by B A Trimmer
Max had started to come out of it and was trying to sit up. But he was still disoriented and kept blinking his eyes.
“I’m here,” I said as I sat next to him. “They hit you with some sort of knockout gas. You should be better in a few minutes.”
“I think Danielle’s still in the wine cellar,” Max mumbled as he swung his arm around to steady himself. “We need to get her out.”
“I’ll do it,” I said. “Roberto’s upstairs. He took a bullet to the leg, but I think he’ll be okay. Sebastian’s going to call in a general raid in a few minutes. We need to get everyone out of here as soon as we can.”
I left the hallway and walked toward where Barrett had indicated the kitchen and dining room would be. Once there, I looked around for an entrance to the basement. It wasn’t hard to spot.
In a short hallway next to the kitchen was a heavy wooden door. It was beautifully painted with Wine Cellar in scrolling gold letters. The words were surrounded by lushly painted grapevines. Below these were painted several half-full glasses, bunches of grapes, and bottles of red wine.
I took a deep breath, opened the door, and went in.
Chapter Eighteen
I found myself on a landing at the top of a dimly lit stairway. I could see that it curved down to the basement.
As silently as I could, I tiptoed down the stairs. I still held the beanbag shotgun and the weight of it in my hands felt reassuring.
When I reached the bottom of the stairs, most of the cellar was in darkness. A single dim bulb hung down from a cord in the ceiling in the center of the room, providing the only illumination.
The air had a slightly sour and musty smell. Some bottles of wine must have started to go bad, or maybe some had leaked onto the floor.
I looked around for a light switch, but nothing was obvious. I could make out a dozen huge wine racks. Some were against the walls, some stretched across the basement.
Barrett said there were rooms down here that could be used as a prison cell. I needed to search through all of them. If Danielle wasn’t here, then it was likely she’d been in the car we’d seen speeding away from the estate.
I didn’t see any doors near the bottom of the stairs. I reasoned the dungeon rooms must be on the far side of the cellar. I took a few cautious steps in the direction that seemed the most likely to find them.
With a whizzing sound, something flew past my head, brushing against my hair. It smashed into the stone wall behind me and loudly shattered.
What the hell?
It only took a moment to realize someone had thrown a bottle of wine at me. Even as I came to this understanding, another bottle flew out of the darkness, hitting me in the leg.
Fortunately, the bottle glanced off my thigh rather than landing directly on my kneecap. Still, the pain was intense, and the muscle immediately cramped.
Whoever had thrown the bottle must have hit the cord holding the light. The bulb was now swinging wildly, causing the shadows to jump and swirl around me.
I ducked behind a well-built but half-empty wine rack, grabbed at my leg, and looked around for the person throwing the bottles. I knew whoever it was, they’d be using the shadows to hide.
It took me a moment to spot my assailant against a far wall. I could only see an outline of the man in the dimly lit cellar, but I knew who it was.
Benny stepped out of the shadows and flung another bottle at me with a smooth overhand motion. The bottle hit the wine rack I was hiding behind and shattered.
I was splashed head to toe with wine. From the way it smelled, my mind automatically registered it was either a cabernet or a merlot.
Benny grabbed another bottle of wine from the rack next to him and lifted his arm to throw it. I poked the shotgun through an opening in the wine rack, sighted the best I could in the moving shadows of the swinging light, and fired.
In the enclosed space of the wine cellar, the blast from the shotgun was deafening. The beanbag hit him solidly in the stomach. He dropped the wine bottle, and it shattered on the stone floor.
He doubled over in pain and let out a shout of fury. But instead of going down, being shot only seemed to enrage him.
Benny slowly stood and glared at me. He was breathing hard and had a wild animal look in his eyes.
“You’ll pay for that,” he growled at me. “I’m going to make you suffer.”
The grin on his thin face had turned nasty as he began to stumble toward me. I could tell he had murder on his mind. He pulled out the pink stun-gun from his pocket and flicked it on.
I racked the shotgun. The spent shell casing clinked on the floor. The echoes bouncing off the stone walls seemed to magnify the sound. As calmly as I could, I took aim.
Benny was making no efforts to evade being shot. He was stalking towards me with blind hatred and rage in his eyes. The grin on his face had grown wide with lustful anticipation.
The bright spark of the stun-gun loudly crackled and snapped in the enclosed space. It lit up Benny’s face from below with an eerie flickering glow.
I squeezed the trigger and felt the shotgun kick. The beanbag blasted out with a thunderous boom. It hit Benny in the center of his chest, directly above his heart.
This time it seemed to do the trick. Benny’s eyes rolled up in his head as he staggered backward and crashed into a wall. As he collapsed and curled up in the fetal position, his pink stun-gun clattered to the stone floor.
With a sense of relief, I walked over and picked up the device. It was heavier than I expected, and the handle was hot.
I needed to find Danielle and get her out of here as soon as possible. There was no telling who else was in the house and what sorts of mischief they would treat us to.
I felt my way through the cellar until I started to get my night vision. Across the room, I saw the outline of two heavy wooden doors. The first one was open, revealing a small dark space beyond.
