Rockwell Agency: Boxset

by Dee Bridgnorth

  “I know you have,” Liam said, putting his hands up in a gesture of surrender. “I haven’t, though, and I’m feeling a little bit like a sitting duck, just standing here. How do we know he’s not listening to every word? Or watching us? Where is he? What’s around that corner? I’m a man who likes answers more than questions, Hannah.”

  Hannah swept her long hair back from her face and bit her lip. “Okay, let’s go. But you have to stick close to me. And if I say stop and turn back—then stop and turn back.”

  “You’re the boss, Boss.”

  She started to turn around, but he caught her arm and pulled her close for just a moment. His lips brushed over hers. “There’s no one I would trust more to get me out of a deadly situation.”

  Hannah smiled briefly, looking up at him. “I won’t let you down.”

  She started walking down the twisting hallway again, hugging the right side of it and taking corners carefully. Liam followed right behind her, and it seemed as though the path just went on forever. Nothing ever changed or looked different. It was just one curve after another, until he was sure that they had walked a mile—maybe two.

  Finally, even he started to think this was futile. “There has to be …”

  He didn’t get a chance to finish. The floor dropped out from underneath both of them, and they were suddenly falling, tumbling through dark nothingness towards God knows what. Liam could feel panic threatening, but he shoved that sensation down, trying to keep his head clear. Reaching out, he grabbed for Hannah, finding her hand and holding on. He thought they might fall indefinitely, like the hallway, but before he had much time to consider that possibility, they both smacked down against a surface that was hard as stone.

  Pain shot through his already-abused back, and it was only by chance that he had avoided smacking his head when he’d fallen. His neck had stiffened from the pain of landing on his lower back, and the strained muscles were holding his head just above the ground. He lowered his head carefully, trying to get his wind back. “Hannah?” he said, realizing that her hand was no longer in his. “Hannah—where are you? Are you okay?”

  “I’m here,” she said, and he felt her hand moving against his arm, reaching for his again. “Are you hurt?”

  “I’ve felt better, but I’m fine. Nothing permanent. You?”

  “I’m fine,” she said, crawling closer. Suddenly her face was right above his, barely visible in the pitch-dark. “Are you sure you’re not hurt? Move your toes.”

  He wiggled them. “I’m fine.”

  “Okay,” she said, sitting up fully. “God knows where we are. I wish I could—oh, of course.” Hannah pulled her cell phone out of her back pocket.

  “Honey,” Liam said, gingerly sitting up. “I don’t think you’re going to get service down here.”

  “I’m not trying to get service,” she said, as light suddenly flooded the space, coming from the camera on her phone. “I have a flashlight app.”

  Liam lifted his eyebrows and reached for his own phone. “I feel like we should have thought of this sooner.” He turned on his own light.

  “We should have,” Hannah said. “The only problem is this is a short-term solution. Flashlight apps drain the battery really quickly. We don’t have much time to look around. I haven’t charged my phone in a while.”

  “Neither have I,” Liam said, looking down at the device and noting that it was at twenty-two percent. It dropped to twenty percent, as he watched it.

  There wasn’t any time to waste, and apparently there was no sign of any other person down in this dark hole. If Agnew was behind all of this, and surely he was, he was in no hurry to make himself known to his two captives. But Liam still couldn’t bear the thought of waiting around for someone else to decide to give him answers. He would find them for himself.

  Carefully, Liam got to his feet and began to walk through the darkness, his hand stretched out in front of him in case it came in contact with anything before his vision registered it. The phone flashlight was helpful, but it wasn’t a great light, and he didn’t trust that he wouldn’t trip or hit a wall accidentally.

  “Found something,” Liam said, when his hand brushed up against something that felt like stone. “I think this is the edge of the room.” He looked behind him, the light illuminating the space just enough to see that Hannah wasn’t where he had left her. In the distance, he saw her light flickering, and from the dimness of her light, he could tell that she was far away.

  Her voice carried back to him. “I’m at an edge as well. It’s a big space.”

  “Be careful,” he said, not bothering to raise his own voice. He knew she would hear him, even if he whispered. “There could be another hole to fall through. Or some other trap. He’s toying with us.”

  In response, he heard Hannah’s ear-piercing scream, and his heart stopped for a moment. Liam whirled around, his phone flashlight far too weak to let him see what had happened to her. But he didn’t see her light anymore, and fear hammered through him.

  “Hannah!” Liam shouted. “Hannah! Hannah, answer me! Hannah, where are you? Agnew—let her be. I’m the one you want, aren’t I? I’m the one who asked her to investigate your family. She’s just doing her job—take it out on me, not on her.”

  “Isn’t that noble,” a voice said, coming from all around the dark room. There was no way to tell where Agnew was positioned. “It seems you really have feelings for this girl, don’t you?”

