Chapter Seventeen
“What are we going to do? Just sit around and talk about the damn Sons all day?”
Royal demanded irritably while Zeke sat calmly—if he did say so himself—at a table trying to compile Royal’s information on his old gang involvement. On who, besides their father, might see Brooke as a viable way to hurt Royal.
“What would you rather do?”
Zeke replied. “Let Brooke continue to be a target because of you?”
Royal scowled and crossed his arms over his chest. But he didn’t mount another argument or complaint. Though he did mount an accusation. “You sure know a lot about how the Sons works.”
“North Star ring any bells?”
Royal frowned then studied Zeke with some renewed interest. “That group that took them down. Vigilante stuff.”
Zeke shrugged. “I wouldn’t call it that. I’d call it a group of people with military and law-enforcement training who didn’t have to get caught up in government red tape in order to launch a campaign to eradicate a threat to the safety of thousands of citizens.”
Royal rolled his eyes. “Yeah, there’s a real difference. You’re telling me you were part of that?”
“Till the day they disbanded. Long after they eradicated the Sons.”
Royal shook his head. “You don’t understand. There’s no eradicating cockroaches.”
“Maybe not, but there’s certainly cutting off all their sources of power so all they are is little annoying pests running around. Easily squashed by any errant boot.”
Royal didn’t have an argument for that and before Zeke could press again for more details about their father’s role in the Sons, they both turned toward the telltale rumble of tires on gravel.
Zeke looked out the window to see Carlyle’s truck. He wasn’t sure why she’d returned so soon, but maybe she’d forgotten something. “Be right back.”
He got up and went outside.
Royal followed him. “Your sister’s hot,”
he offered as Carlyle hopped out of the truck.
“I don’t even have to threaten you to shut your mouth, because even if her fiancé could take you, even if our older brother would beat him to it, Carlyle would take you out in a heartbeat.”
But any humor Zeke had for the situation died at the look on Carlyle’s face as she jogged over to them.
“There was some kind of cave-in while Brooke was working,”
she said with no preamble. “Chloe got a call to come in for backup. I’m obviously not supposed to tell you that, but I was there when it happened and I thought you would want to know.”
Zeke was halfway to his truck before she’d even finished speaking. Cave-in? What the hell did that mean? How could that happen? More importantly, how could he help?
“I’m coming with,”
Royal said, leveraging himself into the passenger side of the truck just as Zeke climbed into the driver’s seat.
“Me too,”
Carlyle said.
Zeke opened his mouth to argue with his sister then shook his head. What was one more person? Particularly someone sneaky and on his side. Because he knew as well as anyone that he, Royal and Carlyle had no business being down at that cave.
But they were damn well going to be.
He began driving for the preserve, the word cave-in rattling around in his mind. “Anyone else stuck in there with her? The detective or the deputies?”
“I don’t have all the details. Chloe didn’t want to tell me. Probably for this reason right here,”
Carlyle said, gesturing at the three of them hurtling down the highway.
It curdled in his gut like acid that Brooke might be alone. That she might be hurt.
Or worse.
He refused to take that thought onboard. He’d tear every rock out of the way with his bare hands if he had to.
“I’m sure the park rangers or naturalists know what to do. They’re like cave experts or whatever,”
Carlyle offered, though Zeke knew her well enough to know she was saying this for his benefit and not that she trusted anyone to be an expert on anything. “I’m sure they’ve dealt with cave-ins before. They must be a natural occurrence.”
“We don’t know that it was a natural occurrence,”
Zeke returned, keeping his grip tight on the steering wheel as he sped down the highway. “She’s investigating mass murder. She’s been a target thanks to her brother over here.”
Carlyle didn’t have anything to say to that, and if Royal had a reaction, Zeke was too focused on the road to notice it.
“Remember when we were looking for Jack and Chloe?”
Carlyle said, leaning between the front seats. She pointed at the road ahead. Last month he and Carlyle had helped the Hudsons search for their missing brother.
“Yeah, I remember.”
