Chapter 62
CHAPTER SIXTY-TWO
To Do:
- Punch some misogynist dicks
The bathroom was dark and smelled strongly of cinnamon and cloves. Claire would have bet her last dollar that there was a container of artisanal potpourri somewhere. Using her phone flashlight, she crept across the ceramic tile. She paused at the door and listened.
The house was quiet. There were voices, but they were muffled as though they were coming from somewhere else. She held her breath and cracked the door open a centimeter. She was in a short hallway that seemed to run between the massive eight-car garage and the kitchen. Directly across from her was a Big Z concert poster in a diamond-studded frame. Was it safe to leave?
Footsteps approached. Adrenaline shot through her from head to toe. She opened the only other door in the bathroom and leapt inside. The potpourri smell was even stronger in here. The scent all but choked her.
“Fuckin’ feminists,” a male voice grunted. Shit. Was that balsam and cedar joining the god-awful scent party? Her fingertips went numb. It was the same as the cologne from the men’s rights convention. Big Z was in the bathroom.
Heavy footsteps stomped across the tile. A zipper unzipped. Liquid splashed. Claire’s heart was pounding straight out of her chest. Could he hear it? She gripped the wooden shelf behind her like a lifeline. If he opened the door, she would be dead in seconds. Jack’s helpful probing had revealed over a hundred firearms registered in Big Z’s name, which was legally Zedediah Nipple.
“Z?” someone called from the hallway. “We need another extinguisher.”
“Yeah, yeah. I’m coming.” The zipper re-zipped. The faucet didn’t turn on, but the rumble of his footsteps shook the shampoo bottles behind her. Of course he didn’t wash his hands. Nasty.
A door slammed a moment later. She took a hesitant step out into the bathroom. Where would she go now? Charlie had mentioned rumors of a secret room in the basement, but she didn’t even know where the basement door was. How did Big Z have a basement, anyway? Luke said they were uncommon in LA.
“Claire?” Charlie’s voice called in a whisper. It seemed to be coming from the hallway.
Claire wrenched the door open.
“Door’s over there. Hurry.” Charlie pointed at a set of double doors across the kitchen. “This could just be a rumor, but someone at the party said there’s two secret rooms. One’s a freaky sex dungeon and the other is some kind of secret observation room. I’ve seen a door with a keypad down there on the right behind the bar. His phone passcode is 2-3-3-4 so try that first, okay?”
Claire exchanged a terrified glance with her sister as she opened the door and paused to listen.
“Where is everyone else?”
“Most of them are still down there,” Charlie whispered. “Please be careful. Don’t burst in and raise the alarm.”
“I won’t.” Claire closed the door behind her. She would rather cut her own foot off than burst into a room full of homicidal maniacs. She had a simple job to do. A bulleted item on her never-ending To Do list. Find Brianna and call 9-1-1.
As she crept down the carpeted stairs, her breathing was ragged, like she had just run a half marathon. The walls were painted a matte black, and every couple of feet recessed lighting shone down like spotlights. The slanted ceiling glittered like the night sky. She wasn’t exactly an expert, but the whole setup seemed like a tripping hazard.
She hit the bottom of the stairs and scanned the room. Had she just descended into one of the levels of hell? Hardwood floors ran underfoot. The walls were covered in the same matte black from the stairwell. It was obnoxiously dark. A pool table with a black top was at one end of the finished basement. Behind her stood a dark recording booth. Movie theater seats were just visible behind a partially open door. And there in front of her was the stone-front bar.
She stepped around it and peered at the door. There was the keypad, just like Charlie said. Light flickered under the door.
Her hand trembled as she reached out to touch the keypad. Was she about to barge into a room full of people who wanted to kill her? What if the code didn’t work?
She entered the code Charlie had mentioned, 2-3-3-4. The keypad flashed green and the door swung open. Thank god he was a creature of habit. She peered inside. Empty. She hurried inside and shut the door behind her. The first secret room was somewhere between a recording studio booth and police interrogation room. An eight-foot panel of what she desperately hoped was two-way glass lined the front of the room. Couches stood along the wall behind her. A wardrobe of some sort was at the far end of the room, next to a mini fridge and a water cooler.