  Of course, he did. Liam had known it before, even if he hadn’t specifically given voice to it, but now, not knowing if she was dead, or alive, or what he would do if he she was, God forbid, dead, there was no way to avoid knowing what he felt. “I love her,” Liam said. “I’m in love with her. Yes—I have feelings for her. I’ll do whatever you want me to if you just don’t hurt her. Take me instead of her.”

  “Aww.” Agnew still, still unseen. He clucked his tongue lightly. “Isn’t that the sweetest offer. Unfortunately, that’s not how this game works. But I’ll keep it in mind in case something changes. Now—just so you know, Hannah isn’t dead. Not yet anyway. I’ve never really been able to show off my power to anyone before, so I’m not looking to make a quick thing of this. But I did want a minute to talk with you alone. One-on-one. Man-to-man.”

  The news that Hannah wasn’t dead made Liam sag back against the wall, his eyes closing even though all he saw was darkness, even when they were open. Hannah was alive. For the moment, that was all that mattered.

  Something struck against his cheek.

  “I’m talking to you!” Agnew yelled. “You will NOT ignore me!”

  Liam’s eyes flew open to stare into more darkness. “I’m not—I’m not ignoring you. You were saying we needed to talk. Man-to-man. I’m ready. I’m listening—that’s all.”

  “You knew Trinity,” Agnew said. “What did you think of her?”

  Any way he answered, he risked walking into a trap. He didn’t know why Agnew had killed Trinity. Had he been obsessed with her? In love with her? Had she betrayed him? Did he hate her? Did he want Liam to say that he’d broken up with Trinity because he couldn’t stand her? He couldn’t afford to double down on either end of the spectrum, so he gave a cautious answer, wondering the whole time, in the back of his mind where Hannah was and if she was hurt. “Trinity was fine,” Liam said. “Sweet girl. Normal girl. Nothing particularly notable about her one way or the other. That’s not an insult. It’s just … Well, once we stopped seeing each other, I didn’t spend much time thinking about her after that. I barely remember what she looked like.”

  There was a long silence, and Liam held his breath, not knowing how Agnew would react to his answer.

  “So,” Agnew said, sounding skeptical. “You weren’t …enchanted?”

  “I’m a hard person to enchant.”

  “But this girl—this investigator. Hannah. She’s enchanted you.”

  Liam swallowed over the surprising lump in his throat and forced himself to hold it together and chat wi
th Agnew, as though they were hanging out at a bar instead of trapped in a magically created space that was pitch-black, underground, and possibly—even probably—his intended grave. “Yes, Hannah is everything in the world that any man could want.”

  “Better than Trinity?”

  Again, Liam wasn’t sure what the man was looking for, but he seemed almost intrigued that Liam was not, as he put it, enchanted by Trinity. Perhaps Agnew had grown up in Trinity’s shadow. After all, Agnew was a relatively homely man who seemed to live a relatively sad life, alone, and without the love and affection of his family. In that case, he might like to hear that there was someone who thought Trinity was very average.

  “Trinity was fine,” Liam said, hedging his bets. “But, yes—Hannah has all of me. Trinity never did. She never even came close.”

  Without warning, lights flooded the room, illuminating the stone floor and stone walls that formed a circle around a large open space. Liam’s eyes blinked and squeezed shut, as they adjusted to the light, and when he opened them, the first thing that he saw was Hannah standing in a glass box, her hands pressed to the walls, and her mouth open and moving as she yelled to him. But he couldn’t hear a word she was saying.

  “Hannah,” Liam shouted, running towards her.

  He had to come to an abrupt stop, though, as Agnew suddenly appeared in front of him, towering over Liam in a way he never had before. Agnew’s large body blocked Hannah from Liam’s sight, and Liam strained to see around him.

  “Let me go to her,” Liam said. “She’s trapped—is she hurt?”

  “Not yet,” Agnew said, not budging from his position between the two lovers. “I’m going to kill both of you, of course. But I haven’t decided exactly how to do it yet. Killing my sister, I think, released what is my true purpose in life—to decide who has the right to live and die. I’ve always had more power than anyone has ever given me credit for, and this is why. Trinity and my grandmother both deserved to be taken out of this world, and now I’ve done it. Maybe you and Hannah don’t, but that’s not my concern. You’ve involved yourself in my business, and I can’t have that.”