“They found Hart on the west side by the highway, right? After that woman knocked him out and dumped him. I remember there was a little access road for state employees on the map we looked at. I think it’s coming up on the left.”
Zeke nodded and, once he saw it, took the turn probably a little too hard. There was a No Trespassing sign posted, and a half-gate that was easy enough to off-road around.
“We have to be careful about how we approach, or we’re going to get kicked out,”
Carlyle warned him. “They’ll be set up at the cave entrance. We can’t go there directly. At least, not all of us. They won’t let us help. That, I know.”
“I’d like to see them try to kick me out,”
Royal grumbled darkly.
“Noble and all, but they’ll be wasting precious time and resources focused on you when we want them all focused on Brooke,”
Carlyle said, doing a much better job than Zeke was of staying calm. “There’s a map at that trailhead we were at, do you remember?”
she asked Zeke. “It had the whole cave system mapped out. With different entrances.”
“I also recall the warning that trying to make your way through the cave system has resulted in death.”
But he followed the service road to the main road and, instead of heading straight to the cave entrance, took a turn that would lead them to the trailhead Carlyle was referencing.
He parked the truck, but left it running, and they all got out to look at the big board with the cave system map. They peered at it.
“Four natural entrances, and that’s just what they put on the map,”
Royal said. “I did some exploring on the west one, to see if I could meet up with her inside and out of sight, but I didn’t get very far.”
“Scared of the dark?”
Carlyle asked with a smirk.
“No doubt they’ve got cops at all these entrances now,”
Zeke said, ignoring them both. He’d poked around the east entrance when he’d been watching Brooke. Funny—or not—how he and Royal had essentially been following her in the same way.
Zeke studied the map. The south entrance was a possibility. It would take considerable time and skill to make it from the back of the cave to the front of the cave where Brooke was situated, so why would the rescue start there when there were closer places to get to her from?
“We’re going to try this one.”
He pointed to the map. Right under the dire warning about exploring the cave on your own without any equipment. How dangerous it was. How easy to get lost.
“Let’s go,”
Royal said.
He glanced at Carlyle, who shrugged. “Some backup wouldn’t hurt, but I’m all for it.”
“Text Walker. He can round up whatever Hudsons won’t cause a fuss.”
Zeke pulled out his own phone. He didn’t have much service, but hopefully enough to get a message off to Granger.
You know of anyone in the area? Brooke needs help at the cave.
He didn’t bother to send any other details. Granger knew where they were and where Brooke was working. If he knew any former operatives—from his North Star days, or DEA days, or whatever and however Granger knew and collected people—who weren’t too far away, he’d send them to help.
“All right,”
Zeke said, shoving his phone back in his pocket. “Sooner we get started, the better.”
Carlyle patted her hip. “I’m armed. What about you two?”
Royal hesitated then lifted his shirt to reveal a holster with a gun in it. Zeke sighed, walked back to the truck, unlocked his glove compartment and got his gun out.
“Let’s go.”
Brooke pressed her back to the rocks that had trapped her inside. Some of the smaller ones gave a little and cascaded down to her feet, but most held firm. A wall she couldn’t scale to get out of here.
The old man stood all the way across this particular “room”
in the cave. There was a narrow hallway behind him that she’d planned to explore once she’d completely excavated this “room.”
Maybe she was glad now that she hadn’t. Because she did not think this man had happened upon one of the other natural, inhospitable entrances and all the signage warning against going too deep in the cave system.
No, he didn’t look like he’d seen the outside of this cave in a long time. And that gave her the feeling that he might have had something to do with the sheer amount of bones buried inside.
“You’ve been doing a lot of digging in my front yard, young lady. I can’t say as I appreciate it. I’ve worked very hard to landscape.”
Then he cackled like he’d told a joke.
“Do you live down here?”
she asked, trying to sound calm.
“I don’t just live down here, I thrive down here.”
He spread his arms wide. “Do you know how many people wander into these caves—purposefully and not—and make themselves easy pickings to the god of the cave?”
