Hell to Pay (What Doesn’t Kill You, #7): An Emily Romantic Mystery

by Pamela Fagan Hutchins

  Paige laughed. “Counselor, you’re not in the United States of America. You’re under it. No one is coming to your rescue.”

  “A conspiracy is only as strong as its weakest member. One of you will rat the others out. If not today, then later.”

  There was a stir, and one of the men said, “The weak one is you.” Then, “Pay, my love, God has spoken. Richie will be avenged. It’s time to make it so.” Brother Lawrence Furman, I realized.

  I heard scuffling noises.

  “What the hell?” This from Jack.

  Lawrence said, “Bind Mr. Holden.”

  More scuffling, but from Jack, I heard nothing.

  Paige’s voice said, “Mr. Holden, I believe you recognize my friend here.”

  “I do,” Jack said, from farther away.

  “He’s going to be given the privilege of lighting the pyre today.”

  A male voice spoke, one I knew and hated. Knew and feared. “Sister Furman, I’m honored.”

  “Of course, Brother Trevon. We can’t thank you enough for carrying out the Lord’s work in Amarillo, and for bringing the Wrath of God down on our enemies. Jack, you’ll find this interesting, I think. Brother Trevon is the one who killed your client’s friend. What was his name, Brother Trevon?”

  “Abel Stone, the traitor to Mighty is His Word?”

  “No, the other one.”

  “Dennis Welch.”

  “Yes, Dennis Welch. It was an accident, but it served its purpose. The real goal was putting that degenerate Phil Escalante out of business, to stop him from promoting fornication outside of marriage and selling smut. But it turned out that Mr. Welch was the co-owner of a piece of property that was going to be used as a retreat for sexual deviants right across the road from where we are here doing the Lord’s bidding. God works his will in mysterious ways, doesn’t he?”

  I reached for the knife in my boot, ready to bust in, but as frantic as I was, I knew it was futile. There were six, seven, eight, or maybe more men in there in addition to Paige. I leaned frozen against the wall, trying desperately to think of a way to stop them. I craned my head around the opening and what I saw I’ll never forget. The other five new members were binding Jack to a wooden cross. Piled up around his feet were boards and logs. Tom was sloshing a bottle of lighter fluid on him. And, as I watched, Trevon was hefting a torch dripping some liquid from its end, mercifully still unlit. Paige and Lawrence stood together, their hands clasped tightly.

  Everyone’s attention was focused on Jack. Could I run in and set him free, wielding only a knife? And then it finally dawned on me. I did have weapons at my disposal, right across the hall.

  Chapter Thirty-three

  The snakes hissed and writhed in the pit.

  Across the hall, Paige led the men in a prayer. I scanned the room and found exactly what I needed. Elbow-length snake gloves, which I pulled quickly over my shaking hands. A long-handle noose, a hook, and a lined bag.

  I turned to the reptiles. The pit scared me almost as badly as what was happening to Jack. But the cages on the sidewalls held individual snakes. I flung the bag over my arm, stuck the hook in the side of a cage, pinning the head of a large rattler. With my other hand I slipped a noose over its head and, when it was snug, released the hook. It hissed at me and shook its rattles with force, snapping at me again and again. It was clumsy-going with the gloves on, but I opened the bag, positioned it in front of the door, unfastened the latch, and pulled the snake out with the noose into the bag. I cinched the bag shut, releasing the tension on the noose and drawing it off the snake’s head and out of the bag. Working carefully, I added two more big rattlers then grabbed the bag closed by the neck and dragged it across the hall behind me at a gallop, sucking in a huge breath for courage as I ran.

  “Amen,” Paige said.

  Tom held a lighter to Trevon’s torch. Whoosh. Flames leapt from the business end and Trevon walked toward Jack. Jack’s head lolled slightly, and his eyes looked glassy even from twenty feet away. I remembered his What the hell? They’d probably injected him with a tranquilizer. A wall of kindling formed a semicircle a few feet in front of him. Trevon stepped over the kindling and held the torch to the pile at Jack’s feet. Another whoosh, and the fire sprang to life.

