Chapter 23 #2
“I’m here to help.” He slowly inched forward, testing the area with his feet and hands, trying not to knock anything else over. This sure as shit was easier with night vision goggles. “My name’s Nic.”
Movement to his right, someone shuffling away from him.
Shit, he needed to find the light. Whomever was down here was likely traumatized and wouldn’t know if he were friend or foe. He’d have a better shot convincing them in the light.
He moved forward again, even as his mind whirred. Was it Erin down here? What he wouldn’t give to be able to give Cam his sister back, but like this? After being held hostage for twenty years? She would never be the same person, maybe never recover.
His left hand hit a table corner. He patted around for a lamp, and when he didn’t find one, reached farther back, hit the wall, and slid both hands along it until he found a switch.
He flipped it.
Under-cabinet UV lights clicked on one at a time, and when they reached the end of the row, they illuminated the young girl huddled on a thin, dingy mattress in the far corner.
Not Erin. But another lookalike.
Relief and sadness warred but only for a second before instinct kicked in.
He had to focus on the priority in front of him.
The girl cowered, trying to huddle even farther into the corner. Battered and beaten, the side of her face bruised, her clothes ripped and stained, her ankles and hands tied, a gag wedged between her lips, stretching her mouth and the bruises. That had to be killing her.
Lowering into a crouch, Nic drew her gaze and raised his hands, palms out.
“I’m here to help.” He reached for the collar of his shirt and yanked it down, exposing his SEAL tattoo.
“I’m a Navy SEAL captain,” he said, using one of Cam’s tricks and combining it with proof, the rank and emblem always seeming to assure people.
She relaxed a little, watching him closely.
“And my boyfriend is an FBI agent,” he added for good measure. “He’s on his way here.” Nic was sure of it. Cam would figure it out. He was the Bureau’s best at rescuing people.
Had already rescued him.
The girl twisted, letting her knees fall to the side.
“Can I help you?” he said. “I can take that gag out of your mouth. It can’t feel good.”
She eyed him another few seconds, then nodded.
He approached slowly, checking with her every step of the way until he was by her side. He held up his hands again for her to see, then moved them toward her face, carefully, no sudden movements, until he pulled free the gag.
She coughed and sputtered, working her jaw, wincing.
“What’s your name?” he asked.
“Emma.” He moved to untying her hands next, and she started to shake. “Am I gonna die?”
“Not if I have anything to say about it.”
“He keeps going back and forth. Saying he’s going to take me to the farm. Then saying he’s going to bury me in the back with her.”
Erin was here.
Oh God.
“I don’t know who her is,” Emma said. “But I don’t want to die like her.”
No, she didn’t, and Nic wouldn’t let that happen either. He finished untying her hands, wrapped the hoodie around her, then moved on to unbinding her ankles. “How long have you been down here, Emma?”
“Since yesterday.”
Which was why she hadn’t been reported as a missing person yet.
“I was cutting through the alley from the library,” she carried on between sniffles. “Ma says I shouldn’t, but I was late leaving, and—”
“I’m sure she’ll just be glad to see you.”
Harper’s voice a floor above boomed, shouting at someone, and Emma flinched, staring up at the ceiling.
Nic grasped her hand, squeezing. “We’re gonna get out of here.”
Her big brown eyes shot to him. “How?”
Straightening, Nic stood in the middle of the room and made a three-sixty turn, looking for any other exits or windows.
None.
“Have you seen him go in or out any way but the stairs?”
Emma shook her head.
He searched the table for potential weapons. Wrenches, anvils, sockets. Something he could make work for an attack.
Emma moved, trying to stand, and fell back against the wall.
The thump echoed.
He brought to mind the outside of the house, having paid close attention when Harper had driven the car around back.
He considered the arrangement of windows and the approximate dimensions of its footprint, then surveyed the basement again.
It was smaller than the building footprint.
Or at least this part of the basement was.
He stepped around the mattress, knocking gently on the wall Emma had fallen against. Hollow, with only a few studs. Plenty of room to go through.
“Okay, Emma, I’m going to need your help, if you’re up to it.”
“What are you gonna do?”
“This is a false wall,” he said, laying a hand on the wall in front of them.
“There’s a room behind it. Maybe an exit.
” He picked up the mattress, and when the waft of putrid smells assaulted his nose, he forced the rising bile down his throat.
“Can you hold this upright? It’ll muffle the crash.
” He patted the corner of the mattress where he wanted her to hold it. “Now when I hit it, you let go, okay?”
She nodded, standing back already, but holding it up like he asked.
He backed up as far as he could in the space, then ran full-tilt, shoulder first, at the wall. He crashed into the mattress. And through the wall.
The mattress fell to the floor, sending up a cloud of dust, and Nic landed on top of it, almost retching from the smell.
