Ana blinks at me, her breathing labored, too.
“Taylor!” I call.
“Sir.” Taylor is standing in the doorway.
“Tell Prescott Mrs. Grey is going to work. Can you drive them, please?”
“Certainly.” Taylor turns on his heel and disappears.
Feeling more myself, I look back at Ana. “If you could try to stay out of trouble today, I would appreciate it,” I mutter.
“I’ll see what I can do.” Her eyes shine with amusement, and it’s impossible not to respond.
“I’ll see you later, then,” I reply.
“Laters,” she whispers, and leaves with Taylor and Prescott in tow.
After breakfast I head back into my study and call Andrea. I tell her I’ll be working from home, as I wasn’t planning to be in the office anyway. She puts me through to Sam and we have a tedious discussion about “owning the message” with regard to Hyde’s break-in.
“No, we don’t, Sam, not in this instance.”
“But—” he protests.
“No buts. This is a police matter. All press inquiries about this incident to them. End of discussion.”
He sighs. Sam is such a publicity whore. “Very well, Mr. Grey.” He sounds sullen, but I don’t care. I hang up and call my dad to tell him about Hyde. We agree to keep up the security for the next week just in case.
“Will you tell Mom?”
“Yes, son. You take care.”
“Will do.”
I hang up and my phone buzzes with a text from Elliot.
ELLIOT
Yo Bro! You ok? Hyde! Fuck!
He’s brief and to the point, as ever. He must have seen the news, or Ana’s told Kate. I call to fill him in on events, and we agree to meet up over the weekend. He wants to talk about something, but not over the phone.
“Whatever, dude,” I say. “And by the way, your girlfriend has been leading my wife astray. She should have been here in the panic room—instead, she was out getting drunk with Katherine.”
“Katherine, eh?”
“Kate.” I roll my eyes. “Whatever.”
“And you’re telling me this why?”
“I don’t know, dude, just sharing my thoughts.”
Elliot sighs. “You’ll have to take it up with her.”
Oh. Have they split up? What does that mean?
He continues before I can ask any questions. “This guy who follows me around. Do I still need him?”
“Let’s see what happens with Hyde over the next few days.”
“Okay, hotshot. It’s your money.”
“Laters, Elliot.”
Ryan and Sawyer give Taylor and me a full debrief. I can’t decide if Ryan is a hero or an idiot for letting Hyde into the apartment. His face is pretty battered, and he has a cut over one eye after their “altercation.” Judging from his bruised face, he must have had quite the skirmish with our intruder. He says he only let Hyde in because Ana wasn’t here. I glance at Taylor, whose mouth is set in a grim line. Ryan put Gail at risk, panic room or not.
The good news is that Prescott, before she left this morning, located the CCTV footage of Hyde arriving in the basement garage. His van is still down there.
I ask Sawyer to let Detective Clark know.
“Yes, sir.”
“Is that all?” Taylor asks Ryan and Sawyer.
“Yes, sir,” they say in unison.
“Thank you. For everything,” I tell them. “I’m grateful you caught the bastard, Ryan.”
“I felt an enormous sense of satisfaction knowing I brought the guy down.”
“Let’s hope the police charge him,” I add.
Ryan and Sawyer leave.
“I have a carpenter arriving in about half an hour to repair the broken door,” Taylor informs me.
“Good. I’m going to scour what was on Hyde’s computer to see if I can find any further clues as to what could be behind all this.”
“Sir, we have a potential problem,” Taylor says.
“What?”
“Technically, Ryan did grant Hyde access to the apartment.”
I pale. “Only under unique circumstances. And Hyde was armed.”
“True. But it’s something to bear in mind when speaking with the cops.”
“Yes. Agreed. Talk to Ryan.”
“Will do.”
“Taylor, take the night off. Gail, too. In fact, all of you.”
“Mr. Grey—”
“You had a very late night and little sleep, as did Sawyer and Prescott, watching my wife last night.”
Taylor looks grim. “I’d like to leave Ryan on lookout. He’s in no fit state to go out.”
“Okay.”
“Thank you, sir.” Taylor nods and exits while I turn my attention to my computer. Specifically, the files that Barney recovered from Hyde’s hard drive.
At 10:45 I stop combing through his creepy, obsessive collection of all things Grey, and log on to WebEx. Vanessa is online, too, and we start our conference with the Securities and Exchange Commission. It’s a brief and convivial chat, and GEH is co-opted onto a task force that will examine the issue of conflict minerals in tech.
When we hang up with the SEC, Vanessa informs me that she’s located Sebastian Miller, the truck driver who rescued Ros and me when Charlie Tango went down. She’s introduced him to our logistics team and he’ll shortly become an affiliate with the haulage contractor that GEH uses.