrived. He sent Leo Proctor, the FBI SWAT team leader, another message, updating him on the status of Everett and the money transfer, plus the fact that Elise was getting ready to bolt.
But he couldn’t just let that little bitch go.
He launched an app he’d written and accessed all phones within range. He had to turn on her GPS before she left the building. He found Elise’s phone on the network through the wireless function, then mirrored her chip on his phone.
Everett changed escrow accounts. Sean hesitated.
“See? It’s going faster now,” Everett said next door.
“Good,” Elise said. “Toodles!”
He heard the door in Everett’s office open. He manually typed in computer code that would turn on her GPS. Even if she’d disabled it, there was a factory setting that allowed the company to blind track their customers. Sean hacked into it and programmed his phone to track Elise.
Then she was gone, and the twentieth escrow account was already drained. Shit! Everett switched to another account, and Sean siphoned off more of the funds than previously, but sent false data to Everett’s system so he’d think he had more money.
Sean had to stay on top of the computer transactions. As soon as Everett changed escrow accounts, Sean had to piggyback on the new transaction or lose it.
It had been next to impossible for Sean to let Elise walk out of the building. But Kane was right—the more money Tobias had, the more damage he could do.
That woman was a psycho.