  I stormed forward as Trevon lit the kindling line separating Jack from the others. It surged to life, a wall of fire one foot high and growing. Smoke rose from it toward the ceiling, and I barely registered it being sucked into the ducts I’d wondered about moments before. I barreled my body into his, knocking him over into the flames. I landed in them as well, but on my feet, and I danced away. Trevon screamed. So far, although the flames licked at his feet, Jack made no sound. Without a second’s hesitation, I rushed Paige before she could process what I was doing. I kept my eyes only on her as I charged, screaming at the top of my lungs. She stumbled back over the kindling line, and I released the opening of the snake bag and grabbed its base, shaking the snakes out over her feet as I backed away.

  “Pay!” Lawrence shouted, running toward her.

  Her shriek was epic as she hit the ground. Trevon saw the snakes on her, and he stumbled to his feet and ran to her, his clothes on fire, getting to her just as Lawrence did. I ignored them all and jumped through the now two-foot-high wall of fire toward Jack. I ripped off one glove and pulled the knife from my boot. Then I shoved my gloved hand down into the flames to cut the ropes around his ankles. The heat from the fire was intense. Moving faster than I had ever moved in my goat-tying rodeo days, I slit the rope around his wrists, then his waist, then his neck, and he was free. He slumped partially over onto my shoulder. I propped an arm under his and around his back

  “Let’s go,” I shouted, dragging a stumbling Jack with me, running clumsily through the fire and then the line of dazed men as they crowded toward Trevon and Paige, whose anguished screams pierced the air.

  “Left,” I said, and pulled Jack into the hall. “We need a code to get out. I don’t have it.” My words came between huffs.

  “Stop,” a man’s voice shouted. “I know who you are, Emily Bernal.”

  I snuck a glance back. It was Harvey from the guard shack.

  “She works for the attorney that had Richie killed,” Harvey shouted.

  Not good. I cut left down the connecting hall to the office wing, Jack dragging on me like an anchor. Bullets ricocheted in the hall we’d just exited.

  “I sent messages for the cavalry,” I puffed, “but I don’t know if anyone got them.”

  “Saf yerbreath,” Jack said, slurring his words.

  We cut right down the office hall, and again shots pinged as they bounced from wall to wall.

  “In here.” I shoved Jack into an office and shut the door. I threw the lock and noticed a drop bar and hooks. I worked the bar home, barricading the door.

  I looked around me, recognizing Paige’s office.

  Jack was shaking his head, trying to wake up. “Wha’ now?”

  “We look for a code. For guns. For explosives. A phone.”

  We both started pawing through papers and drawers, one of us faster and with more coordination than the other.

  “Open up,” a man’s voice commanded, and someone started beating the door—bam! bam! bam! Then a shot was fired, and the same voice said, “No, you idiot, the door’s bulletproof.”

  “Bull-a-prufe. ’S good,” Jack said and slumped to a seat in Paige’s desk chair.

  “Yes, ’s good.” I shook my head. “What were you doing down here with no backup anyway? Didn’t you know they’d figure out who you were? It’s not like you’re some schmo off the street to them, for God’s sake.”

  He nodded, his head like a puppet on a string. “I’s wearing a wire. ’Fraid ’snot working. ’Sides, I got backup.” He pointed at me, then his hand flopped back to his side.

  That made sense. Jack may have been emotionally invested in his mission, but he was too smart to walk in here without cover. My eyes fell on his pants and feet. He was wearing
worn work boots and heavy camo pants, which was a darn good thing. The fire had burned the top few layers off his boots, exposing red skin in a few places, and it had consumed his pants and leg hair up to his knees. His shins were burned, but not nearly as bad as I had expected.

  I gestured toward his legs. “Your pants.”

  He grunted and over-enunciated, his mouth working hard to form his words. “Fire hose pants.”

  I nodded, my mind already returning to the problem at hand: getting us out of here alive. I felt trapped, desperate, witless. Delirious even. I didn’t have the slightest clue what to do next, and Jack wasn’t going to be any help. And in that moment, I remembered my father telling everyone at Wrong Turn Ranch about my spirit animal. Yeah, well, that was no help whatsoever. I snorted, then laughed. Spirit animal. It was as good as anything else at this point. Okay, I’d go with it. Jack squinted at me.

