Chapter 9 #2
Doors lined the hallway, a few cracked open to allow strips of light to run along the carpeted floor.
She paused before the first door—this one ajar but dark inside—but she couldn’t hear any sounds of other humans.
Flattening herself against the wall, she checked to make sure that Kieran wasn’t in the line of possible fire.
He’d mirrored her on the other side of the doorway, and she gave him an approving nod.
Although she couldn’t imagine firefighter training included surreptitious compound searches, since their work was more along the lines of loudly hacking their way into a burning building with the owner’s express permission, Kieran was doing a bang-up job of sneaking around.
She gave the door a light push, and it swung open easily, revealing a large, dorm-style bathroom with rows of urinals, a few toilet stalls, and an open bank of showers.
It smelled about as clean as Charlie would’ve expected a militia bathroom to be, and she wrinkled her nose in distaste as she moved to the next door—this one closed—in the hall.
This revealed a large closet, stacked with piles of bedding and towels on one side, and cleaning equipment and supplies on the other.
She wondered why they had the latter, since the bathroom hadn’t shown any sign of their use—and that was with the lights off.
What horrors would the unforgiving LED lights reveal?
With a small shudder, she eased the door closed and slipped across the hall to the closest door.
This one had lights on inside, so her adrenaline ramped up in response to the possibility that this room might not be empty.
She and Kieran fell into position on either side of the slightly open door as automatically as if they’d already searched fifty rooms.
This time, she slipped inside as she pushed open the door, muscles tensed, ready to dive to the side if she heard the distinct sound of a shotgun shell being racked.
Instead, all she found was an empty bedroom, the covers on the bed rumpled and tossed aside, as if someone had risen in a hurry.
As her gaze raked over the basic furniture—bed, dresser, nightstand, lamp—a worrying thought hit her.
How were they supposed to tell which was Saul’s room?
Would they need to search through every member’s underwear drawer looking for their embroidered initials?
Even as she thought it, she pushed the concern aside. Surely friends of the leader of this gun-loving cult would have the fanciest rooms—or even a suite. There had to be some pretty good perks if his friends were willing to kill for Clint.
Kieran was still in the doorway, angled so he could see if anyone was coming down the hallway. Charlie slipped by him and crossed the hall diagonally to the next door. Except for being a bit tidier, that room was a mirror of the first, so she moved on to yet another door.
By the sixth small and empty bedroom, Charlie was starting to get antsy, and judging by the muscle jumping along Kieran’s jaw, he was feeling the same way. Skipping over the next four doors, she headed straight for the last room at the end of the hall.
This one was closed, and no light was escaping from the crack beneath the door. She fell into position, shooting Kieran a quick smile when he did the same. Slowly turning the knob, she pushed the door open…well, she tried to push it open. Something was holding it closed.
Charlie looked at the door and mentally kicked herself for missing the dead bolt Her heart began to thrum in her chest as she realized what this meant.
Either someone was inside, or the occupant of the room locked it behind them, which meant there was something inside that was valuable or private.
This felonious outing might prove to be more than just a bugging expedition.
They might actually get some information about the militia and its members’ crimes.
She slowed down her racing brain, knowing she was getting ahead of herself.
The room’s occupant could just be private or even had locked their door out of habit.
Pulling out her lock-pick kit, she held it up toward Kieran, who gave her a tight nod before returning his attention to the hall behind her.
Knowing he had her back—and much more competently than Fifi and Bennett had at dinner earlier—steadied her hands and let her focus on the Yale Premier Single Cylinder YH82 dead bolt in front of her.
Counting the time off in her head, she picked the lock in a fairly decent time of thirty-seven seconds.
Not her best, but not bad under the current conditions.
Giving Kieran a light nudge on the side of his thigh to let him know she’d finished, she returned to her position by the door. Once he was in place as well, she turned the knob once more. This time, the door swung open silently.
When everything stayed quiet, Charlie slipped inside, mentally cursing the darkness as her eyes, accustomed to the semi-lit hall, struggled to make out the room’s interior.