How many body fluids had been expressed in this room? Her stomach clenched as she ducked underneath the mirror and crawled over to the wardrobe. She pressed herself between it and the wall and slowly slid her way up.
The view that greeted her was something out of a nightmare. Brianna sat in the center of the room, stripped down to her bra and panties, bound to a chair and gagged. Her hair was disheveled and matted with blood, and her eyes were open wide in terror. Mascara streaked down her cheeks. Her ankles were bound to the legs of the chair.
If Claire hadn’t been medicated, the sight would have undoubtedly sent her into the worst panic attack of her life. She rubbed her wrists where Barney had tied her to the pillar, and then her most recent abductor had zip-tied her. She needed to focus and put the fear behind her. They had her sister, and they were going to pay.
A dozen completely naked men sat in a semi-circle around her, lounging and chatting as though a twenty-one-year-old girl wasn’t being tortured in front of them. The number of wrinkly ball sacks was truly nauseating.
The room was painted black from floor to ceiling. Heavy red drapes lined the windowless walls. Penis-shaped candles were placed in sconces every few feet, the only source of lighting in the room. A sex swing hung in the corner. A free-standing saddle with a large dildo attached was in another corner. Some kind of torture rack stood off to the side.
Claire’s stomach heaved, and tears pricked her eyes. Her baby sister. What had she been through? Thank god she was alive, but how was she going to free her from this place? She pulled out her phone and immediately dialed 9-1-1.
Or at least she tried to. She drew the phone away from her ear. There was no service. How? They were in the middle of the Hollywood Hills. Who would have better reception than some of the richest people in America?
She tried texting Charlie and then Luke, but her phone chastised her with “message failed.” She was alone, and Brianna was in the next room surrounded by naked murderers.
Shit, were those footsteps on the stairs? Her heart flew into her throat. There was only one place to hide. She darted inside the wardrobe. Seconds after she stepped onto an unidentified pile of what seemed to be even more rubbery dildos, the door popped open.
“No, she needs to stay upstairs until this is done. She’s not leaving until TMZ drops the story.” There was the suffocating cologne again. That had to be Big Z.
“Couldn’t she come down here where we can keep an eye on her? That’s how you lost one of your Grammys.”
Claire’s mouth hardened into a thin line. That was Professor Taylor’s voice. Something leathery brushed against her in the wardrobe, and she bit her lip to keep from screaming. Hopefully it was just a riding crop and not a live snake.
There was definitely the sound of skin slapping against skin. The professor grunted. Did Big Z just slap her old, shitty business professor?
“Are you stupid?” The rapper’s voice carried in the small room. “This is her sister. We’d have to take them both, and that’s not on the agenda for tonight. I need her. She can’t know this bitch is here. Not even Charlie would cover that up for me.”
“What about the other one?” the other male asked.
“Hiding in a safe house with Special Agent Fuckface.”
Claire bit her lip even harder. A copper taste filled her mouth. They were talking about her. The other one ? That’s all she was to these idiots who had tried to kill her multiple times? Fury was building in the pit of her stomach.
Professor Taylor sighed. “It’s a pity the mountain lion didn’t work.”
Big Z grunted. “It was a foolproof plan. I don’t know how that bitch got out of being mauled. I’m gonna be having words with Dick.”
A zipper unzipped again. Was that the sound of pants dropping to the floor? Ugh.
“She’ll be gone soon after we take care of this one. It’ll be easier to finish this in Pennsylvania. We never should have sent O’Rourke to the ranch. He’s too inexperienced.”
There was a deep sigh. “She’s a wily bitch, I’ll give her that. We can’t just keep messing with her shitty fundraising events and calling in bomb threats.”
Claire inhaled sharply, then bit her tongue. Those fuckers. They had been behind the bomb threat. And the fundraising event? Did that mean they were the ones who let the dogs out of the cages? How did they have so much free time?
“It’s time to end this,” Big Z continued. “After this one’s done, I want our full sights set on her. She’s not going to escape again. It’s time to teach Agent Fuckface a lesson.”
“He’ll learn,” the professor said darkly. “I have to be honest, though. I don’t like this one, Z. It feels risky. She’s the highest-profile person we’ve ever taken.”
