35. Escape Plan Trust the Girl
ESCAPE PLAN: TRUST THE GIRL
OWEN
“ Y ou know,” I say quietly to Charlie, “I wouldn’t choose to be captured by a gun-wielding criminal who had made me believe in my dreams and then be held in a dark tunnel with my very near future unknown. But since I have to be, there’s no one else I’d rather be here with than you.”
Charlie smiles. “What about Chuck Norris? Or Liam Neeson?”
I work to hold back a smile. “Chuck Norris and Liam Neeson probably wouldn’t keep me laughing and smiling through the stress. I think I’m still going to have to go with you.”
I cannot believe that I’ve been dating a spy.
Tech op . Someone who works for a top-secret intelligence agency.
Oddly enough, I’m glad she told me down here.
It feels somehow appropriate to find out that the normal things you thought about your girlfriend were only part of her cover story—and that her real story is so far outside of what I’ve known as normal—while in a place and situation that is also so far outside of what I’ve known as normal.
Had she told me all of that while we were in one of our town homes, walking down the street, or out getting tacos, I would’ve probably…
been just as blown away as down here, actually.
Maybe I’m just glad that she told me. As strange and not-typical as it is, I like knowing her non-cover story.
Her kidnap experience, too, even if it makes me feel worse that I suggested we go sleuthing, since that’s what got us caught and trapped down here, reliving her childhood trauma.
Also, I totally called it that hers was a family of superheroes.
It hits me that sometime in the past couple of days, I’ve come to the realization that Charlie isn’t going to leave when things get tough. I wasn’t even conscious of the change as it was happening. But now I know with certainty that she’s dedicated to our relationship every bit as much as I am.
Giovanni and his men seem to be picking up their pace as they pack things up and figure out the specifics of their plans.
I have to admit that my focus has been almost exclusively on Charlie and not on the specifics of the bad guys.
But since she has spy training, I’m hoping she has paid attention more than I have.
So I ask quietly, “Do you know what’s happening? ”
She nods and keeps her eyes on me, so if one of the men glances over, it’ll look like we are just chatting instead of talking about them.
I do all I can to keep my eyes on her, too, as she talks.
“They need to get all this stuff removed from here because they can tell that authorities are closing in. They can’t take it all out at once, though, without drawing too much attention in the restaurant, so they’ll have to take two trips. ”
“Restaurant?”
“The other end of this tunnel is heading toward the buildings on the street that runs parallel to this one, behind The Shadowridge. I bet if it weren’t for the trees, you’d be able to see the back of Lantern House from the back of The Shadowridge.
My guess is that’s where they’re exiting.
And with a restaurant, they’d have deliveries at all times of the day, so they could bring goods in, sneak them down here, and not be too noticed.
“If you think about it, it’s the perfect setup for them. The buildings aren’t too far apart, but because they’re on different streets, people won’t tie anything they see happening there to The Shadowridge. We don’t even have officers watching that street. It’s brilliant, really.”
I nod as I watch the men wrap up and box things. Ancient-looking things. “So, where did all this stuff come from?”
“Archaeological finds, museums, things on their way from archaeological sites to museums, stuff like that.”
My stomach churns as I watch them roll up stolen history in bubble wrap like it’s an eBay shipment.
Ancient artifacts—things that belong in public museums, in the hands of people who would honor their stories—are being boxed up to disappear into the vaults of private collectors.
My jaw tightens, and anger simmers deep in my chest. These aren’t just objects—they are whispers from the past, the kind of treasures that had survived wars, time, and obscurity, and they’re being treated like contraband.
“We have to do something,” I say. “We can’t just sit around while all this stuff gets sent off to wherever it’s going and doesn’t have a chance. What was that you were saying about what your brothers would do if it were them here?”
“Hang on. He’s telling Shoulders-for-Days to deliver a couple of objects to a buyer who will meet him at his business in Alexandria. That’s a ninety- minute drive, so we won’t be seeing him again tonight.”
Shoulders-for-Days? I glance at the men. Ahh. Okay, that one.
