13. Deacon
DEACON
I paused as I stood at the entrance to the bunker. “Who the fuck moved that thing?”
Plug beamed with pride. “The sand kept blowing in here, so I moved it to create a little blockade.”
“What gives?” Mace asked as he trotted up. “What’s down there?”
“I got her the message,” Dallas said as he came up, slipping his phone into his back pocket.
“You got who a message?” Plug asked.
“Nielson’s wife,” Gauge said.
Mace and Plug looked at me with a quizzical look.
The two of them looked at one another before their eyes darted between the three of us, and I had half a mind to call the other three and figure out where in the fuck they were.
For all we knew, they were finished and they could come help us with this shit.
“Mace, see if you can get Rat on the phone. Figure out where they are,” I said.
“After you tell us what’s down there and why you’re calling Nielson’s wife over it,” Plug said.
“Seriously, Deac. What’s down there?”
“It… may be better to explain this once we’ve got everyone here,” Dallas said.
“You sure you want Rat hearing about any of this right now?” Mace asked.
I looked over at Gauge and he shrugged. “I think we could all use some good news right about now, don’t you think?”
“Good news?” Plug asked.
I grinned as I drew in a deep breath. “It’s about as horrible as you’d think down there. Bait’s lower body is still strapped to that fucking chair.”
Mace’s jaw swung with shock. “You’re fucking kidding.”
Plug was always quick on the uptick, though. “Wait, part of him is still intact after that blast?”
Dallas nodded. “There’s a lot down there that hasn’t been destroyed because there was a set of explosives in a back room that never detonated.”
“So there’s an active crime scene in there right now,” Mace said as he pointed over my shoulder.
I smirked. “Yep. There’s an active crime scene in there right now. Which is why we can’t have a dozen fucking boots dicking around the place right now. Not until Nielson and his deputies come out to see it.”
“You think she left something behind in there?” Plug asked as he stepped closer to us.
I nodded. “I think that if there’s any chance of her being sloppy, it’s now. She’s got enough explosives in a backroom that we found to level the rest of the fucking place. I bet you anything she’s got no clue that room never went boom.”
“His lower body…” Plug trailed off.
It stopped us in our tracks. Even though we had hope for the very first time since we had first found those little black cameras everywhere, it still didn’t feel right.
A moment that should’ve been profound in nature, and all it did was serve to fuck us up even more.
Mace turned his back to us and shivered.
Plug cleared his throat as his eyes fell to the tops of his boots.
Gauge slid between the two of them, murmuring something to himself that I didn’t catch as he headed up the small embankment toward the desert.
The silence didn’t last long, though, when Gauge bellowed down to us.
“We’ve got dust, guys!”
My hand mindlessly fell to the butt of the gun on my hip.
If that bitch caught up to us, I’d plug her in the head and do the time with a smile on my face.
That was my last resort. That was my final offer.
Anything to get Char out of that woman’s goddamn clutches.
We all marched up the sandy concrete floor.
The sunlight caused me to squint my eyes as I shielded them from the harshness of the sun.
And as the vehicles kicking up the dust came into view, a grin ticked my cheek.
Nielson careened toward us in his personal truck, with Deputy Carlyle in tow in the passenger’s seat.
“Welp,” Nielson said as he slid his pot belly out from behind the wheel of his rustbucket truck, “your girl’s doing a hell of a job with her insanity plea.”
I offered my hand for him to shake, and he clapped his against mine. “Insanity, huh?”
Plug chucked. “Rat would be proud of that one.”
“And before you ask,” Carlyle said as his hand replaced the sheriff’s to shake mine as well, “she’s okay. She’s talking with a lawyer, she’s digging her heels into this plea of hers, and we’re pretty sure it’s going to work.”
“Pretty sure?” I asked as I dropped his hand.
Nielson shrugged as he peered over my shoulder. “No one knows her plan right now, so we’re just sort of pivoting with her as she pivots.”
“Where is she pivoting right now?” Dallas asked.
Carlyle and Nielson looked at one another before Carlyle cleared his throat. “Before Nielson here got a call from his wife, Commander Hadley asked us to call in a doctor to have Char evaluated. So whatever she’s doing in there, it’s working.”
Goddamn it, what I wouldn’t give to see my girl in action. She sounded like she owned the whole damn place, and it brought me a great deal of pride.
Relief, knowing she was okay.
And pride, knowing that she didn’t stop fighting.
“So, you guys gonna lead us down there?” Nielson asked.
