Sebastian was less than seven miles from their destination. A black silhouette of a man or woman stood on the roof of a nearby house, watching a helicopter the size of a toy in the distance dumping a red-colored flame retardant onto a fire. The flames shrank and then seemed to die, but then Ellie saw them leap to life again.

Then the last mile came and the road was, as far as she could tell in the glow of the high beams, nothing but one long stretch of undeveloped land with a couple of ranches, not a home anywhere in sight.

“There,” Sebastian said, slowing. “Straight ahead.”

She saw it—a Spanish Colonial so large that it looked more like a private resort than a single-family home. What made the details easier to see was the fact that almost all the inside and outside lights were turned on—the downstairs lights in the house, the white string lights wrapped around the trunks of several palm trees, the solar-powered ground lamps that lit up a long flagstone driveway that wound its way up an incline and ended in a circle around a small fountain.

Ellie turned in her seat and reached into the back for the binoculars.

“House must have its own generator,” Sebastian said, killing the lights.

A massive ornate gate made of wood blocked the long driveway leading up to the house. That, along with the six-foot stone wall that ran along the perimeter of the property, was more ornamental than built for security purposes.

The Range Rover was equipped with a bullbar. Made of welded steel, the bar, designed to protect the front of the vehicle from a collision with a large animal or another vehicle, would easily smash down the gate without damaging the Rover—a course of action, Ellie believed, that Sebastian was more than capable of performing.

“I’m counting two . . . no, three vehicles parked in the front, around the fountain,” Ellie said. “One’s a small limo. The others are SUVs—both Mercedes.” She switched to thermal. “No one’s sitting inside them.”

“What about outside?”

“I’m looking right now. . . . No, the area’s clear. Move a bit closer so I can get a better look at the front of the house.”

Sebastian did, keeping the lights off. “This has got to be the place.”

“That, or someone’s throwing a party.” She adjusted the magnification, locked onto the front of the house. Saw the potted plants near the front door made out of an enormous slab of wood, like something in a medieval dungeon. “I don’t see anyone standing outside, but I do see two more vehicles parked near the front. If this is the place, we’re going to conduct proper surveillance first. We’re not going to— Hold on—the front door just opened. Three men—no, two. Two men in suits and a woman dressed . . . I think it’s a bathrobe.”

“Is it—?”

“No, it’s not Grace Lewis. This woman’s older.”

The men stood on either side of her. The woman had long, dark hair and the bathrobe was loosely tied. Ellie saw what she was pretty sure was a bikini. Did the place have a heated pool? The woman didn’t look wet. And why was she smiling? The large, dark-skinned man with the shaved head to her right gripped her arm.