The second door was closed. A thick sliding bolt had been set into place, firmly locking it.
I felt another surge of relief upon seeing the locked door. My fear had been that the rooms down here would all be empty.
Something grabbed my ankle, nearly pulling me off balance. As I flung out my arms, I dropped the shotgun. I distantly heard it clatter to the floor.
I looked down in horror to see Benny. He had crawled over and was trying to pull me down. I struggled to get out of his grasp, but he held me with an almost supernatural strength.
Benny grinned up at me, further tightening his grip on my ankle. He was yanking and twisting his hand, doing his best to knock me over.
With his other hand, Benny was pawing at the shotgun. He’d gotten a couple of fingers on the end of the barrel and was slowly dragging it towards him.
Judging by the furious look on his face, I knew if I hit the floor, he’d do his best to kill me. Using his bare hands, if nothing else.
Benny got a firm grip on the shotgun and managed to pick it up by the barrel. He was trying to get to the trigger while also keeping hold of my ankle.
I pulled again to tug my foot out of his grasp, but his hand was like a band of iron. I tried again and again, but it was no use.
I looked down, and Benny was now grinning with triumph. He had managed to slide his hand to the trigger. As if watching in slow motion, he brought the shotgun up and pointed it at my chest.
His hand shook with the force of trying to pull the trigger. While waiting for the blast, I remembered I hadn’t yet ejected the spent shell or loaded a fresh one.
Benny must have also realized this. He let go of my ankle, and his hand flew to the pump. He slid it back, and I saw the spent casing tumble out of the shotgun.
I did the only thing I could think of. I squeezed the trigger of the stun-gun and watched as the bright white spark crackled across the electrodes.
Benny’s eyes went wide as he saw what was about to happen. I then brought the sparking stun-gun down to his upturned face.
“No!” he yelled out. But as
the stun-gun made contact, he let out a wild gurgling scream, and his body went into violent convulsions.
I know I probably held the electrodes against his face longer than was recommended. Still, the last thing I wanted was for him to get up and attack me again.
Eventually, the stun-gun stopped working. I shook it to see if I could get a few more seconds of sparks out of it, but it was dead.
Huh? I must have drained the batteries.
I looked down at Benny, who had curled into a fetal position. He was whimpering, and his body was twitching. I had to wonder if this is what I looked like after Benny had used the stun-gun on me.
I saw a switch on the wall and turned it on. Bright light flooded the room, and it no longer looked as ominous as it had.
I quickly grabbed the shotgun and walked to the locked door. “Danielle,” I called out. “Are you in there?”
“Laura?” I heard her weakly answer. “I’m here. I’m locked in the room.”
“Don’t be afraid,” I said as I slid open the bolt and opened the door. “I’m here for you.”
~~~~
I helped Danielle out of her cell. Her eyes were blinking in the bright lights of the wine cellar.
She had several bruises on her arms and legs, her hair was a hot mess, and her makeup was smeared over her face. Thankfully, I didn’t see any serious injuries and her eyes were bright. Her hands were tied behind her, and I didn’t have a knife.
I put my arm around her as we slowly walked up the stairs. When we emerged into the kitchen, two worried-looking men rushed over to help. One of them brought out a knife and carefully cut the ropes.
Since she seemed to know them, I could only assume Sebastian had called in the rest of his team. I left Danielle with the men and went to find Max. I quickly made it back to the hallway where I’d left him.
By now, everyone had more or less come out of their drug-induced sleep. All of them were moving, and they all had their eyes open.
Gabriella and Carson were trying to sit up. Largo wasn’t very active yet but didn’t seem too far behind.
I went over to Max and sat next to him. He seemed to be almost back to normal. “Hey, how are you feeling?”
“Like crap,” he said.
“But you still look good,” I said as I held his hand.
“Do I take it you and Roberto came in after us?”
“I was worried. You were a lot later than you said you’d be. We didn’t think it would be helpful to call in a Black Death raiding party.”
“That’s probably good thinking. Did you find Danielle?”
“Yes. She was roughed up a little, but she’s safe. What happened to you?”
Max glanced at Largo with an annoyed look on his face. “As soon as Largo led us into this room, we realized it was a trap. Somebody tossed a gas grenade down from the balcony. I grabbed it and tried to toss it back over the railing. Unfortunately, I’d already breathed some of it in, and my throw was weak. The canister only clattered back to the floor.”
“We found a guard upstairs who was in bad shape. What happened to him?”
“As I was starting to fade, I saw somebody look over the balcony. He had a gun in his hands, and he pointed it at me. He probably had orders to kill all of us. Both Gabriella and Señor Largo shot him in the face with a beanbag. I saw him fall backward as I passed out.
Ouch!
“He won’t be shooting anyone for a while,” I said. “What should we do next?”
Max closed his eyes and let out a deep breath. “We need to leave before the police organize and raid the compound, but you’ll have to give us a minute. The effects from the gas are fading but aren’t gone yet.”
“You rest,” I said. “I’ll go check on Danielle. I’ll be back in a few minutes. Then we can all leave.”
I found Danielle standing next to a small table in the kitchen, where she was downing a glass of pinot noir. Seeing the half-full bottle on the table, it appeared this was already her second one.
