Behind the Lens (Home in Carson Book 1)

by Renee Harless

  This was the secret domain that only a select few knew about. Sure, many suspected that it was his apartment, but it was so much more than that. Until recently, he had been a part of an underground government agency working to gather information on a drug cartel that was dabbling in sex trafficking. Unfortunately, that mission had recently been shut down and Cliff had been waiting anxiously for a new assignment. Though drawing and photography eased his mind, let him see the beauty in the world, his covert missions gave him a sense of purpose.

  Stepping into the main room, Cliff booted up the computer that looked like it was straight out of 1998 and typed in a name. Alexis Alta. The woman he couldn’t get out of his mind and a woman with almost as much government clearance as himself.

  Seven hundred and sixty-two days since he saw her last, but she wasn’t far from his mind. A silhouetted version of her constantly played in his daydreams.

  The computer pinged when it came up empty. The same sound it’d made for the last year whenever he searched for her. Cliff didn’t know why the compulsion to make sure she was safe possessed him, but he knew that it was impossible to turn off. He had tried, tried so damn hard to forget her. Forget her smile, forget the small tinkle in her laugh, forget the haunting brown eyes that held more secrets than they could handle. She was his undoing and she didn’t even know it.

  Sighing as he shut down his computer, Cliff leaned back in the chair, his hands rested on top of his overgrown hair.

  He hated this feeling of being weak. This feeling as though someone needed his help, but he’s powerless to do anything. Alexis was smart, Cliff knew she was more than capable of taking care of herself, but the last check-in he was able to find had her along the Mexican border infiltrating a drug cartel.

  Cliff didn’t let anyone knew he was keeping an eye on Alexis because he knew his friends would bend over backward to try to get him the same happiness that they were all experiencing. He had his chance at a happily-ever-after, but his career burned that hope into a pile of ash on the ground. Cliff and his bride barely said “I do” before their world changed forever.

  An alarm sounded across the hall, and he almost fell from his chair as he startled. His first appointment would be arriving in five minutes and he needed to unlock the front door.

  Taking two steps at a time, Cliff used the interior stairs taking him to the storage area of his shop.

  On the way to the front door, he took a glance at the calendar, remembering that his part-time receptionist would start next week along with a second tattoo artist. Their background checks came back clean and neither had any outstanding red flags on the other tests he liked to run.

  Cliff used to be able to run the shop by himself, but the last two summer and fall seasons had him turning people away. Not something Cliff wanted to repeat this year. He felt lucky to find two people wanting to move to the small town of Carson. Though he made sure to warn them that once you step inside the town, they may find it hard to leave.

  Moving to the door, he flipped the lock and turned on the neon sign signifying that the shop was open.

  Back at his booth, Cliff set up the ink and gun he’d need for the appointment then grabbed his camera out of the bag that sat in the corner of his booth. He hadn’t taken many pictures recently, his time spread thin between the shop and renovating his new house. Cliff felt a pang in his chest as the weight of the camera settled in his hand. Photography had a way of relaxing him, making him feel as if he was one with whatever it was he was capturing on display.

  Flipping the small LCD screen toward him, he pressed the button that allowed him to scroll through the images. Just as it landed on a picture of a woman’s back, the chime above his door sounded, alerting him to his customer.

  Stepping out of the booth, he marched toward the small waiting area and greeted the older man.

  “Good afternoon, what can I do for you today?” Cliff asked as he shook the man’s hand.

  Together they moved toward the booth as Cliff listened to the man describe the dragon he wanted along his forearm. Immediately he sought out his portfolio for a design he had drawn last week, and the man only asked for a small change.

  It didn’t take Cliff long to print it on the transfer paper and line it up how the man wanted. The motions were automatic as he drew the ink onto the needle and swiped it slowly across the man’s skin, wiping every so often with a paper towel to see the progression.

  He got lost in the movement, in the flow, as he permanently etched the design on the man. Normally it would have been enough to keep his focus far away from Alexis and her whereabouts, but he had a sinking suspicion that even the mundaneness of his day wasn’t going to keep his desires at bay.

  No matter how hard he wished them away.

  ***

  Her breath was steady as she crept along the side of the deserted building. Except, she and her team knew what was lurking beneath the floorboards. Alexis and her team had been working for over a year to infiltrate and gather enough evidence to take down this drug ring.

  That was all the mission called for at first, but their recent intel discovered the groundwork for an undercover sex ring.

  There was not a single thing that fired Alexis up more than sex trafficking. When she heard the news, she had been ready to rush the entire process with guns blazing. She was so keyed up that her boss required her to take two weeks of personal leave to get her head on straight. Alexis didn’t understand at the time. She didn’t understand how the men on her team could sit back and continue to let this happen, even though she knew they didn’t have enough evidence. All she could see in that angered haze of red were people’s wives, sisters, mothers drugged and carried off to who-knew-where.

  “What’s your position?” a voice asked in her ear. The small device sat snugly in her ear canal that Alexis almost forgot that she was wearing it.

  “We’re on the south side of the building. Was the picture coming in clear?” she asked Heath of the small camera attached to her bulletproof vest.