If someone was waiting to attack, they’d have a nice, stationary target since she wouldn’t be able to see them coming toward her.
Her adrenaline told her to keep moving, to make herself a more difficult target, but her common sense reminded her that she didn’t know the furniture layout, and braining herself on an inconveniently placed dresser was not a solid plan.
Although it felt like it’d taken a year, her eyes finally adjusted to the low light, and dark shapes gradually revealed more detail, illuminated through the wide-open door.
Charlie’s gaze immediately landed on the queen-size bed, where a single person—judging by the shape of the lump—took up a portion of mattress.
She went still, waiting for whoever it was to leap up either screaming or shooting—or both.
When neither of those things happened, Charlie crept around to the side to get a better view. Once she saw the light hair spread over the pillow and the full lips parted on heavy, sleeping breaths, she knew who was sleeping in what Charlie had assumed was Clint’s bed.
Gabrielle Jones, Cobra’s widow.
The presence of the woman filled Charlie with new doubts.
Was this actually Cobra’s old room that his wife inherited?
If so, there was no point of leaving any monitoring devices in here.
In fact, it would feel creepy and intrusive to be recording Gabrielle when she wasn’t one of Clint’s henchmen—or henchpeople.
Unless she is?
Charlie’s brain worked a million miles an hour as she hurried over to a bookshelf holding more bits and pieces than books.
She stuck a bug on the bottom inside edge of the front cover of a dusty hardback and then crossed the room to add one to the back of the dresser mirror.
She spent an extra few seconds deciding the best position for the camera.
Although inside the return air grille was tempting, she didn’t want to take the time all that unscrewing and replacing the grille would require.
Her gaze landed on a teddy bear sitting on the top shelf of the bookshelf, and she grinned as she headed for it. The bear had an open mouth, lined with black felt, and she adhered the camera inside his fuzzy maw before stepping back to admire the stuffed-bear symmetry of her spy cameras.
“Charlie, company.”
Although Kieran had breathed the warning, her name barely loud enough for her to hear, she still startled as if he’d shouted, knowing he wouldn’t have said anything unless it was urgent. Turning toward him, she saw him ease the door closed and then charge across the room in her direction.
Someone was coming.
She went still, the newly darkened room turned to pitch around her.
Kieran’s form loomed right in front of her, black against black, and he took hold of her arm.
Keeping the layout of the room in mind, she made a mental list of various possible hiding spots.
The options weren’t great. There were two doors in addition to the one they’d entered—private bathroom and closet, she assumed.
Bathrooms were terrible for hiding in—there were never any concealed spots except the obvious and immediately discoverable ones, and any windows tended to be tiny.
She might be able to wriggle through a small opening, but Kieran needed a bigger exit.
Closets typically had even fewer windows than bathrooms, but they tended to have lots of clothes and things to hide behind, plus it was less likely an unsuspecting militia person would accidentally stumble over them. As clichéd and not great as it was, the closet looked to be their best option.
By the time her internal debate was done, Charlie’s eyes had again adjusted enough to be able to at least make out shapes and forms. Kieran gave her a nudge, having reached the same conclusion, judging by the way he moved toward the first of the two doors just as the faint sound of voices reached her ears.
Forcing herself to keep her pace slow—since tripping over a random duck decoy or pair of discarded cargo pants at this point would be not only stupid but dangerous—she picked her way through the near-darkness.
The voices grew loud enough for Charlie to make out two distinct tones, although they were still too muffled for her to understand any of their words.
Kieran silently opened the first door. The glow from a night-light reflected off a toilet and pedestal sink, and he just as quietly closed the door again.
The voices grew louder, and Charlie could pick out a word here or there.
Taking a deep breath, she soundlessly exhaled, trying to keep her heart from pounding and blocking out everything else.
She had a feeling she’d need all her senses to get them both safely out of the compound.
“…check…doubt she…like the dead.”