  What would my spirit animal the fox do?

  A calmness stole over me like a breath of wind, and with it a surprising clarity. A fox wouldn’t use brute force and run back through his pursuers. He’d sneak out through a hole in the bramble so small that no one else would notice it. So the fox would be looking for the hole now. And why not? Paige was paranoid. She’d built an underground military training camp, for goodness’ sake. She would want a back door. But was that back door far down one of the corridors, past the armed warriors for God? Maybe. I didn’t think so, though. She wouldn’t take a chance that she couldn’t get out.

  “Jack, Paige would have another way out of here. We need to find it.”

  He grunted. “You smart.” He smacked his face hard then grinned. “You ate pigsinna blanket.”

  He was like a drunken child and wasn’t going to be much help, but I smiled as I got to work. “I’m currently re-evaluating my dietary restrictions.”

  Paige had built downward once before, so maybe she had again. I got on my hands and knees and felt for seams in the floor. Jack staggered up and started doing the same around the walls, even somehow moving the bookcase off one wall so he could search behind it. The banging on the door continued and I heard Tom say, “What about an ax?”

  “Or fire?” someone else asked.

  I moved my search to under Paige’s desk, and I heard Jack climb up on it.

  “Nothing on the ceiling,” he said.

  My hands found a soft spot under the edge of her desk. I pushed harder and it popped up to reveal a circular handle. Keeping my voice soft so the people outside couldn’t hear me as well as I could hear them, I said, “Help me move the desk.”

  I heard Jack hop down, and then he plopped on the floor like a sack of potatoes. I peered out. “What’s wrong?”

  “Sleepy,” he said. “Hey, your teeth.” He tried to tap his, but he missed and poked himself in the nose.

  “I brought a welding torch,” a young male voice yelled, and then I heard the sound of it coming to life.

  Red-hot panic gripped me. We needed to get out of there, and I realized I’d be dragging or carrying Jack. He wasn’t a heavy man, but at over six feet he was a lot heavier than me. I’d carried and dragged and pulled and pushed animals twice his weight, though, and I could do it now if I had to. Certainly I could move a desk.

  “It’s okay. I can do it.” I crawled out and tried to push it. It was solid wood and didn’t budge. I leaned my tush against it, knees bent, and it slid an inch. After four more tries, I’d cleared the trap door, just barely. No code needed, thank God. I opened it, and a puff of stale, musty air hit my face. The opening revealed complete darkness.

  “She’ll have a flashlight,” I said. I scrabbled through Paige’s desk and found one. I switched it on. Nothing. “Spit in a well bucket!” I cried. I reached farther into the drawer and found batteries. I changed them quickly then tried it again. Light. I nearly wept.

  I didn’t love darkness, and I liked small enclosures even less. It wasn’t quite a phobia, but it was a healthy fear. I’d hated crawling down the mineshaft on Wrong Turn Ranch when a dirty cop had kidnapped Greg and Farrah, but that had turned out okay, and I just had to have faith it would today, too. The last order of business before descending into the darkness: Dear God, please let this tunnel be empty and leading to the right place. I’ll owe you one. Amen. I turned and saw Jack had slumped over against the credenza, out cold.

  I squatted in front of him and shook him. “Jack, come on, Jack, wake up.” Outside the blowtorch cut its first slice through the door.

  Jack’s eyes fanned a few times and then stayed open enough to focus on me. “Clyde,” he said.

  “Yes, I know, and I’m sorry about him and that we haven’t been able to talk about it, but we’re in trouble and we have to go, Jack.” I had to wake him up, so I reared back and smacked him across the face. I almost smiled. That’s for not loving me, you big dummy, I thought.

  “I’m up, I’m up.”

  “Can you stand?”

  He started trying to push up, and I got him to his hands and knees.

  “We need to go down the ladder into this hole. Can you do that?”

  He nodded. He stuck his head in the hole and before I could stop him, he tumbled head first into it.

  “Jack!” I screamed.

  From below me, I heard an “oof!”

  “Are you okay?”

  “Fine.”