  Alexis and Heath had been assigned to the same missions since they were both recruited by the FBI. He was the closest thing she had to a brother and she loved him fiercely. She knew, without a doubt, that he would have her back, just as she would have his.

  And tonight, she needed his eyes and ears. There was no moonlight guiding them, just a few night-vision goggles and the keen eye of Heath through the camera. The team she was working with were talented, but it was the first time the eight of them had been placed together. These kinds of missions were always difficult, but when you were working with new people, it was hard to gauge if they would have your back. And from Alexis’ standpoint – they didn’t.

  Their director had explained the plan to them before they left the New Mexico office. Charlie and Ted were to enter the bunker first, followed by Alexis and the rest of the team. But when they arrived on the scene, Charlie (who had announced himself the mission’s leader) rearranged the lineup.

  Which was why Alexis now stood in front of the group, peering her head around the corner to make sure it was clear before they breached the Eastern entrance.

  “All clear,” the crackling voice of Heath sounds in her ear.

  With a flick of her wrist, Alexis motioned for the men to move around her and stand guard as she pressed her body against the wall slipping inside the door. She held her breath, listening for any movements as she raised her gun at eye level, poised and trained to take anything out that so much as took a step in her direction.

  But as expected, the room was empty.

  She and the team moved quickly toward the basement entrance. She had hoped that they could have found the outlet on the other side of the Mexican border to trap the cartel in place, but cooperation with multiple teams was futile.

  Primed at the base of the stairs, Alexis leaned down slightly to check for clearance and found a barren hallway. The team followed her down the steps and through the narrow passageway. The walls were shrinking around them until
they could only pass through in a single line.

  “Something’s not right,” Alexis whispered, knowing Heath was monitoring a surveillance drone they had hovering over the property.

  “Then get out of there,” he replied.

  She immediately imagined the scared looks on the women and children that had been taken by these drug lords and Alexis knew that there was no turning back for her, she’d see this through to the end.

  “I couldn’t. We couldn’t. There was literally no place to go. Check the tracking against the layout. How much farther do we have?”

  They had been lucky that their intel was able to provide a layout of the underground bunker, and the man knew the consequences if he tried to pull one over on their team.

  “Five yards ahead, you’ll find an entrance on the left.”

  “Charlie,” Alexis whispered, “run an infrared scan.”

  The group paused and Charlie stepped around Alexis, leaning the infrared camera into the opening, scanning the space for any heat. As he gave the all-clear, Alexis motioned for the team to follow her inside the room.

  The darkness swelled around them, threatening to suffocate them in the abandoned room. Alexis’ heart pounded in her chest, sounding like she was running a marathon. Her fear spiked and the earlier notion of something being wrong bubbled to the surface.

  This room should have had men gathered or standing watch. The team knew how this cartel worked and they always covered their backs.

  Alexis paused, the group halting behind her, and she glanced around the room with her night-vision goggles. Nothing seemed out of place, just a room with a few chairs and a table. A dark stain marred the corner and Alexis shivered at the thought of what may have occurred there.

  “Let’s move forward,” Charlie barked, stepping around Alexis and waving his hand toward the group.

  Ted immediately moved to follow his friend farther into the room, but the rest of the men stood stoically behind Alexis. She knew that they’re waiting for her decision to proceed.

  But something nagged at her – something wasn’t right.

  Just as Alexis began to call out for the team to fall back, Charlie and Ted stepped farther into the room toward another exit. She held in a deep inhale as they opened the door and moved into another hallway.

  The rest of the group followed the two men down the hallway, leaving Alexis at the rear. She kept her eyes peeled, twisting and turning her head, continually taking in their surroundings.

  She remembered the layout from the map and knew the hall led to six more rooms with the possibility of no outlet, at least not one that their intel could recollect.

  They traveled farther down the narrow path, passing two doors that Charlie claimed to show no heat signature. Her feet faltered when the thud of a door shutting sounded behind her.

  “Stop,” she called out in a breathy shout, but the men didn’t hear.

  Alexis turned behind her and aimed her gun as she scanned the space. Though they’ve traveled quite a distance, she could see the door that led to this second hallway was now closed.

  Her heart falters at the notion that they’re not alone.

  “Fallback, team. Fallback!” Alexis shouted to the group only to have Charlie overrule her. “Continue forward!”

  His yell was muffled by the first round of shots. Alexis looked around in horror as two of her men fell onto the concrete floor, both taking shots to the head and neck.

  “Shots fired!” Alexis screeched.

  “Get the fuck out of there, Alexis!” Heath roars in her ear.

  “Couldn’t trapped. Find me a way out.” Reaching out, Alexis held her hand against the neck of one of the downed men, trying to stop the blood flow and hating that his pulse was weakening.

  She knew that if anyone could save her and the members of her team, it was Heath.

  Closing her eyes, Alexis leaned away from the dying man and pressed her back against the wall tucking herself into a ball toward the ground. She wasn’t cowering – far from it. In the group home as a teenager, Alexis learned how to intensify her hearing. She could close her eyes and listen for every ping and crackle to know when someone was approaching, which was always helpful when one of the older boys would try to enter the girl’s rooms.