Brooke had been part of North Star. She had training. She knew how to deal with a threat. She knew how to protect herself. She would not let herself panic. She would engage with this man while her brain whirled for a way out. “The god of the cave?”
He smiled again. “Me.”
Okay, so she was dealing with . . . actual psychosis. She wasn’t sure if that was better or worse than a murderer with a sound mind. If he really thought he was the god of the cave, how could she predict anything he did?
She had to fall back on that North Star training. She’d mainly been in the lab. A scientist, not an operative, but she’d still had to be trained on how to deal with danger. And she’d lived in Zeke’s pocket while he’d been protecting her.
Granted, from a with-it criminal who’d just wanted to silence her or to stop her from finding the evidence the case needed. Not someone who was just . . . unhinged. And perhaps a serial killer.
That meant it was probably in her best interest to remain calm, to play along. “What should I call you?”
She half expected him to give her some ridiculous godlike name, but the one he gave her was a shock.
“Leon Rogers.”
Rogers, like Jen, clearly, but also like that photograph Dahlia had pulled out of the scrapbook. The writing on the back had said L. Rogers. But Brooke didn’t think he could be the man in the photograph. He was old, but not that old, unless their dating was wrong.
She wondered though . . . was this a family affair? From the Rogers in the picture, to Jen Rogers. With this man as a link in between? One Leon Rogers to another? The family business of murder and hiding out in caves?
“I don’t suppose you have any relation to Jen Rogers?”
she asked, trying to keep everything light and conversational. No doubt the deputies would be working to get her out of this cave. She only had to keep herself safe and sound until they did.
She hoped.
“Oh, Jen. My disappointment.”
Leon shook his head. “She never understood the history. Never respected our fate, or godliness.”
He put his palms together, pointed his finger up to the cave ceiling. “She only ever focused on her anger. Death isn’t anger. It’s freedom. You see, we’re just freedom fighters down here. She never understood. She used it, tainted this, and she never understood.”
“That’s . . . too bad,”
Brooke said, trying to sound sympathetic even as fear slithered through her.
She had dealt with a lot of terrifying situations in her life, and perhaps this wasn’t the most dangerous, but being trapped in a cave with a man who thought murder was freedom was certainly the most bizarre and left her feeling the most out of her element.
She could survive this, she knew, but she didn’t have the first idea as to how. Yet.
“Have you . . . dealt with a cave-in like this before?”
she asked, trying to sound bright and unaffected by the way he stared at her. The way all of this was so deeply and horribly unsettling.
She knew other entrances existed. The marked ones in the preserve, then other ones not usually big enough for people. Just wildlife.
Did he use any of those, or did he really just live in here? With all these bones. In all this darkness? But he had fire. He’d survived. Surely he had some outside life. Surely.
He clucked his tongue. “The cave doesn’t treat me that way. I am its god.”
“Ah.”
What was there to say to that?
“I did that.”
Brooke blinked. “You . . . caused the cave-in?”
“Of course. It’s been so long since I’ve had a good one. I’m getting too old and feeble. But you’re stuck now. I just needed you stuck. You don’t carry a gun like they do.”
Brooke swallowed and balled her hands into fists so her shakes weren’t visible, she hoped. “A gun isn’t the only weapon a person has.”
There were her tools, for starters, if she could get to them. He hadn’t gotten that far inside the room yet. She could get there and grab one before he could stop her, probably, considering how old he was.
But if she ran for one now, she’d be too close to him. She definitely didn’t want to be too close to him. Maybe he was old, maybe she could overpower him, but he seemed so calm. Like he had some kind of secret.
“The cave brought you to me,”
he said, moving closer. “You are its offering. Why don’t you sit and accept your fate?”
Okay, this was getting worse. But he was old and feeble. And she didn’t see any weapon yet. So why would she accept any fate? She was young and strong and capable. She could fight her way out of this, no matter how ill-suited she was to fighting.
Or so she thought. He dropped his torch and the flame went out with a sizzle.
Then he pulled out a gun.