Chapter Fourteen
The shivering wouldn’t stop.
Maeve had shoved against the door with everything she had, but she was quickly losing her strength.
She could blame it on exhaustion—mental and physical—from the past few days, but her brain had already filled in the blanks.
Her internal organs were slowing function, rerouting energy to her brain and heart.
It explained the tingling in her hands and toes.
Despite her sweats, socks, boots and jacket, the ache seeped into her joints.
Breathing warmth into her hands, she paced to the back of the container in the short amount of space she found she could navigate without draining her phone battery.
She rubbed both hands together to try to generate some kind of heat, but whatever she felt didn’t last long.
The red light of the surveillance camera hadn’t come on when the door closed, and she hadn’t heard a single noise from outside the container.
Another shiver racked through her. Good. That was good. She still had time.
Though how much, she really didn’t know.
She’d never been locked in an air-conditioned container before.
She couldn’t believe how cold it was. The unit had to be close to giving out at this point.
Most units couldn’t operate below a certain temperature, but it sure as hell felt like it was dropping close to freezing.
How long had it been since she was sealed inside?
Maeve pulled her phone from her jacket. Thirty minutes.
Damn. No wonder it was getting harder to keep her eyes open.
Her body wanted to sleep. Only problem was, she probably wouldn’t wake up if she gave in. “Think. Think. Think.”
Callen’s most likely illegal collection of C-4 was guaranteed to blow the door hinges straight off the container, but the blast, in this limited space, would also kill her in an instant.
She couldn’t use the explosives, and the automatic rifles and tactical gear didn’t do her a damn bit of good.
There had to be a way. Rushing back toward the door, she gave in to the knot of panic growing tighter and tighter, feeling her way around the frame.
Cool metal almost burned her exposed skin as she memorized the area where she thought the padlock might be on the other side.
She was going to kill him for locking her in here.
Well, if she didn’t die soon. Callen had obviously seen something on his surveillance app that’d given him a clue as to whom might have broken into his personal armory and thought better of bringing her along for the ride.
She’d brought him into the investigation—trusted him with details she hadn’t shared with anyone else—and this was how he repaid her?
Maeve smacked the steel door, pain exploding through her hand. “Callen!”
Damn him. Damn this container. And damn this entire case.
Dragging her phone back out, she checked for a signal, but the walls of the container were too thick.
Her battery would last a couple of hours, at least, but at this point she was only holding a brick with a clock.
She set her forehead against the door and focused on the next breath.
Then the one after that. Her heartbeat pulsed behind her ears, steadying out.
She could do this. She’d been in plenty of difficult situations more life-threatening than this, but given the choice, she’d much rather face one of the serial offenders she’d hunted than a slow, agonizing death or potential murder charges when she got hold of Callen.
Shoving away from the door, she willed her vision to fill in the shape of the structure, but the adjustment never came.
“Okay.” She just had to slow down. Focus.
Callen had built a veritable armory-slash-bunker in this damn container.
While they hadn’t been in contact over the last year, Maeve knew him better than anyone else in her life.
He was security and survival oriented in almost everything he did.
Their pantry had been full of canned food, MREs, dehydrated meals and emergency rations.
He’d taught her how to process their own chicken broth and make jam, for crying out loud.
There was no way he’d moved his entire arsenal without having some survival supplies mixed in. She just had to find them.
And when she got out of this icebox, she would kill him.
She lit up her phone’s flashlight feature and scanned the room. Her battery dropped another percent, but it was worth the risk. “If I were an obsessive grump, where would I keep—”
There. Maeve practically lunged for the shelf across the container.
The electric lantern flickered to life at the push of a button, lighting up the whole space.
Cutting her own flashlight, she almost collapsed back against the table behind her as relief shuddered through her.
She could make out Callen’s entire inventory without feeling as though the walls were closing in.
She pulled the lantern from the shelf, raising it to get a full view of the container.
There had to be something—anything—here she could use before turning back to the door.
“Would it have been too hard to put a handle or release on the inside of the door? No, no it would not have.”
Searching each plastic bin laid out in organized patterns on the tables, she bypassed the explosive—grenades, C-4, what looked like det cord—and moved on to the camping equipment.
Nothing that would help her. Her fingers tingled with climbing numbness, making it that much harder to keep her grip on the lantern.
Setting it down, she hefted a crowbar off one of the mounted racks and headed for the door.
If there was enough room between the door’s edge and the side of the container, she might actually have a chance at living.