  Her previous teams and friends liked to call her a ninja. She was quick, stealthy, and despite her small stature, she was powerful.

  Alexis closed off from the world around her and listened. She could hear her own heartbeat, hear her shallow breaths with each inhale, hear the screams of her men as they tried to outrun the bullets in the blackened hallway.

  Whoosh, whoosh.

  The hiss of bullets passing by her ears had her fighting the urge to jump in response. They came from her left side – the side facing her men. She listened again. The sound of bullets cracking against the concrete mixed seamlessly with the cries of her team.

  Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh.

  Three more shots. All from the same direction. From her estimate, they were coming down at an angle, possibly from the ceiling. With her goggles in place, Alexis held her gun in the direction she heard the shot and fired blindly. She emptied the magazine and reloaded as more bullets buzzed across her ear. One coming too eerily close to her cheek that she felt the kiss of air.

  Steadying her breath, Alexis stood from her perch on the floor, her back pressed against the cold concrete threatening to seep into her skin, her heavy clothes doing little to provide warmth.

  With a quick glance at the floor with the night-vision goggles, she took in the massacre before her. The men’s screams had stopped, their shallow breaths fading into the background of the bullets still echoing in the hall.

  “I found an exit. Go back to the room on your right. There was a false air vent that leads to a ground-level door. You’ll have to find a way to get up there, but that’s your only way out. The rest of the cartel was entering the bunker as we speak.”

  Swallowing against the lump in her throat, Alexis said, “I couldn’t leave my men.”

  It was a creed she’d always followed, so had Heath. So, it surprised her as he said, “If you want to live, you have to. They’re almost gone, Alex. I’m not getting a reading on any of them. Now get out of there.”

  She took one final glance at the men that had worked beside her for the last few weeks and whispered a prayer that she remembered.

  Resolute, Alexis cleared her mind of the ambush and slinked her way back toward the room she had walked past, constantly scanning her surroundings with her gun drawn. The handle of the door pressed into her hip, and without turning around, Alexis twisted the knob from behind and slipped into the room, praying that she wouldn’t find anyone inside.

  Slowly she closed the door, her hand still holding the twisted knob to avoid as little sound as possible. Alexis turned on her heels, scanned the room with her gun, and breathed a sigh of relief to find it empty.

  “The room was all clear,” she relayed to Heath.

  Through the earpiece, she could hear a struggle. Alexis paused, not knowing if her friend was being attacked or killed while she’s stuck in this room, helpless.

  “Heath! Heath, what’s going on?”

  “Sorry, Alex. Had some douche try to sneak up on me. Don’t you worry, I got him taken care of. Now, let’s get you out of there.”

  The relief that washed over her was immediate and overwhelming. She didn’t want this mission to go more awry than it already was.

  Knowing that her friend was safe, Alexis frantically searched for a way to reach the vent, but the room was empty. Nothing except her and the cold concrete – and her lack of height.

  “I couldn’t get out this way. I have no way to reach the vent.”

  Shit. She knew where there were chairs though, but backtracking seemed like her worst possible nightmare. And she knew by now that the upper level of the bunker was going to be swarmed with cartel members.

  “Heath, I have to go back to the basement entrance. I can get a ch
air from that room. It was my only way out.”

  Alexis heard his muffled curses before he agreed to her plan, promising to keep watch through the drone and her on-person camera.

  As she exited from the room back into the hallway, she was greeted by silence. The shooting had stopped, but she didn’t doubt for a second that she was in the clear. Using soft, swift steps, Alexis strode back to the end of the hallway. The opening that she had left opened, now closed as she had heard not five minutes before. She should have turned back at that point, saved the team. But hindsight was an unyielding demon. It would devour you from the inside, leaving you rotting in regret.

  The first thing she noticed as she slowly opened the door was that light illuminated the space. The once haunting square of concrete now resembled a mildewed storage room.

  Voices sounded in the distance, far enough away that she should be able to grab the chair and leave without notice.

  But as she stepped into the space Alexis realized that she should have known better. This entire mission was a catastrophe from the start. Why would this moment turn out differently?

  The instant her hand touched the back of the chair, the series of voices traveled down from the steps. They approached the room and Alexis knew that her time was limited.

  Thinking on her feet, she grabbed a second chair and lifted them both under her arms as she performed an about-face into the hallway. Alexis placed one of the chairs on the floor and maneuvered the other in front of her body, preparing to lodge it under the doorknob to buy her some time. It wouldn’t be a lot, but she’d take any few extra seconds that she could.

  The men filed into the room with a woman tied up and dragging behind them. Alexis could see that the fight in her was gone and she had succumbed to the death sentence she was about to endure.

  Alexis’ body flinched at the sight, and she knew if she didn’t escape that she’d be in the same position as the woman. Her need to fight took over her body.

  Hastily she reached for the knob of the door, preparing to close it before anyone witnessed her presence, their focus on their prisoner in the corner. But as a final man entered, Alexis couldn’t hold back the gasp that escaped her lips.