Brandon didn’t reply, but I caught the edge of his smile in the darkness, and his arm threaded around my shoulders, holding onto me.
North pulled the car up to the gate, said two words to security, and then the gate opened and the car rolled forward.
Moments later, we were at the front of the house we’d spied on earlier. The house was lit up, the yard was full of guests. Cars were dropping off people by the driveway and then moving on into the night.
“We’re lucky this wasn’t some sort of small family event,” Brandon said. “Or some quiet affair.”
“What kind of party is it?” I asked, eyeing the guests as they walked up to the front door. North pulled up behind another driver dropping off guests, stopped the car, and ran around to open the door on my side first.
“A wedding reception,” Brandon said as he slid out behind me. “We can pretend to be on the husband’s side. The employees at his company were invited to attend.”
Mr. Murdock was getting married? I guess he didn’t realize two teams were trying to break into his precious illegal cell phone service. It seemed pretty ballsy to have hordes of guests at the same location where your core was.
Standing outside, the chill prickled my skin. I glanced once at North, who remained quiet, but studied me in my dress once and then looked away.
He didn’t look like a driver. He was barely our age, maybe younger. It was hard to tell. He had such a serious expression.
Get out while you still can. It was the only thing I could really think to say to him, but couldn’t say out loud. He didn’t need to be in the middle of this.
Brandon took my hand, guiding me up the sidewalk. North moved quickly back into the driver’s seat, and the car followed the line and turned around to leave. Brandon focused ahead. I tried to do the same, ignoring the desire to slide back into the car and run off and not go into the lion’s den. Think of Axel. Think of Marc. Do this for them.
The wedding reception was mostly inside the house. This made me nervous. We did need to be inside, but this meant more eyeballs and the increased chance we might be noticed trying to sneak around.
Fortunately, the party itself was packed. There was a formal parlor that had been cleared of furniture and in the corner, a string quartet played instrumental versions of popular songs. People held onto tiny plates of finger food and flutes of champagne. There was a pile of wedding gifts stacked up on one large table in the front entryway. Attendants all wore black suits and white gloves.
“Blake didn’t have a quartet,” Brandon said to me as we dove into the thickest part of the crowd.
“He had a band,” I said. I used our cover to study people and look around the house, searching for doors that had security panels. “I think that’s more than a quartet.”
“He didn’t have an ice sculpture,” Brandon said.
“Yes, he did,” I said, although I couldn’t really remember. I just wanted to contradict him. Why were we comparing parties?
“This house is bigger,” he said.
I looked around the house. “Yes,” I said, noting the rooms were large and open compared to Blake’s old-fashioned house. “But Blake’s house is an antique built two hundred years ago. This one is new. And why do you care whose house is bigger? Is this a guy thing?”
Brandon grunted as he scanned the room. His hand covering mine tightened. “I don’t know,” he said. “Just ignore me.”
What was it about parties that made him agitated? I tried to forget about it. I focused, trying to figure out where I’d hide a core in my own home. I didn’t even know who Murdock was. Corey had said he had dark hair but I hadn’t seen a picture.
My first goal was to identify security. Most obvious were the attendants wearing dark suits and standing along the sidelines. Their eyes surveyed lazily. Occasionally they leaned in and commented to a passerby, but otherwise, they looked bored.
Two were positioned at the foot of the stairwell. Brandon and I circled most of the downstairs rooms, but it seemed, aside from the busy kitchen, all the rooms were open to party guests as spill over rooms since it was so crowded. The core couldn’t be downstairs.
“We need to get upstairs,” I said to Brandon. “If they’re guarding the stairwell, it’s probably up there somewhere.”
“I know,” he said. “There has to be another way up. Even if I distract security guards, you’ll be exposed going up, and the ones on the other side of the room are watching.”
I studied the space. The majority of people were eating from the buffet that was set up in the dining room. If there were a back stairwell, then maybe it was beyond the kitchen. “Do you think there’s two stairs?”
