Chapter 23
Chapter Twenty-Three
There was someone in the middle of the cage.
Bright lights shone down onto the cage, but only onto the cage. The rest of the theater was pitch black.
Charlotte crept forward slowly, moving toward that light, aware of the silence in the old theater. It wasn’t like the time she’d been there before, when Logan had been so quick to confront Morris and violence had broken out in a flash.
No, this time, there was stillness. A suffocating stillness that enclosed the entire place. It was as if the whole theater waited. Held its breath.
Waited and watched and…
The figure in the cage moved. A slight shift of her body.
Her body.
A woman was locked in that massive cage. The cage that had been used for fighting. In the theater that had once housed so many people who screamed and cheered as they bet high stakes on the players in the cage.
But fighters weren’t circling each other in that cage.
A victim waited inside. A woman hunched in a chair, with her hands bound behind her back, with her ankles tied to the legs of the chair.
Her head sagged forward, and her long hair hid her face, but Charlotte knew she was staring at Harper Channing.
A still alive Harper.
There had been no sign of anyone else. Not outside the building. The doors in the front had been locked. So had the rear doors. But Charlotte had broken the rear lock and hurried inside. She’d tiptoed through the corridors, waiting for an attack.
Only none had come.
Now she inched toward the brightly lit cage. Charlotte stayed in the shadows, using the darkness to her advantage as she crept closer and closer to her goal. “Harper?” A whisper.
The woman jerked.
“Harper?”
Slowly, so slowly, the woman’s head lifted. Turned toward the sound of Charlotte’s voice.
The lights over the cage clearly showed the bruises on Harper’s face.
A long, still bleeding slice ran down her right arm.
It appeared that half of her long hair had been sawed off, trailing now just to her shoulders on her left side.
Tear tracks lined Harper’s cheeks. Blood trailed from her busted lip.
Charlotte swallowed. “I’m getting you out.”
Harper shook her head.
“Yes. I’m getting you out.” She could see the entrance to the cage. A door in the side of the cage. But there was a padlock on it. Her eyes narrowed. She could pick that padlock, but she didn’t have the right tools on her, so getting it open would take a little bit of time.
Or…
I can just climb up the side of the cage. Drop inside. Then we’ll both climb out.
“D-don’t…” Harper rasped.
“It’s okay,” Charlotte soothed as she closed in. “I’m going to get you out.”
Harper’s head shook, back and forth. Harder. “Don’t!” Louder, almost angry.
She needed Harper to keep quiet. Maybe the killer hadn’t realized that Charlotte had already arrived and gained entrance to the place. “Shhh. It’s going to be okay. I will get you out.” A promise.
“Don’t! Don’t save me! Don’t!”
Sorry. Saving her was a nonnegotiable point. Charlotte reached for the cage.
“Don’t!” Harper screamed.
Too late.
Because powerful, burning surges of electricity were suddenly flying through Charlotte.
Her whole body shuddered and twitched, and she fought to release her grip on the cage, but her fingers had frozen, all twisted and stuck around the cage, and the electricity was burning her up as she kept hearing Harper’s terrified scream echo in her ears.
“Don’t! Don’t! Don’t!”
Charlotte fell back. She slammed toward the floor, and the last sound she heard was the distinct crack of her head hitting the cement.
Someone was crying.
Charlotte’s eyes opened, but the light was overwhelming. Far too bright as it seemed to shine directly down on her, so she immediately shut her eyes.
“I’m sorry.” A woman’s voice. Low. Thick with tears.
“I’m so sorry. I said don’t. Don’t. He…he told me something bad would happen to anyone who tried to get in the cage with me, but he didn’t say what that something bad was.
I just…I knew you had to stay back. I didn’t know it would electrocute you! ”
Yes, well…
That had certainly been unexpected.
Charlotte cracked open her eyes again. She tried to assess the situation. And herself.
I’m in the cage.
Flat on my back.
Staring up at the lights.
She wiggled her toes. Her fingers. Stretched a little. Everything seemed to be in working order. That was good news. The not-so-good news? She had no weapons. And she was locked in the cage with Harper. So much for a big rescue scene. “How long was I out?” Knocked out cold.
“Just a few minutes,” Harper rushed to say.
“Long enough for him to drag me in here?” Her mouth was too dry. Her whole body ached. And a sickening headache built behind her eyes. Also, had her heart just skipped a beat?
Hell. It had. Probably a fun side effect of electrocution.
Mental note—get to a doctor!
