Chapter 7
Nathan
Vincent’s house wasn’t anything like I expected.
For starters, I’d expected a log cabin or something since the house was located deep in the woods.
But the structure looked quite modern and although it wasn’t huge, it was a decent size and had two stories from what I could see.
The iron gate at the end of the driveway was actually the first of two gates, and I noticed they were timed so that the second gate didn’t open until the first one closed.
I had to wonder if it was some kind of additional security measure.
There were keypads and security cameras for both gates and I could see that, like with the gates, there were two fences running along the front of the property.
The fences were made of the same iron as the gates.
Vincent pulled the car into one of the stalls in the attached three-car garage and immediately closed the door behind us. Lights came on above us as the door closed so I could easily see a big SUV parked in the second stall. The third stall had a motorcycle in it.
“Do you…do you live alone?” I asked.
Vincent merely nodded and got out of the car.
As I grabbed my bag from the back seat, Vincent pulled his own bag plus a much larger one from the trunk.
Up a short flight of stairs were several wooden workbenches along the front of the garage.
I followed Vincent and watched him set the bag on one of the workbenches next to a large metal cabinet.
The bag was open enough that I could see it was filled with all sorts of guns.
Vincent went to the cabinet, placed his finger on a small keypad next to the handle, and waited.
Seconds later, the entire front of the cabinet slid up to reveal a slew of guns, knives, and other weapons I couldn’t identify hanging from brackets on the wall.
What the hell?
Vincent put the bag in the cabinet and then pressed a button on the inside of it which caused the door to slide back down again.
I glanced at the two identical cabinets next to the first one, but kept from asking if they were filled to the brim with weapons too. I kind of didn’t want to know.
I followed Vincent to the only door in the garage. He used his finger on the keypad to open that door, too, and then he motioned me inside.
“What, no alarm?” I asked jokingly once I stepped inside and was met with silence.
Vincent shot me a glance and then pulled out his phone and showed me the screen. The phone was vibrating as my image appeared on the screen. I automatically looked up to try and find the security camera that was watching me, but I couldn’t see it.
“Alarms that make a lot of noise are meant to scare an intruder off. Where’s the fun in that?” he asked. I noticed Vincent’s watch was flashing and I could hear the slightest vibration emanating from it. There was a letter and number flashing on the watch’s digital screen.
“What does it mean?” I asked as I pointed to the watch.
“Tells me where my guest – wanted or unwanted – is.”
“Doesn’t that get old?” I asked. “Having it go off every time you move?”
“It knows I belong here,” was all he said, and then he was leading me down a short hallway. We entered a large kitchen with white granite countertops, white cabinets, and black appliances.
No sooner had Vincent put his bag down than a large orange tabby cat jumped up on the counter and immediately put his paws against Vincent’s chest. The sight of the man’s big fingers affectionately rubbing the animal’s cheeks had my insides warming.
“Mickey,” Vincent said as he motioned to the cat.
“And Minnie,” he added as he glanced to our right.
Sure enough, a second cat that looked almost identical to the first except for a small patch of white on its forehead was watching us from the entryway that appeared to lead to the rest of the house.
“Mickey and Minnie?” I asked with a smile.
“My boyfriend had a thing for all things Disney when we got them,” he said simply. The mention of a boyfriend caught me off guard, especially since he’d said he lived alone. But the dark look that flashed in his eyes for the briefest of moments had me keeping silent.
“Outer fence is electrified 24/7, inner fence is only at night,” Vincent began as he grabbed his bag and headed towards the doorway where the cat was still sitting.
He stopped long enough to run his fingers over the cat’s head.
I reached for my own bag and followed. The kitchen opened into a large, open floor concept living room with black leather furniture, and a flat screen TV hung above the huge fireplace.
Light streamed in through the large windows facing the back of the property as well as through the skylights in the vaulted ceiling.
“Glass is bulletproof,” Vincent continued as we walked.
He stepped into a room just past the living room.
It was a spacious office with several computer monitors on the wall along one desk, and a single monitor and desktop computer on the other side of the desk.
Vincent went to one of the drawers and pulled something out.
He tapped some keys on the keyboard of the computer, then did something with his phone before coming to me.
I finally realized it was a watch similar to the one he was wearing.
“Leave this on. It’s waterproof,” he said as he handed it to me. “It has a tracking device in it so I’ll know where you are even when you’re not in the house.”
“I’m allowed outside?” I asked snidely.
He sent me a dark look. “If there’s a threat from the air or along the perimeter, the watch will notify you. Get your ass back in the house if that happens. I’ll show you the entry points once we’re outside.”
I shook my head in disbelief. “Is all this really necessary?” I asked. “Surely he can’t find me here.”
But Vincent didn’t respond, and it occurred to me why. “It’s not about me, is it?” I asked as I once again looked at the monitors.
“The bedrooms are upstairs. If something happens, we go into lockdown mode.”
“Lockdown?” I asked, but before I could even ask what he meant, he hit a button on his watch and I jumped as a heavy piece of metal slid over the only window in the room as well as the skylight above us, pitching us into darkness.
Similar sounds rattled outside the room and when I followed Vincent out the door, I saw the house was almost completely dark except for lights along the floorboards that came on and turned off as we moved, illuminating only a few feet in front of and behind us at a time.
“Jesus,” I muttered. “Who the hell are you?”
“The only way out of the house during lockdown mode is through this door,” Vincent explained as we reached what looked like an ordinary closet at first. He pushed the jackets aside and then took my hand and put it near the back wall and the panel instantly slid open.
“The watch controls the door.” Vincent took me by the wrist and led me into the small space that was barely big enough for the two of us.
The panel slid closed behind us and dim lights illuminated a narrow walkway that led to some stairs.
“See that ladder?” I followed his finger to my right and nodded.
“The closet upstairs is identical to this one,” – he motioned over his shoulder to the closet behind us – “except you have to climb down the ladder to get here. Follow this corridor and down those stairs, through the hall to another set of stairs. You’ll end up in the garage.
There’s a trapdoor beneath the SUV. There’s an extra set of keys to the SUV and a gun taped to the trapdoor.
The garage door won’t open in lockdown mode, but as soon as you open the trapdoor, the locks on the door will silently disengage so you’ll be able to use the SUV to break the door down-”
“Why are you telling me this?” I interjected.
“In case I’m not around to get you out,” he said simply. “If the house is breached, your only goal is to get to this door or the one upstairs, do you understand me?”
There was barely enough light to see the firm set of his jaw. “What about you?” I asked, as even the thought of leaving him behind had my mind crying foul.
Vincent maneuvered me backwards until my back hit the wall. His hand came up to clasp the back of my neck. “This is not Q&A time, Nate. This is shut up and listen time.”
“So what, I’m just supposed to leave you behind?” I asked.
“God, you’re so…” He dropped his head briefly as if trying to control himself. When he lifted his head again, I expected him to continue, but he didn’t. I didn’t need to see him to know he was looking at my mouth. And I knew why.
I couldn’t let him, though.
I just couldn’t. It was a line I wouldn’t…couldn’t cross.
But I didn’t move. I didn’t ask him to release me. I didn’t do anything except wish for the impossible.
He let out something that sounded like a mix between a curse and growl, and then he was dragging me back through the panel after waving his arm in front of it.
By the time I stepped through the closet, the metal covers over the windows and doors had started to recede and I finally noticed how the house had been cleverly designed to hide their presence.
So this wasn’t just some safe house or something. It was really where he lived. Why the hell would someone have to live like this? I remembered how he’d crawled on the ground to check beneath his car for a bomb at the motel. And I started to wonder if I was really any safer with him.