Chapter 2 - Eleven Seconds in the Dark
The darkness lasted eleven seconds.
I know because I counted every one of them.
One.
Titan shoved against my side.
Two.
Someone cursed near the windows.
Three.
Roman shouted,
"Nobody move."
Four.
Glass shattered in the back of the store.
Five.
A body hit a shelf.
Six.
Titan ripped away from me.
Seven.
Mason yelled Lucian's name.
Eight.
A sharp metallic crack came from the stockroom door.
Nine.
I heard Roman breathe beside me.
Ten.
Titan barked once.
Eleven.
The emergency lights came on.
Red strips along the floor flooded the store with a dim crimson glow.
Lucian was gone.
Mason stood beside the wall where he had been holding him, staring at his empty hands.
The rear stockroom door hung open.
Rain blew through a broken window beyond it.
Roman moved first.
"Seal the alley."
Two guards ran for the front door.
Mason sprinted toward the stockroom.
Roman caught his arm.
"No."
"Sir, he can't be more than thirty feet away."
"He wants us chasing him."
Mason stopped.
Roman looked around the store.
"Where's Titan?"
My stomach dropped.
"Titan?"
No answer.
The red emergency lights painted long shadows between the shelves.
I moved toward the stockroom.
"Titan."
Roman followed.
The back room smelled like cardboard, wet pavement, kibble, and something electrical.
The broken window opened onto a narrow alley between my building and a laundromat.
Rainwater poured across the sill.
Mason pointed at the ground.
"Blood."
A dark drop marked the tile.
Then another.
Then three more led toward the freezer cabinet where I stored refrigerated pet food.
I heard a low whine.
"There."
Titan had wedged himself between the freezer and the wall.
His body was pressed into the narrow space, his head turned toward us.
The blood was coming from the spot where the hidden receiver had punctured him.
I crouched.
"It's okay."
Roman stayed behind me.
For once, he did not try to approach.
I pulled a clean towel from the grooming shelf and pressed it gently against Titan's side.
His muscles trembled beneath my hand.
Roman watched in silence.
Then Mason returned from the alley.
"Lucian had a car waiting."
Roman's eyes lifted.
"You saw it?"
"Gray sedan. No plates."
"Driver?"
"Couldn't see him."
"Cameras?"
I looked toward the ceiling.
"Front, register, aisle two, and stockroom."
Roman nodded toward Mason.
"Get the footage."
I stood immediately.
"You don't get to just take my cameras."
Mason stopped.
Roman looked at me like he had forgotten the store belonged to someone else.
"I need to know how he escaped."
"So do I."
"Then give us the footage."
"I'll show it to you."
Roman's brows pulled together.
"Claire."
"Don't Claire me like we're old friends."
One of the guards looked away to hide a reaction.
I continued.
"A man with a pain remote just used my store as a stage, shattered my window, cut my power, and escaped through my stockroom."
"You are not leaving with the only evidence unless I have a copy."
Roman studied me for a moment.
Then he nodded.
"Fair."
That answer surprised me.
I led Mason to the office computer while Roman remained with Titan.
The camera system was cheap but dependable.
I had installed it after a break-in the year before.
The footage from the front camera showed Roman entering at 8:43 p.m.
Lucian came in thirty-seven seconds later.
The stockroom camera showed nothing unusual until the lights went out.
Then the screen went black.
Not dark.
Black.
The system had lost signal completely.
"Someone jammed it," Mason said.
"Maybe."
I clicked back ten minutes.
"What are you looking for?"
"The dog."
Titan appeared on aisle three, pressed against my legs.
I watched his posture before Lucian entered.
Tense, yes.
But not focused.
Then the front bell rang.
Titan's head lifted before Lucian appeared on screen.
His ears snapped toward the door.
He knew who was coming before he saw him.
"He smelled him," I said.
Mason leaned closer.
"From across the store?"
"Easily."
I replayed it.
Titan's body changed three seconds before Lucian crossed the threshold.
Roman stepped into the office behind us.
"Show me."
I did.
His expression became colder each time we replayed the sequence.
"He recognized Lucian."
"Yes."
"From what?"
"I can't tell you that from video."
"Fear?"
"Mostly."
Roman looked at me.
"Mostly?"
"There was something else."
"What?"
I searched for the right word.
"Warning."
Roman's eyes narrowed.
"He was afraid of Lucian, but he was also trying to keep Lucian away from you."
Mason shifted behind us.
"Titan is protection-trained."
"That matters," I said.
"But trained protection is usually controlled."
"That wasn't a command response."
"That was personal."
Roman said nothing.
I copied the footage onto two drives.
One for me.
One for him.
Then I opened the store's electrical panel log.
The smart breaker had recorded the outage.
I stared at the timestamp.
8:51:14.
The outage had not been caused by the storm.
The breaker had been shut down through its remote maintenance access.
My mouth went dry.
"Someone logged into my system."
Roman stepped closer.
"From where?"
I opened the access history.
The login source displayed as LOCAL ADMIN.
"That doesn't make sense."
"Explain."
"Local admin means the request came from inside the network."