  I scrambled down the ladder and trained the flashlight on him. He was face-first on the ground, his cheek in the dirt and his butt in the air, but he gave me a sideways thumbs-up.

  I shined the light around the tunnel and found an electric panel. Of course. Sister Pay Furman would have all the best for her escape route. I flipped three switches up and lights came on down the tunnel. God had come through with light, and so far he was doing pretty good on the empty part, too.

  “You’ve got to stand, Jack. I can help you, but we don’t have much time.” I leaned down to him and together we got him to his feet. I slung his arm over my shoulder. The tunnel wasn’t wide, but we were able to shimmy through it with me slightly in front and him at an angle leaning on me and moving his feet in a clumsy trot.

  Quickly Jack’s weight grew heavier and his steps less coordinated. I heard a shout above us.

  “They’re gone.”

  Then Tom. “Down there!”

  I saw a ladder ahead of us. “Just a little farther, Jack. We’re almost there.”

  He answered, but his words were nonsensical. “Hershmalanepticallen.”

  I lowered him into a seated position by the ladder. I dropped the flashlight in his lap and climbed. The outline of an exit hatch above me was comforting, but if it required a code, we were done for. I could hear men’s feet on the ladder two hundred feet away down the tunnel. I turned the latch to open the trap door.

  “God, I forgot to ask for this one last thing, but I’ll bet I don’t even need to tell you what it is,” I told him.

  The mechanism clicked and I heard air release. A hydraulic lift opened the hatch to incredible, bright sunlight and flashing red and blue lights. A quick glance around told me that we were on the back patio of one of the manufactured homes, and standing right before me was a sight for sore eyes. Fists balled and chin high, feet in a fighter’s stance, my father looked ready to take on the entire Mighty is His Word army.

  “Daddy! Help me get Jack!”

  “Sweet Pea!” He immediately moved to descend the ladder. “Get out, run. Now.”

  I hustled upward and was met by dark curls around a gorgeous tan face that was splotchy, red, and sweaty. Neon bicycle clothes. Black eyes frightened and fierce. Michele. Then another face appeared beside hers, pale and round and scrutinizing me under a shock of short-cut red hair.

  John Burrows said, “Did someone call for the cavalry?” He grinned. “Hey, you liberated your chompers. Good call.” And he disappeared down the hole after my father, shouting, “Police, drop your weapons and come out with your hands up.”

  Chapter Thirty-four

  “I’m riding with
him,” I said, diving after Jack as the EMTs loaded his gurney into the back of the ambulance.

  Jack sat up, and a paramedic immediately guided him back down with a hand on the shoulder. Jack protested. “I’m fine, you go with John. Do what needs doing.”

  “I can go with Jack, if they’ll let me,” Michele said. She’d been so awesome. I still couldn’t believe she’d replied all to my text to let them know she had a hunch I was in trouble, and turned back for the compound leading the peloton of riders. It was her reply that had set Dad in motion long before I texted him. The bicyclists had ridden off in a group a few minutes before, back to their cars, but Michele had stayed.

  “No, I’ll go.” Dad said. “Jack’s family.”

  Torn, I couldn’t help but watch John as he walked to his car. He needed to hear what had happened at the compound, all of it, about how it related to Phil, and about Melinda Stafford. If she had advance warning that I was onto her, what would she do? And if the Mighty is His Word parents learned of my knowledge and intentions about their foster children, what would they do? So much had to happen quickly, or everything could go very, very wrong.

  “You’re sure?” I said to Jack, squeezing his hand.

  “I’m sure.”

  He might be less sure if he’d known John had asked me out. I wanted to tell him I loved him and that I was sorry for everything. I was, and I also wanted to throw my arms around him. But I wasn’t going to do it. I’d been wrong to be upset with him, but I wasn’t wrong to not want to settle for loving without being loved. I had to stand up for me, even if it hurt.

  “Michele, you can come with me.” It was Wallace’s voice. “And, Emily, next time, you don’t have to go to such extreme measures to prove a point.” He put an arm around my shoulders and squeezed me.

  “I won’t, I promise.”

  “Come on, Michele. Looks like I’ve got a lot of work to do.”

  “Okay.” She grabbed my face in both hands. “You’re amazing.”