“He’s sending Silent but Deadly off to meet a different buyer.
He might be gone a while, too. Giovanni and Man Bun Menace, though, are each taking some of the items—I think ones that they haven’t lined up buyers for yet—to…
I’m not sure where. I get the sense that it’s nearby, though.
Like, not too far out of Cipher Springs.
I’m sure they’re the ones who will be back for the second load. ”
“You want all of us to leave?” the man Charlie calls “Man Bun Menace” asks. “And do what with the lovebirds?”
“Do you have more zip ties in there?” Giovanni asks, and the man pulls some out of their packing supplies. “We’ll tie them up. Lock the entrance to The Shadowridge from down here, and we’ll lock the one in the restaurant from the other side.”
I throw Charlie a panicked look. The only thing not making me freak out is the fact that we haven’t been bound. But she gives me a look back that says everything will be okay, so I believe her.
There isn’t much down here to zip tie us to, so they opt for tying our wrists to the shelving where they have the artifacts, moving the remaining objects further away from where we’re bound.
The look Charlie had given me had said she was okay with this, but now she’s trembling.
I try to position my body in a way to feel like I’m giving her a hug, but it’s too awkward.
Giovanni tells Man Bun Menace to hold back so he can turn off the lamp, but then Charlie says in a voice that’s trembling as much as she is, “Don’t turn it off! Please. I’m terrified of the dark.”
“She legitimately is,” I say, looking at Giovanni and pleading with my eyes.
He pauses for a moment, probably considering the good relationship we’ve had, and then he gives Man Bun a head motion that tells him to leave it.
Then the four men head down the tunnel leading away from The Shadowridge.
We see the light from their flashlights for a distance before they climb up through a hatch.
As soon as we hear the hatch close, Charlie switches from fear to urgency. “We need to get out of these zip ties.”
“Were you faking being terrified?”
She gives me a head shake that is both a yes and a no, but finishes with a yes that’s slightly stronger. “They underestimate you when you’re small and afraid. I’ve seen it over and over.” She’s turning her hands and wiggling, and manages to pull one hand and then the other free .
“How did you do that?” I ask in wonder. There’s no way I can get my hands through.
“When they were putting on my zip tie, I just positioned my hands in a way that would make it feel like they tightened it well, but wouldn’t actually be tight.
Yours is actually tight, though. Okay, we just need to find something to mess with the little tab in the locking part.
” She finds a pen on the table and goes to work on mine, and I swear she has them off in five seconds.
“See? This is why I’d choose you over Chuck or Liam.”
She grins, pulls her cell phone out and turns on its flashlight, and then we head down the tunnel in the same direction that the men went.
The hatch on this side is wooden, and there is a metal ladder installed against the wall leading up.
Charlie climbs the ladder and pushes on the hatch, shining her flashlight around the opening, shifting her position to try to see along its edges.
Then she gets a notification on her phone, looks at it, and says, “My text just went through! So there’s service here.” She immediately makes a phone call and puts it on speaker.
A moment later, a panicked voice answers. “Charlie?”
“Hey, Emerson. Okay, so the good news is, we found out how Giovanni’s guys are sneaking into The Shadowridge.
There’s a secret tunnel. The bad news is, we’re trapped in that tunnel.
” She looks down at her phone. “Blake got the text, too, and you can probably see that he’s also freaking out. Can you loop him in to this call?”
She climbs back down while Emerson gets one of her other brothers on the call and says to me, “Pull out your phone and see how far we can get from this opening before we lose cell phone bars.”
I start walking to check it, but don’t have to go far. We can’t even get three feet from it without losing reception.
Blake joins the call, and Charlie updates them both on our situation and what Giovanni and his men are doing. “So we need someone to come over here now so we can save what is here.”
“There’s no one to send,” Emerson says. “Jace, Ledger, and Miles are all out of the country. I don’t even think Mom is back yet. I could come, but I’m still at work, and it would take at least twenty minutes. Everyone else here has already gone home.”
“And I might need you there,” Charlie says.