Brandon bit his lip. He pulled out his cell phone and typed into it. He got an immediate reply from Corey and showed it to me. “Yeah,” he said.
Corey: Beyond the kitchen, behind door number two on the right.
“Ask him if there’s a bathroom that way.”
Brandon typed in a message and Corey confirmed there was.
“Good,” I said. I went to the buffet table and took a champagne glass. “I’m going to go pretend the downstairs restrooms are full.”
Brandon eyeballed the glass. “We shouldn’t separate.”
“You need to keep an eye on the guards. If they come after me, try to stall them. Or stay behind if somehow I get kicked out.”
Brandon pursed his lips and looked around. “Kayli…I really don’t want you going alone.”
I didn’t want to, either, but I was a girl sneaking upstairs, and I could pull off looking like I was tipsy and had gotten curious. If Brandon came along, it might be harder to explain.
To ease his mind, and to quell my own nerves, I got up on my toes and kissed his cheek.
“I’ll be back,” I said. “I’ll just find the ‘kids should stay out’ room. I won’t go in.”
He frowned but then kissed my mouth quickly. His eyes held my gaze after, and he squeezed my hand. “Ten minutes,” he said, “or I’m coming after you.”
“Fifteen,” I said. “And no heroics if the guards kick me out.”
“No getting kicked out,” he said.
I left him, turning a couple times to look back. He picked up his own champagne, and while he tried not to be obvious, his eyes kept watching me.
I dove through a small group of people chatting, smiling and saying excuse me. Everyone was dressed up and laughing, gossiping and drinking and eating. I wondered how many of them were in on the illegal phone service.
The kitchen was organized chaos, with a kitchen manager in a white suit barking directions to chefs and attendants dropping off empty plates and champagne glasses, only to pick up trays of food and clean dishes and get sent back out again.
I was trying to slip in behind an attendant when the kitchen manager pointed at me. “Miss!” he cried out. “You’re not supposed to be back here.”
“Sorry!” I clamored. “There’s a restroom back here, isn’t there? The other ones are occupied…and I need to change my pad.” Want to ensure men got out of your way and gave you access to the bathroom? Talk about your period.
The kitchen manager’s face stiffened. “Uh, sure,” he pointed to the door at the far end. “There’s one back there.”
I thanked him, and smiled pleasantly at others nearby. After I got to the door, they resumed their jobs.
In the back hallway, there were several doors. I followed Corey’s instructions, finding a hallway behind a door and heading up.
The second floor carried an echo from downstairs, which made me paranoid, as I couldn’t hear if anyone else occupied the floor. It also meant I couldn’t hear someone sneaking up behind me, like a security guard, or the owner.
Still, I tiptoed my way through the hall, taking a long detour to avoid the main staircase, and avoid being seen. The hallway had a thick carpet. That was good for me. It kept me from clomping about in my low heels. It was also cluttered, with potted plants and framed pictures. It might have been a pa
rty house, but it sure looked like someone lived here. The pictures were of the same family, the more recent looking ones with a lot of adult siblings with a few smaller kids and a stern looking elder man in the center. I wondered if that was Mr. Murdock. Maybe the wedding wasn’t for him, but for one of the grown kids.
Most of the doors along the hallway were closed, save for a couple of bathrooms. A big set of doors at the end of the hallway looked suspicious at first, but when I peeked inside, I spotted a large bed: the master bedroom.
Most other rooms were bedrooms, and one was an upstairs office. Even inside it, there was a plain-looking computer. I shook the mouse, and it instantly opened up to reveal a browser on today’s news. The history was email boxes, bank websites, the stock market, news, and YouTube videos of cats and dogs.
The desk drawers were surprisingly clean. The bills had the real estate name on the front. I looked for Murdock’s first name from all the envelopes, and I got a variety: Trisha, Ethan, Gregory, Harold. I wasn’t sure which one was the Grandpa Murdock in the photos.