“Yes.” Harper’s miserable response. “He…he dragged you in here.” Then, “He’s going to kill us.”
“Not if I can help it,” she muttered.
“What?”
Through clenched teeth, Charlotte asked, “Where is he now?”
“Watching.” Barely a breath.
“Right. That’s what he likes to do, isn’t it?” Not like she could just sprawl there forever. Time to get up. Time to get the hell out of there. Charlotte shoved herself upright. She also almost vomited then and there as the whole room seemed to spin around her.
She sucked in a breath. Let it out. In and out. In and out.
Then she thrust back her shoulders.
The bright lights above bore down on her. The bright light made her head ache all the more, and she couldn’t see beyond the cage. Light inside. Darkness beyond.
“Who did this?” she asked Harper as she closed in on the other woman. First item on the to-do list…Get Harper free.
Okay, fine, maybe the very first item was…
Remain upright. Because her legs kept wanting to fall out from under her, and nausea swirled through her body.
She’d never been electrocuted before—imagine that—so Charlotte had no idea how long her symptoms would last or if she would suddenly find herself unconscious again.
So she’d better get to work. Fast.
She went behind Harper and started yanking at the ropes that bound the other woman. They’d been tied so tightly that they’d cut into Harper’s wrists, and her blood covered the thick rope.
“I…I think I was drugged,” Harper confessed softly. “A woman came to my hotel room door. Evelyn. She, uh, said she worked f-for Ares. That he wanted to enter a partnership with my family.” A shudder worked over her body.
This did not seem the time to tell her that Evelyn had been found with her throat sliced from ear to ear. That was more news for later. When they weren’t in a killer’s lair.
“After she left, I had a little of the—the champagne she’d brought. I remember drinking it and…then I woke up here. He’s kept me here, and he…he hurt me.”
The ropes weren’t unknotting. She needed a damn knife to cut through them. Where was her favorite knife when she needed it?
Oh, right. At Ares’s place.
That was the last place she’d had it.
“Who is he?” Charlotte demanded as she kept working at the ropes. Unfortunately, she was seeing double every few moments. Another fun side effect of her electrocution? Or of her slamming her head into the floor? “Ares?”
“I—”
“No.” A loud, clear voice cut through the darkness. “It’s not that fucking idiot.”
Her fingers jerked harder at the ropes.
One of the knots came undone.
Her nails broke as she kept clawing at the ropes.
“Ares is a pawn,” that voice boomed. “Always has been. Used by the Russians. Used by the French. Used by the highest bidder. Figured it was time I use him, too.” Mocking laughter.
Laughter that was far too close. “He’s my fall guy.
When the dust is cleared, and your poor hacked-up bodies are found, he’ll be the one charged with the crimes. ”
Another knot came loose.
“Step away from her, Charlotte. Step away now.”
The ropes were loose enough that Charlotte thought Harper could slide her hands free.
But this wasn’t the moment to do that. Charlotte’s fingers swept over Harper’s shoulders.
A quick squeeze. A silent message to stay put.
To act as if she was still bound. Because in a pinch, she might need Harper to pull a surprise attack.
Um, was the other woman capable of doing that? How badly was she hurt?
Getting Harper to remain in the chair seemed like the best plan for the time being.
To continue acting as the subdued victim.
Not like they could run out of the cage.
The lock was in place again, she’d already spied it, and the only way to get out would be to scale the fencing.
That would equal another painful electric shock.
Her hand fell away from Harper’s shoulder as she moved in front of the other woman.
“I thought we had a deal!” Her shout. His voice had come from the right, so she turned that way.
Her eyes narrowed as she fought to see beyond the wall of darkness.
“You said I could trade for her. Well, I’m here. Ready for that trade!”
“Is Logan dead?”
She recognized his voice. He wasn’t muffling or distorting it any longer, not like he had been when he’d called her on the phone. So…“Yes, Carmichael,” she replied, “I shot Logan and left him to die in our hotel suite.”
He laughed. More of that hard, mocking laughter.
Charlotte raised her chin. No weapon. She hadn’t been able to grab one in the hotel suite because she’d been worried he was watching. If she’d grabbed a weapon, he might have carried through on his promise to kill Jamar.
Jamar can’t be dead. He can’t be.
Immediately, she blocked the thought. Logan had not been dead. She trusted him. He would make sure her partner was okay. He’d send help to Jamar.
She had to focus on the killer in the dark and on saving both Harper and herself.