“I’m already driving,” Blake says, “and I’m fifteen minutes away, tops.”
“Do you want me to call local law enforcement or the FBI to get someone there more quickly?” Emerson asks.
That sounds good to me, but Charlie says, “And have them come in all noisy and flashy, guns blazing? They’d be able to recover the remaining artifacts, but Giovanni will be in the wind.”
“True,” Emerson says. “Which means it has to be you.”
“Me?” Charlie’s voice comes out as a squeak. I reach out and give her shoulder a squeeze. “What do I even do? And how can you guide me through this when I can’t even step away from the far end of the tunnel?”
“Even if you had reception,” Emerson says, “I’m not sure I could lead you through it.
There’s a reason why I’m an analyst and not a tech op—when I need to figure something out, I shut out the world and focus.
I usually get time to think. I don’t have to give an answer right in the middle of stressful things. I have no idea how you do what you do.
“But Charlie, you do know what to do. Right in the heat of things, you know. You just need to trust your instincts. You knew Giovanni was committing crimes before anyone else had the slightest clue. Trust yourself. If Jace was the one down there, and you had him on comms and cameras, what would you tell him to do right now?”
Charlie visibly calms. “I’d tell him to get photographic evidence of everything, making sure to put it all exactly back as it was, then to zip tie himself back up before Giovanni returns.
Then I would watch street cameras for Giovanni to come back, and I’d send in the cavalry as soon as he was back in the tunnel.
” She lets out a long exhale. “I wish I could have you go to my computer and show you how to bring up the cameras on the street in front of the restaurant so you could watch for Giovanni, but it’d take too long. ”
“I can tell you when he comes,” Blake says. “Heidi and I will head to the restaurant, find the hatch, and then keep an eye out for him. When we see him, I’ll call you, Emerson, so you’ll know to send in the noisy, flashy suits with blazing guns.”
“That’s perfect!” Charlie says. “Tell them to go into The Shadowridge, too, so he doesn’t escape from that direction. Those pictures I texted are of a maintenance closet backstage, near the dressing rooms. It’s locked from down here.”
“Got it,” Emerson says.
“And Charlie, if anything happens to you…” Blake adds.
“I know. You’ll have even more bitterness toward the CSA than you do right now. Don’t worry. We’ll be careful.”
Charlie ends the call, and we both run back to the table that Man Bun had been working at.
I take a picture of how everything is on the table, and then I start opening folders, and Charlie starts taking pictures as I flip to each page, holding my flashlight on them so she’ll get a good image.
It looks like these papers show where every piece has gone.
Hopefully, it’ll mean they can get them all back.
When we finish, we look at the picture on my phone and get the table back the way it was, and then we do the same to the artifacts.
We’re working so fast our hands are shaking from all the adrenaline.
We hear a sound at the far end of the tunnel, so we turn off our phones’ flashlights and put them in our pockets.
Charlie quickly grabs two zip ties, and we sit at the base of the shelving just like we were.
“Put your hands like this,” Charlie says, holding her fists out and pressed together, palms down.
So I put my fists like that on the other side of the bar, and she zip ties me.
“If they check your bands, turn your hands like that again, and they’ll feel tight.
” Then she puts a zip tie around the same bar, keeping it loose, then slips her hands into it.
We’ve still got adrenaline coursing through us, so we’re breathing heavily, but hopefully Giovanni will just interpret it as fear. “You are amazing,” I whisper to Charlie. “You know that, right?”
She gives me a smile that’s beautiful in the dim glow of the lamp. She looks like she’s pretty proud of herself, and I’m proud of her, too.
We see Giovanni walking in the tunnel back toward us first. It’s maybe a minute later before Man Bun joins him. As soon as Giovanni is to us, Charlie says in that same trembling voice that she’d used before, “Thank you for leaving the light on for me.”
He just grunts a response, and he and Man Bun start packing up the rest of the artifacts.
Charlie turns her head to me, mouths, They’re going too fast. We need to stall them .
Now that’s something I can do. I have plenty of questions I’ve been dying to ask Giovanni.