I whipped around on my feet and pointed to my guys. “Plug, Mace, watch the entrance. Shoot off a shot if anyone heads this way.”
“On it, Bossman,” Plug said as he withdrew his weapon.
“Read ya loud and clear,” Mace said as he did the same.
I turned back to the sheriff. “Whenever you’re ready, Sheriff. Deputy.”
But when I headed back down the small incline toward the bunker door, a hand gripped my shoulder.
“We got it from here, Deacon,” Nielson said as he turned me around.
“No use seeing one of your men like that,” Carlyle said.
My stare danced between their faces. “Are you sure?”
Nielson patted my other shoulder as he brushed past. “Just hang out here. We need to take pictures anyway. Let us do what we do now that we can get down there.”
As Carlyle moved past me, I reached out and grabbed his wrist. I spun him around, stopping him in his tracks. And as he looked up at me, I nodded down at him.
“Thank you for trying with the shovels,” I said.
He nodded back toward the excavator. “You’re gonna have to tell me where you got that thing.”
I barked with laughter before I released him, and the two disappeared as they walked down the small, sandy hill toward the bunker door.
I wasn’t sure if I had the strength to go back in there.
To see Bait like that again. But I wanted to know what they thought.
I didn’t want to be out of the loop any longer than necessary.
Especially since we still had no idea when Char was coming home.
So I stood in the hallway and kept my stare locked with the floor.
“Jesus Christ,” Carlyle muttered as his camera shuddered over and over again.
“That fucking bitch,” Nielson hissed. “Carlyle?”
“I’m heading to get it now. It’s in the bed of the truck, right?”
“Yep, under those blankets.”
“Need me to go get something?” I asked as I moved in front of the deputy.
“Nielson needs his crime scene kit out of the truck so I can do the room,” was all he said.
Do the room? The fuck did that mean? I didn’t have time to ask questions, though. My mind was running a million miles a second as I whistled curtly. “Gauge! Come here!”
I heard him lumber toward me before his shadow fell over both of us. “What’s up?”
“Go with Carlyle to Nielson’s truck. They need something out of it,” I said.
“That really isn’t necessary,” the deputy said.
Gauge simply nodded before he held out his arm, ushering Carlyle out of the bunker.
I didn’t want anyone doing anything alone.
Not like this. Not with this kind of carnage around us.
There was no reason for anyone to be alone during any of this shit, and as far as I was concerned, we all had been through enough.
I watched the two of them walk off, with Gauge hovering over that man like he was some lost little puppy.
It was almost comical how Gauge dwarfed so many people just by standing next to them.
Nielson didn’t come to waste time, though.
“Show me the rest,” he practically glowered.
I slowly turned back toward the sheriff, and the scowl I was met with made my stomach jump. Good. At least someone was angry with us now. At least now, someone other than us knew what this cuntcake was capable of.
“Follow me,” I said as I started for that hidden hallway.
I expected him to make sounds, or hem and haw, or make little comments. Anything to tell me that he was taking things in. But even after I showed him the window wall that faced Bait’s carcass from behind, all he did was nod.
That was before we got to the room still filled with explosives.
“So?” I asked as I leaned against the wall. “What do you think?”
Nielson pulled a rubber glove out of his back pocket and whipped it through the air.
He blew into it before pulling it over his chubby little fingers, and I watched him like a hawk as he crouched down.
He hiked his pants legs up, reaching for the frayed wires Gauge found, and turned them over as if he were studying for his first ever science exam in school.
I watched him pick up a brick of C-4 and turn it over.
I watched him run his hands all along the wires on the floor.
And as I watched him, I studied the way he traced his hand along the metal wall, still following those wires.
He found a little black box we hadn’t seen yet.
“What’s that?” I asked.
Nielson grunted as he stood. “That, Deac, is a detonator. Rudimentary at best, but it gets the job done.”
“Is there anything we can do with it?” Dallas asked as he came up behind us.
Even I heard the hope in his voice. I needed this to amount to something.
Hell, we all did. We needed to find a smoking gun.
Something to give us leverage. Something to give us an upper hand.
And when that paunchy man with his rosy, red cheeks and his fat little fingers turned to us with a smile on his face, I knew we were finally a shoe-in.
“If we can find anything here that shows Marcie was here. DNA, a strand of hair, a fingerprint, anything of the sort,” he said as he softly shook the detonator to accent his words, “then we can sink her with this place.”
I stepped up to the man, cloaking him in my shadow.
“What do you need?” I demanded.
And the smile that crossed that man’s face was one I knew I’d never forget.