Claire wrinkled her nose. Listening to her middle-aged business professor call Zedediah Nipple by a nickname was just gross.
“They’ll never find her. You know how careful I am. They have no reason to link me to the outreach team.”
“What about the fire?” the professor asked.
“Probably just some feminist whore on a star tour. I’m not worried about it. Trent’s in the office. He’s going to keep watching the feeds to make sure nothing else happens. The hard part is done. And now it’s time for fun.” More clothing dropped to the floor.
Claire’s hand froze on the inside of the wardrobe. Rage flooded her veins. It didn’t matter that it would be fourteen against one. She would rip him limb from limb if it was the last thing she did.
“To restoring the balance,” Big Z said. Two glasses clinked together. A door opened, and the voices were gone.
She took a deep, steadying breath. The 9-1-1 call was still a necessity, but there was no way to do that in this basement. Her phone had definitely worked outside, so she needed to get upstairs without alerting whoever the hell Trent was. Every second that passed brought them closer to starting whatever horrible thing they were planning to do to Brianna.
She popped open the door of the wardrobe and poked her head out. Big Z, with a giant birthmark the shape of a cheeseburger on his blindingly white left butt cheek, approached the chair where Brianna sat.
Claire’s heart galloped in her chest. She needed to go, but what if they found a way to cover everything up? She pulled her phone out and quickly recorded a video, zooming in on each attendee’s face. Asshole after asshole panned across her screen. Unsurprisingly, the attendees were almost exclusively saggy, middle-aged white men. Triple-checking that the video had saved, she hustled across the small room and wrenched the door open.
She almost ran headlong into a burly, six-foot man eating a sandwich. They both stopped, utterly shocked to see each other. The sandwich fell to the floor. The man reached for something at his side.
Claire tugged up the hem of her dress and pulled out her Taser. She fired it at him before he could remove the gun from his holster. Prongs buried themselves deep in his barrel of a chest. His body dropped to the floor behind the wet bar, jerking and seizing. It rattled the cabinets under the bar.
Should she run? What if the Taser wasn’t enough and he ran into the sex dungeon while she was upstairs?
When the electricity wore off, Claire climbed on top of him and punched him forcefully in the nose. There was a crunching sound. Blood poured from his face. His eyes went shut, and his body relaxed. Using strength she didn’t even know she had, she rolled him onto his stomach. She pulled his hands behind his back and searched the room. There weren’t any curtains to pull down and turn into restraints. She was going to have to go back to the dildo wardrobe.
Heart hammering, she punched the code into the keypad again and hurried across the observation room to the wardrobe. Big Z stood next to Brianna, addressing the crowd.
“I’m honored today to have the twelve founding members of our illustrious organization here to celebrate. Over the past decade, you have focused your tireless efforts on our solemn mission to transform the world back into what it’s supposed to be. A man’s world, where men who shoulder the burden of providing for their families are given the opportunities they deserve, and women are relegated where they belong.”
What a slimy, conniving douchebag. In the few songs of his Mindy had forced her to listen to, she had never once heard him use a word with more than three syllables. He must have stolen this speech from the internet. Thank god he was long-winded. It would take him all night to kill her at this rate.
Among the confusing array of nipple clamps and restraints on the wall, a pair of handcuffs hung. She yanked them free and closed the cabinet doors before sprinting back out into the basement. Luckily the man who must be Trent was still on the ground. She slapped the handcuffs on him and threaded them through a cabinet handle before sprinting up the steps, taking them two at a time. She kicked the doors at the top of the stairs open.
Charlie screamed.
“Claire, what the hell?” She jumped up from the table. The padded chair tipped over behind her and clattered onto the tile floor.
“No service in the basement,” Claire said, holding her phone up. Still no service. “Shit, I can’t get a single bar. Do you have service?” She whirled on her sister, who still looked alarmed.
“Nothing,” Charlie said. “There must be a jammer or something.”
“She’s here. In the basement. I don’t think we have much time. I need you to go outside and call the police, Charlie. Now.”
