Chapter 61
Vaughn raced down Mercer Road, saw the sign for the Princeton Battlefield State Park, and yanked the wheel so hard that two of the car’s tires lifted off the ground.
“Where to now?”
The dirt road curved a little before being flanked by sections of old wooden fences.
He was familiar with Battlefield State Park, but not the Clarke . . . whatever House. There was a fork up ahead. Left, a gravel road flanked by pines. Right, a little more open.
“Don’t know . . . right, I think,” Ivy said.
Vaughn went right.
It didn’t matter.
The road was short and looped back, connecting with the left fork, but there was no Clarke House.
“Where is it?” Vaughn hammered the brakes and hopped out.
“There!”
Ivy was already out of the car, pointing at a white structure about two hundred feet in the distance, on the other side of an empty field.
Vaughn was tempted to tell her to stay in the vehicle, but he knew she wouldn’t listen.
They broke into a run.
“How much time?” Vaughn yelled.
Ivy was fast, already about twenty feet in front of him.
“I don’t know!”
Minutes—there had to be only single digit minutes left.
Ivy got to the front doors first, barely breathing hard. Vaughn joined her moments later and looked up, blinking rapidly to clear sweat from his eyes.
The Thomas Clarke House was old, constructed of sun-bleached horizontal slats. A small overhang roof on the left half offered shade to what appeared to be the main entrance.
Ivy was at the door, yanking on it.
“It’s locked!”
It was the middle of the afternoon—why the fuck was it locked?
There was another door halfway down the building. Vaughn rushed to it but was met with the same result.
He pounded on the worn wood with his fist.
“Hey! Anyone in there! PPD, open up!”
He banged again.
Heard Ivy say something along the lines of, “It can’t be here.”
“PPD!”
He took a step back, went further left. There were two windows on the ground level. Vaughn cupped his hands and peered through the first. The lights were off, and it was dark inside.
“Hey! Anyone in there!”
Vaughn pulled away from the window.
“Ivy, you sure about—” He stopped. Ivy was no longer at the other door. “Ivy? Ivy!”
Where the hell did she go?
“Ivy!”
He heard a faint beeping. An alarm—Ivy had put a timer for twenty-seven minutes on her phone after finding the note.
Vaughn followed the sound, calling Ivy’s name as he headed around the side of the building.
He saw some sort of shed or barn, older even than the main building, just a couple dozen paces away.
“Ivy!”
Enter another sound, louder than her phone alarm.
A high-pressure hiss.
“Over here!”
Vaughn dashed around the back of the barn, finally saw her. Ivy was wrenching on the barn door, but it was locked. Firmly, judging by the way that it didn’t even rattle in its frame when Ivy heaved.
“It won’t open!”
“Out of the way.”
Ivy stepped back and Vaughn tried the door—no luck.
He kicked it next, but it barely budged.
Old-ass shed was fitted with a reinforced door and a lock worthy of a prison cell. He could kick the damn thing for hours but would only end up with a broken foot.
The hissing sound had grown so loud now that it was impossible to hear if there was anyone inside.
“Wait here,” Vaughn told Ivy and then was off again, running back toward his car.
He popped the trunk, grabbed two masks that he’d asked Delaney to put in there for this very possibility, and a crowbar.
When he returned to the barn, Ivy was still at the door, grabbing, pulling, doing everything she could to try and break in.
“Put this on!” Vaughn ordered.
Ivy didn’t hear him.
“Put this on!”
He thrust the mask at her, made sure she took it before he pulled his own mask over his head. As Ivy adjusted the straps for a snug fit, Vaughn wedged the crowbar between the door and the frame.
Leaned on it, grunting with the effort.
“C’mon . . .”
He pushed harder, sweat dripping from his forehead and dotting the plastic shield in front of his eyes. The frame finally splintered and popped. Vaughn dropped the crowbar and kicked the door. It flew inward. A wave of cool air struck him.
Cool air that reeked of rotten eggs.
“Stay outside!” he shouted over his shoulder as he entered the shed.
The sound was deafening, and Vaughn identified the source of the gas immediately. A crude hole had been made—broken?—in the wall. Same shitty dryer duct.
Same death trap.
Vaughn saw the man next.
He was bald, glasses askew on his face. Lying motionless on his back. Tape covered his mouth, and the way his arms were angled behind him suggested that they were bound.
A piece of paper was attached to his chest.
Vaughn started to gag, but wasn’t sure if this was because of the horrible smell or the actual toxicity of the hydrogen sulfide.
Didn’t care.
He grabbed one of the man’s legs and pulled. Ivy grabbed the other—of course, she hadn’t listened about remaining outside.
Together they dragged him onto the grass.
Ivy was saying something, repeating the same word over and over again, but with the gas still hissing and the blood pumping in his ears, Vaughn couldn’t make it out.
He could, however, read the note on the man’s chest.
Too late.
Judging by the man’sgrayed-over eyes, whoever had written the note was right.
They were too fucking late.