I could tell she was angry from the look in her eyes, yet she smiled as I came over. I took it as a good sign.
“I needed that,” Danielle said as she set the glass on the table and let out a long sigh of contentment. “I was getting thirsty down in the basement.”
“Are you alright?” I asked.
“Honestly? I’m so mad I could bark like a dog. I’d gone over to see Grandma Peckham this morning, and they ambushed me. I guess you’d pissed them off about something, and they thought I was you.”
“I figured that. I’m sorry you got pulled into one of my problems.”
“That jerk with the pink stun-gun used it on me three times while he interrogated me. I kept trying to tell him they had the wrong girl, but all that did was piss him off. He kept insisting I was you and asked why I was trying to fake a Mexican accent.”
“The man with the stun-gun is named Benjamin Todd. I’ve learned his friends call him Benny.”
“Well, Benny laughed as he shocked me,” Danielle said. “I could tell he was really enjoying himself. The more I cried out in pain, the wider he grinned.”
“He did exactly the same thing with me,” I said. “The guy has some serious problems.”
“A woman came in as Benny was shoving the stun-gun into my stomach for the third time. She seemed to be the brains of the operation.”
“Her name’s Lillian Abbot. She works as the Director of Supply Chain over at Scottsdale General. They brought her in to run an operation selling the hospital’s narcotics on the street. From what I can tell, she’s been doing it for six or seven years.”
“Yes, that makes sense. I’ve been slowly putting it together for myself. I think that explains why the city always seems to be flooded with cheap pills. But I think they’ll find their supply lines have been permanently cut.”
“What happened when Lillian came in?”
“She looked at me for several minutes and undid my hair. At the time, it was still in a bun. At first, she told Benny I wasn’t the person they wanted and to get rid of me. Benny really liked that idea. From the leering smirk on his face, I could guess at some of the things he wanted to do to me before he finished me off.”
“Lillian gave the same orders for me. According to one of the guards, Benny likes to stun his women once or twice before he assaults them. That way, they don’t struggle as much.”
“I can see him doing that. Benny was under orders to kill me and to dump the body.”
“They’ve set up some sort of mass grave out in the desert somewhere,” I said. “I have to wonder how many people Lillian has ordered to be killed.”
“Before Benny got a chance to do anything, Lillian had one of the street pushers come over and look at me. He seemed to recognize me but said I was high-up in a Phoenix street gang called the Marauders.”
“What did Lillian do once she thought you were a leader in a gang?”
“Her mood completely changed. She apologized for Benny shocking me and said our two groups would come to a business arrangement. She thought Oswald Knight could convince me to use my gang to distribute their drugs.”
“And if you didn’t agree?” I asked.
“If I didn’t go along with their plan, she said they’d kill me and wipe out my entire gang.”
“That’s a great place to start the negotiations,” I said with a laugh.
“Benny got upset when he found out he wouldn’t be able to torture, abuse, and kill me. He kept describing how intense the pain would be when he stunned me in the sensitive parts of my body. He then stunned me again in the car on the way up here. He did it simply for the fun of it.”
“What happened when you got here?”
“Oswald made a half-hearted attempt to recruit me. I did my best to string him along so he would release me.”
“I take it that didn’t work.”
“It would have, but when he found out the drug warehouse had been raided, he decided to pack everything up and move out. Oswald told Benny to put
me down in the wine cellar and the cops could find me later.”
“That couldn’t have been good news.”
“Not at all,” she said with a sad laugh. “Benny dragged me down to the cell in the basement. I think he wanted to shock me another couple of times and maybe even quickly assault me before everyone left. From the look on his nasty face, I could tell whatever he was thinking about doing had him completely turned on.”
“As I said, the guy has problems,”
“Fortunately, he’d only begun to tease me with his stun-gun when the shooting upstairs started.”
“What did Benny do then?”
Danielle started to laugh. “He hid like a rat. It was completely pathetic.”
“That sounds like Benny,” I said.
“He wasn’t armed with anything other than his pink stun-gun. From the shotgun blasts we were hearing from upstairs, he knew he was pretty much helpless and in serious trouble.”
“The shotguns you were hearing were from our rescue party. Señor Largo’s here, and he’s working together with Max.”
Danielle shook her head and sighed. “My father sent Largo to Arizona? I know he’ll be disappointed in me. I didn’t stop myself from being captured.”
“There’s no way you could’ve known. They were after me, not you.”
“Still, it doesn’t surprise me that they ended up working together. Both Largo and Max are intelligent men. Hopefully, Largo was able to keep his temper in check.”
“He’s acted rather reasonably so far,” I said. “What happened at the end when Benny locked you in the room?”
“At first, I think he was planning on using me as a hostage or a human shield. But when we didn’t hear anything for about twenty minutes, Benny thought they’d gone away. He locked me in the room and took off. That was when you came down the stairs. Fortunately, without a gun, all he could do was throw wine bottles at you.”
“Hey,” I heard a voice from across the room. “Are you two ready to leave?”
Max was standing at the door to the kitchen. Señor Largo was next to him. Neither one looked to be in great shape.