Charlie ran for the front door. Claire opened the basement door and headed back down to the lion’s den. She was going to have to watch and wait. And if the police didn’t get here in time, she would go down fighting for her little sister.
She stopped halfway down the stairs, heartbeat pounding in her ears. She pulled out her phone and typed a message to Luke. It wouldn’t go through, but if everything went south, Luke needed to know he was her last thought.
Claire: I think they’re jamming cell phone signals somehow. I’m not sure if we can wait for the police. If the worst happens, know that I love you forever. Even though you drive me crazy. Watch over the dogs for me. Don’t feed Rosie anything with corn in it; she’s allergic. Winston’s new favorite toy is the squeaky hotdog. Tell my mom and Roy I love them too. And Coli and Mindy. Just everyone I guess. Be safe, and don’t forget me.
She slunk back downstairs. With any luck, Charlie would call the police and they would accept a secondhand account of a girl trapped in a basement in a Grammy-winning musical artist’s house. This was LA—calls like this probably happened every week. The cops wouldn’t be far behind. There was nothing to do but watch and wait. If things escalated, she would intervene, whatever the cost.
Trent was still on the floor, bleeding and moaning. She aimed a kick at his ribs as she walked by. Back in the observation room, things were getting even stranger. Big Z was now tilting one of the candles so that it dripped hot wax onto Brianna. She flinched and stared at him with pure malice in her eyes.
“Our special guest is one of the worst kinds of women,” Big Z said, clearly in the middle of some kind of hateful diatribe. “She thought she deserved to be paid as much as the lead actor. She thought she needed to tell the story of some hormonal idiot who impersonated a soldier and took all the glory of war from a man who rightfully deserved it. The story is shameful, and she’s trash. A Hollywood nobody who should have stayed in the kitchen. Of course, we couldn’t let this movie premiere tonight. Not on the night of our most treasured festival.”
What fresh bullshit was this? A festival? Were they going to roll out a bunch of summer-themed beers and make flower crowns before murdering her sister? Claire bit the inside of her cheek. One hand froze on the door handle that led to the inner sanctum. How much more of this could she take? Her sister was in agony. If this went on much longer, there would be no waiting for the police.
“Priapus,” Big Z continued, “the god of fertility and the male genitals, among other things. Today we honor him and sacred masculinity with a sacrifice.”
Shit. That did not sound good. Brianna glared at him, but her hand trembled on the armrest. Claire’s grip tightened on the handle. She couldn’t take this anymore.
Footsteps echoed outside the observation room door. Damn it . There must be more assholes afoot. She needed to hide again. Back to the depraved wardrobe. She had one foot in when the door flew open. Claire grabbed the closest thing, which happened to be nunchucks with latex dildos on both ends. Did the spa in West Haven have a treatment where attendants would wipe her down from head to toe with Clorox wipes for three straight days? If so, she was booking it after this adventure. Assuming she lived.
Charlie and Luke entered. Charlie carried a solid gold fire poker while Luke wielded a butcher knife. Claire almost collapsed in relief.
“What are you guys doing down here?”
“Cops are on their way but there’s some kind of truck blocking direct access from Hollywood. They have to go the long way around,” Charlie said. Her eyes zeroed in on Brianna. She bit her lip. “This is awful.”
“Big Z keeps talking about some kind of sacrifice, and I just don’t?—”
At that moment, Big Z pulled a long, slender hunting knife from somewhere in the room. He held it in front of Bri’s throat.
“Oh, hell no,” Claire said. She slung the dildo nunchucks over one shoulder and picked up one of the chairs in the room. “On three?” She looked at the other two. They nodded.
“Cover your eyes. One…Two…” She swung the chair with each count.
“Three!” Luke grunted and thrust open the door into the inner chamber. Claire was treated to two seconds of shocked naked men panicking before the chair crashed through the two-way glass and littered the room with glittering fragments. Unless they wanted to be cut to shreds, the naked assholes were trapped.
“What the fuck?” Big Z turned around, knife in one hand and candle in the other.
“That’s my sister!” Claire leapt through the newly broken window. A jagged edge bit into her thigh, but she didn’t stop to inspect the wound. She nearly slipped on the shards of glass, then charged forward and kicked as hard as she could. The knife flew out of his hand and plunged straight up into a ceiling tile. The candle rolled out of sight.