She pressed the thin tip of the crowbar into the corner, but there wasn’t any leverage; the two sides of the container met seamlessly.
Frustration exploded, and Maeve slid her grip down the bar, using it like a bat.
One strike. Two. Each clang resounded through the whole steel structure and shook her straight down to her core, but she and Callen had come in the middle of the night.
There was no one here to hear her screams. “What kind of hell is this?”
She dropped the crowbar, out of breath and quickly running out of hope.
Out of options. Sinking back against the door, Maeve rubbed both hands down her face.
She couldn’t remember the last time she’d shivered, though sweat had gathered along her spine from taking her anger out on the door.
She set her head back, tapping her skull against the steel.
This was her fault. All of it. If she hadn’t lost that notebook during Lauren’s missing person investigation, police might’ve been able to find Callen’s sister.
If she hadn’t taken a case in which she had a personal connection, she might not have been suspended, Iliana Meyer might not have been targeted and she wouldn’t feel this monumental dose of failure.
All she’d wanted to do was make up for her mistake—for disappointing the people who’d given her everything after she’d lost her dad—but working Lauren’s case was only making things worse.
She’d given the Russells the hope of finding their daughter, but Maeve didn’t see how that was possible anymore.
And Callen… He was never going to forgive her for what she’d done.
He was never going to be able to see her as the woman he’d loved.
Involving him had just been another mistake in a long line of screwups she couldn’t shake.
Maeve flexed her fingers, willing some feeling back into them.
In vain. Had it gotten colder? The air-conditioning fan seemed to never take a break.
She didn’t know how that was possible, unless Callen had adjusted it before closing the door.
He was out there right now. Going after a potential killer alone.
The man was trained to deal with any number of volatile situations, but confronting a suspect wasn’t something any agent or officer tackled alone.
They’d been partners these past couple of days, and she’d…
she’d liked it. Working together, breaking through the hard things with apologies and innocent touches and setting their sights on the same goal.
It’d felt like they were a team again. Them against the world.
And she wasn’t ready to give up on that.
All right. New plan. Because she hadn’t come this far to die here today.
Maeve rubbed her hands together again. This time, no amount of warmth came from the friction.
She was out of time. She’d gotten a pretty good look at the padlock and its location before stepping into the container.
She could guess where it was from the inside, and she happened to have a lifetime’s worth of ammunition to test her theory.
Pulling one of the handguns free from the mounted rack, she dropped the magazine and collected a box of bullets from the table underneath.
In less than a minute, she had a full magazine.
She was good with a pistol. Callen had made sure of that.
Sucking in a deep breath, she shoved one of the tables to the other side of the container and took cover behind one perpendicular to the door.
There were so many things that could go wrong with what she was about to do, but she no longer had a choice.
She would freeze if she didn’t get out of here.
Gripping the gun between both hands, she leveled the sights around where she thought the padlock might be.
Wait. No. She grabbed one of the bulletproof vests and strapped it into place.
It wouldn’t protect her against a ricochet to the head or neck, but some protection was better than none.
She took aim again. And pulled the trigger.
A hole outlined in moonlight appeared where the bullet had gone through the door.
Her laugh couldn’t be contained. Rushing to the door, she pressed one eye to the hole and gauged where the next shot needed to be.
She had to take the risk. Setting the end of the barrel directly against the door and behind the padlock, Maeve took the shot.
The padlock flew off the hinge, and she put her weight against the door. It protested open as a rush of chilled night air—far warmer than inside—swept across her face. She was free.
And without a vehicle.
Callen’s truck was gone, but a full set of bars registered on her phone. She tapped his contact information, not sure the number he’d had a year ago would still be in use. “I’m going to kill you and then I’m going to kill you again.”
The line rang.
And a cell phone lit up a few feet away. Callen’s cell phone.
Ending the call, Maeve collected it from the gravel. The screen had been broken, as though shattered during a struggle. Callen wouldn’t have left his cell phone behind. Which meant something had gone wrong when he’d left the container. He hadn’t locked her inside.
He’d been ambushed.
Pocketing his phone, she slipped the sidearm into the waistband at the small of her back. “I’m keeping this.”
There was only one reason someone may have come after Callen: Framing him for Iliana Meyer’s disappearance hadn’t worked. His abductor was obviously skilled enough to take down a former security operator, which meant Callen didn’t have much time.
It took her brain longer than it should have to work her phone and request a rideshare as it defrosted from near-freezing temperature inside the container.
But she knew exactly where to start the search.