Then almost retching from the waking nightmare he’d fallen into. The walls were covered.
In pictures of Cam’s sister.
Every inch of wall space, at least several years’ worth of pictures, highlighted by the light streaming in from above.
And beneath him, beneath the mattress, the ground wasn’t flat. It was mounded, like a grave.
He closed his eyes, hoping to wake up in bed with Cam, hoping this was all just a nightmare that would fade in the light of day.
Light of day.
Eyes popping back open, he scrambled up and whipped around.
There was a subbasement window, definitely big enough for Emma to crawl through, and maybe even big enough—
“What’s going on down there?” Harper jiggled the lock on the basement door.
Emma burst into the tiny room and almost fell, letting out a yelp. “He’s coming,” she cried in Nic’s arms.
Nic looked around for something to use to bust through the window.
Finding nothing, he hiked up a foot and thanked all that was holy that he’d slipped into Cam’s heavy-ass boots this morning. Tearing off one, then the other, he didn’t waste time or try to be quiet, heaving them through the window and opening up an escape route.
Steps thundered down the stairs.
“Give me the sweater,” he said to Emma, hand out. “Then stand back.”
She tossed it to him, and he wrapped it around his fist, using it to punch out the rest of the glass, careful not to cut his bare feet on it.
Warm summer air wafted over his face, and on it, the sound of sirens, growing louder.
“No!” Harper roared, clearly having caught on to what was happening.
“Okay, Emma, time to go.”
She was both nodding and shaking her head. Not altogether convinced with this plan but not wanting to stay here either.
“The cops, my boyfriend, I can hear them coming,” Nic reassured her as he swiped at the thin trickle of blood by his hairline. He wiped his hands off on his pants and made a brace with his hands. “You’re going to put your foot here, I’ll boost you up and out, and you run to them.”
“What about you?”
“I’m a SEAL, I’ll be fine, sweetheart,” he said, even drawling a little like Cam did, hoping to put Emma more at ease. “But I need you to get to safety. And tell my boyfriend where I am, okay?”
She nodded, biting her bottom lip.
“Okay, on the count of three.”
“No, you can’t let her go!” Harper shouted, on their level now.
Nic glanced over his shoulder, seeing the other man running toward them. “Go, Emma! Now.”
Her eyes grew wide, seeing the bogeyman closing in on them, and she planted her foot in Nic’s hand. He heaved, tossing her through the window. Her bloody foot had just cleared the frame when a flash of metal caught the light in Nic’s periphery.
He ducked, spun, and righted himself as Harper came barreling at him again with a wrench. Nic shot up a hand, diverting the wrench Harper was trying to bring down on him, while lifting a leg and landing a kick to his stomach. Harper stumbled backward out of the tomb, and Nic advanced.
Out in the open, he heard the thunder of footsteps overhead. As did Harper.
He was trapped, and by that desperate gleam in his eye, foolish enough to think he could take Nic and use him as a hostage.
Steadying himself, he gripped the wrench firmly and hurled himself at Nic.
This time, with more room to maneuver, Nic grabbed his wrist, forced it out wide, and slid under his arm before yanking it back.
The wrench dropped from Harper’s hand, and Nic dropped him to the floor, knee in his back.
“Dominic!”
“Here, Boston!”
What sounded like an army barreled down the stairs, and it looked like it too, as agents and officers led by Matt and Di spread out around him, weapons trained on Harper.
A pair of cuffs appeared over his shoulder.
He wanted to look over it, to the dark eyes that he knew were scared and eager for him, but as soon as he did that, he was going to have to bear witness to something dying inside Cam.
A hope that someone you cared for deeply was still out there, alive somewhere.
Nic hoped that for Victoria and Garrett.
A part of Cam still hoped that for Erin even though the bigger part of him knew it was unlikely.
That bigger part was going to be proven right today.
Nic wasn’t ready to bring that kind of pain down on Cam yet.
So he stalled. He took the cuffs from Cam, snapped them around Harper’s wrists, and heaved him up to standing. He handed Harper off to Matt, and Cam yanked him into his arms.
Nic hugged him back, not a care for the agents or officers around them.
Cam had said no more hiding, he seemed to mean that, and Nic didn’t want to hide either. But he did hide Cam’s view of the room behind him, grateful for the couple of extra inches he had on the other man right then. “Emma?” he asked.
“She’s safe.” Cam leaned back, wiping the cut at his hairline clean for him.
Fuck, he wanted to kiss him, then wanted to turn him around and walk out of this room. But he also wanted to bring Cam peace, and he was here to hold him through the pain of getting there.
“Dominic, what’s wrong?”
Nic cupped the side of his face with one hand and tangled the fingers of the other with Cam’s, squeezing hard. “I found Erin.”