“You stupid bitch!” Big Z clutched at his hand and she tackled him to the floor, aiming a punch at his stupid smug face.
To her left, Charlie wielded the fire poker to block two balding, saggy men from leaving the room. She whipped one across the face.
“Get on the ground,” Charlie said in her most authoritative voice. It was almost enough to convince Claire to get down.
“On your knees,” Luke commanded, brandishing the knife toward a group of three men who were trying to scrabble through the broken window. One of them lunged at him, and Luke punched him with his non-dominant hand. The man hit the floor, and his entire body jiggled like a platter of Jell-O. He cried out. Blood leaked from a series of small cuts on his back.
The remaining men stared in horror at the broken glass on the floor and their bare feet. There were almost certainly a few fragments in Claire’s own emergency flats, but Brianna was alive. Nothing else mattered.
Beneath her, Big Z struggled like an animal caught in a trap. Claire brought her knee up into his completely unprotected groin. He crumpled like a dollar bill, and she flipped him onto his stomach. In seconds, she had wrenched his hands behind his back and dragged his legs back to meet them. She hog-tied him with the dildo nunchucks as best as she could and ran to her sister.
“Bri,” she whispered, taking in the full damage that was done. She shuddered as she ripped at the gag in her sister’s mouth. Had adrenaline not been coursing through her veins, she probably would have been crippled on the floor.
As Claire ripped at Bri’s bindings, she glanced around the room. Charlie bounced on the balls of her toes, sending jabs and right hooks at the four attempted escapees. She had attended a kickboxing class twice a week for the last four years. Whoever crossed her was going to be sorry. Luke was still shouting at the other half of the cowards.
They had actually done it. They had trapped the head honchos of ESA in one room. If they could just hold on until the FBI arrived, justice would finally be served. These men were cowards. They would roll over and release their member rosters. Victory was nigh.
Tears streamed down Brianna’s cheeks. The second Claire freed her hands, she threw them around her.
“Thank you,” she whispered hoarsely in Claire’s ear.
“I’m so sorry this happened to you. They’re going to pay, I promise you.”
“Do you smell smoke?” Brianna croaked.
Oh, shit. The candle.
“Luke—” Claire called out.
“I know.” He gestured behind her. One of the drapes had caught fire.
“Shit. We need this house—it can’t burn down. Can you help them watch the group so they don’t escape? I’m going to find an extinguisher.”
She slashed the bindings around Brianna’s feet with Big Z’s knife and crunched across the carpet of broken glass. Her heart was in her throat as she fled up the stairs to the kitchen.
“Come on,” she said, ripping open cabinets. The smoke smell was getting stronger. Where the hell were the police?
Pounding came from the front door. She abandoned her quest and ran for it.
“Dad!” She called out when his familiar face greeted her. Shit, she always called him Jack. Roy was “Dad.” There was time to worry about that later. “We need a fire extinguisher,” she called to the agent behind him. He turned on his heel and ran in the direction of the street.
Sirens wailed in the distance. Red and blue lights flashed off the underside of the palm trees in the front yard, and for a moment sheer panic gripped Claire. It was just like the night Barney had kidnapped her.
“Basement,” she said, snapping back to reality. She pointed to the open set of doors. Jack drew his gun and ran down the steps, Claire just a beat behind him.
He swung his gun from left to right as they entered the basement. He cast one glance at Trent on the floor before following the smoke and panicked yelling. He kicked open the observation room door and revealed Luke, Charlie, and Bri making a human wall in front of the room exits.
The room stank of sweat and desperation. The fire was bigger now. The naked men lurched forward, sweat beading down their bodies. Charlie’s right fist came out like lightning, and one of them hit the floor.
“FBI, on the ground now!” Jack barked.
The group of men looked at each other and panicked. One vaulted over Charlie’s outstretched arm and came through the broken window. The professor dodged around Luke and opened the door. He was out in the basement before they could blink. He was fast for an old naked misogynist.