Mason glanced toward the store.
"One of us?"
"Or someone who got in before tonight."
Roman's stare moved over the shelves.
"When was the last service call?"
"Six weeks ago."
"Who did it?"
I tried to remember.
"A contractor."
"Name?"
"North Beacon Systems."
Mason pulled out his phone.
"I'll check it."
I looked at him.
"You people check everything fast."
He did not smile.
"Usually."
Roman caught the word.
"Usually?"
Mason lowered the phone.
"Their number is out of service."
A chill moved through me.
I walked back into the stockroom and examined the electrical panel.
Nothing looked unusual.
Then I noticed a thin strip of black plastic tucked behind the metal housing.
I pulled it free.
It was no bigger than my thumbnail.
A wireless bridge.
Someone had installed a hidden access device directly into my breaker system.
Roman took it from my palm.
"Six weeks ago?"
"That's when the contractor came."
"And Titan escaped into your store tonight."
I looked toward the dog.
"You're thinking those things are connected."
"I'm thinking coincidences get people killed."
The words landed heavier than he intended.
I folded my arms.
"Is that how you live?"
"Yes."
There was no hesitation.
For the first time since he entered my store, I believed a rumor about Roman Calder without needing proof.
Mason returned from the front.
"Police are two minutes out."
Roman looked at me.
"Did you call them?"
"My alarm system did when the window broke."
One of Roman's men cursed softly.
Roman did not.
"We tell them the truth."
Mason stared at him.
"All of it?"
"Enough of it."
I almost laughed.
"That sounds different from the truth."
Roman's gaze sharpened.
"There are people who will exploit what happened here if they know Titan was compromised."
"Meaning?"
"Meaning if someone conditioned my dog with a hidden pain device, they may be preparing something bigger."
Titan pushed himself out from behind the freezer.
He walked toward us slowly.
Roman lowered himself again.
This time Titan did not retreat.
He stopped two feet away.
Roman held out his hand.
Titan sniffed it.
Then he moved past Roman and came to me.
He pressed his forehead against my hip.
Roman exhaled.
"Of course."
I almost smiled.
Then Titan turned sharply toward the stockroom window.
His ears lifted.
A second later, a blue-white flash lit the alley.
The rear camera monitor sparked.
Smoke burst from the wall outlet.
"Get down!" Mason shouted.
Roman grabbed my arm and pulled me backward as the computer screen exploded in a shower of glass.
The lights flickered.
The hard drive beneath my desk began to smoke.
Roman pulled me out of the office as smoke thickened around the desk.
Mason yanked the power strip from the wall even though the circuit was already dead.
One guard grabbed the small extinguisher mounted beside the stockroom door and smothered the sparking outlet.
Titan barked at the smoke, then backed toward me.
I knelt beside him again.
"It's okay."
The words sounded ridiculous in a room where almost nothing was okay.
Roman stood over the ruined computer.
"That surge was targeted."
I coughed into my sleeve.
"You can tell that from one smoking monitor?"
"The breaker bridge."
He held up the hidden wireless device we had found.
"Whoever installed this could identify individual circuits."
Mason nodded.
"Office outlets first."
"Register second."
"They didn't hit the freezer or lights until afterward."
I looked at him.
"Meaning they weren't trying to burn the building."
"They were trying to kill data."
Roman turned toward me.
"Did your cameras upload off-site?"
I almost answered.
Then stopped.
After an hour of learning that people around Roman lied by profession, I suddenly understood the value of keeping one fact to myself.
"Some things back up," I said.
Roman studied my face.
"That's not an answer."
"It's the answer you're getting."
Mason looked offended on Roman's behalf.
Roman only nodded.
"Good."
I blinked.
"Good?"
"If I can get information out of you by asking once, so can someone else."
"You should keep one copy where none of us can reach it."
The advice unsettled me because it was sensible.
It also told me Roman did not fully trust his own people anymore.
I looked toward the front of the store.
The four guards were now spread farther apart.
Nobody stood directly beside anyone else.
A team that had entered as one unit had become five separate suspicions.
Titan sensed it too.
His head moved each time someone shifted position.
"This is what they wanted," I said.
Roman looked at me.
"What?"
"Not just destroyed footage."
"They wanted you looking at your own people."
"Maybe."
"If Lucian is guilty, you question everyone who worked with him."
"If he isn't, you still question everyone."
"Either way, your security stops functioning like a team."
Mason's expression darkened.
"Divide the house."
"Exactly."
Roman glanced toward the broken window.
"Then we don't give them panic."
"We give them silence."
He turned to his guards.
"From this moment, nobody calls anyone outside this room without Mason's approval."
"No internal group messages."
"No estate channels."
"No company security network."
"Assume every system Lucian could access is compromised."
The men nodded.
I looked at Roman.
"And me?"
"You call whoever you want."
"You're not my employee."
That answer mattered more than he probably realized.
Then a sharp electrical pop sounded behind us.
The ruined office monitor flashed one last time.
Someone outside had just sent a surge through the building.
May you like
And they knew exactly which machine held the footage.