“He’s mine.” Claire pulled a mystery tool from the dildo wardrobe and chased after him. Glass crunched in her shoes, and her feet slipped inside. A trail of blood led up the stairs. Agonized grunts soon led her to the man’s position. He staggered across Big Z’s foyer, blood dripping from the cuts on his feet. One wrinkly, liver-spotted hand rested on the doorknob.
He was not going to leave this house. Claire threw her weapon overhand at him without bothering to check what it was. There was a mighty thwack , and a dildo stuck to the front door like a dart finding a bullseye. It trembled from the impact.
“Going somewhere, professor?” she asked.
He turned and faced her. His face was contorted in hatred. There was malice in his eyes.
“I should have killed you when I was slamming your idiot roommate,” he hissed at her. He took one step toward her.
“Please.” Claire crossed her arms. “You’ve been trying to kill me for like a year and a half now because Barney couldn’t do his job. You blew up my car and my warehouse, threatened my family. Tried to set a mountain lion on my clients. But I’m still here. How do you think this is going to end for you? I’m curious.” She tilted her head. If she could just waste another few seconds, police would come stampeding through that door.
“You are nothing ,” he yelled. “A pathetic training exercise. Not worth the blood that runs through your veins.”
Claire pretended to ponder for a moment. “If I’m so useless, why is it that I’ve evaded every attempt your pathetic frat boys have made on my life? Isn’t this kind of your job? Other than being a shitty professor, anyway. I guess it makes sense that your eradicators are as poorly organized as your course syllabus.”
The look in his eyes sent a chill down her spine. “You won’t win. We will never stop. Not until you’re all dead.”
Claire scoffed. “Look around. I’ve already won.”
He stalked toward her, hands outstretched like he was going to strangle her. She took two steps forward and punched him full in the face. He wailed like an animal and lunged for her. Blood dripped from his nose. He tackled her at waist height. She managed a scream before crashing to the floor, wind completely knocked out of her.
His fingers found their way around her throat. Claire gasped, but there wasn’t any air to fill her lungs. She wriggled underneath him, aimed wild punches all over his torso. And still he choked her.
His weight pressed down on her like an anchor. Everything slowed to a crawl. The edges of her vision darkened. Voices echoed far away. Her heart beat in her ears. Was she going to die in Big Z’s foyer next to a tacky zebra-shaped umbrella stand?
Suddenly, the weight vanished from on top of her. She sat up and scrambled into a corner, gasping for air. Her throat burned. What the hell had happened? The sirens were closer, but the police hadn’t come in. Unless he practiced close-up magic in his free time, he couldn’t have just disappeared.
A sound Claire had heard too many times from the punching bag in Luke’s garage was now emanating from a few feet away. With one knee on the professor’s chest, Luke pummeled him.
The front door swung open, and an agent ran in with a fire extinguisher. Claire pointed to the basement doors, and he disappeared. He was followed seconds later by a small battalion of cops. One dragged Luke off the professor and stopped, staring between the two of them, one completely nude and covered in blood, and one still looking impossibly put together in a tuxedo and bowtie.
Claire waved the other cops down the stairs. “It’s him,” she croaked to the female cop who paused with her hand on her radio. “Check the FBI Most Wanted list. He’s an escaped felon from Pennsylvania.”
The professor growled and lunged for the front door. Claire stuck one foot out and managed to send him sprawling. The cop jumped on him and slapped on a pair of handcuffs.
“Bri,” Claire said to Luke, struggling to her feet.
He dragged her up. “Wait. Are you okay?”
His hand lingered at her throat, and she flinched.
“My naked, bloody business professor just tried to strangle me. Let’s go with ‘no.’ Come on.” She pulled him down the stairs, back into the smoky basement.
A dozen naked men covered in fire extinguisher foam were lying face down on the hardwood.
“We need more handcuffs,” an agent called.
Claire and Luke ran past them to the observation room.
Brianna sat on a couch, sipping from a water bottle. Jack and Charlie sat on each side of her. Luke shrugged off his suit jacket and draped it around her shoulders.
“Are you okay?” Claire dropped to her knees in front of her sister.
“I’m fine,” Brianna said. She touched her throat and drew Luke’s jacket tighter around her. “But I’d love to go home. It’s been a day.”
No freakin’ kidding.