  Liam forced himself to stay calm and rational, drawing on any and all experience he had in staying calm and thinking on his feet, developed in the courtroom. “You don’t need to kill us. I can see why you think that you need to, but the truth is, that we’re all more on the same page than you think. All I wanted to do was prove that I didn’t kill Trinity. Now, that’s done and Winnifred is clearly not a problem anymore. My interest here is done, and so is Hannah’s. We have nothing to gain from telling anyone what really happened because nobody else needs to ever link us to this situation. Even if they did, we would certainly know better than to say what we know. And when it comes down to it, the lower your body-count number stays, the easier it is for you to fly under the radar, right?”

  Agnew watched him impassively. “Do you really think that you’re going to manipulate me? You may win with that kind of thing when you’re dealing with people of lower intelligence. It’s not going to work on me, though. I’ve spent my whole life quietly observing people. I know when they’re being genuine, and when they’re not.”

  Liam took a risk. “Fine. You’re right. I think you’re an asshole, I don’t think that you had any right to murder Trinity, no matter what issues were between you, and I wouldn’t be sad if you were taken out of this world. But I’m not in a position to take you out of this world, and at the end of the day, all I care about is Hannah and I staying alive and together. So, you tell me what to do to make that happen. What do I need to do for you?”

  “You can entertain me,” Agnew said, smiling. “We’re going to play a game.”

  Chapter 32

  Hannah

  It was infuriating, watching Agnew and Liam interact, while she was trapped in a soundless glass box that, even with her strength, she couldn’t break through. She could see that the two men were talking intently, but she had no idea what was happening. She only had glimpses of Liam’s face to allow her to read the conversation, and she couldn’t tell if it was going well for them or not.

  She very much suspected not.

  Hannah was trapped, unable to break through the glass, but that didn’t stop her from trying. She continued to beat against the glass and shout out to both Liam and Agnew, determined to free herself, until she started to exhaust herself. Every minute that ticked by she grew more frantic, and her hands were bloodied and bruised from beating against the glass. But not once did she consider sitting down and waiting to be let out. She was going to fight as hard as she could to get back to Liam and to keep him safe.

  Just as she was about to risk shifting into dragon form to see if that would break through the glass, the glass suddenly disappeared. Hannah pitched forward onto her hands and knees. The blow to her knees was hard, and Hannah winced with pain, but she was so glad to be freed from her prison that she barely noticed.

  Jumping to her feet, Hannah looked at Agnew, who had turned and was surveying her with an interested light in his eyes. Her gaze darted to Liam, who was looking relieved, and worried, and skeptical all at the same time.

  “It’s okay,” Hannah said. “It’s going to be fine.”

  Liam nodded to her. “Of course. Are you hurt?”

  “I’m fine. Are you hurt?”

  “I’m fine.”

  “Well,” Agnew said, stepping between them again, so that they couldn’t see each other. “Isn’t that a sweet reunion? So much love in this room, isn’t there? Mutual love, even.”

  Hannah didn’t react or respond to him, only eyeing Agnew, as she tried to determine what he might have in store for them. “What do you want from us? We have nothing to give you. You know that already. You were the man that Trinity was writing about. It was you, but she didn’t dare use your real name.”

  Agnew smiled. “She was too scared of me to even speak my name without my permission. That’s a good feeling, isn’t it?”

  “I’m not one for enjoying other people’s fear, so I wouldn’t know.”

  His smile only widened. “We’ll see.”

  “Why did she pick Liam’s name?” Hannah asked. She reached for the bag at her side, shocked to see that it was still fastened and strapped there, even after her long fall into …wherever they were now. She opened the bag and pulled out a wad of papers. “Why Liam?”

  Agnew snatched the papers from her, sorting through them, tossing pages over his shoulder as he scanned them. He actually giggled to himself, shivering with joy as he read his sister’s terrified words. “There are many names. Sometimes no name at all. Just a reference to a man. To me. Grandmother foolishly only went through Trinity’s more recent writings, apparently. That’s why she went after Liam. It was like her to only do partial research. It’s one of the reasons I demanded that Trinity get her under control. She was an embarrassment.”

  Agnew tossed the rest of the papers aside, the movement removing him from Hannah’s line of sight. She looked at Liam, who stared back at her, both of them silently communicating their concern for each other. “So those papers would prove that Liam wasn’t guilty, right? He’d be exonerated.”

  “It won’t matter,” Agnew said, sounding bored now. “We’re going to play a game with only one winner, and that winner is me. The only thing in your control …is how badly you lose.” He spun around, throwing his hands out. “Under the weather, under the water, either way, breathing is harder.”

  Almost immediately, Liam was on his knees again, his breath coming in hard, ragged gasps. Hannah, however, stood unaffected. She felt a slight tightening in her chest from a gentle pressure on her lungs, but nothing more. She ran to Liam, grabbing him into her arms and pinching his nose before forcing air into his lungs by blowing into his mouth. “Liam, stay calm! Stay calm and breathe slowly. He said breathing would be harder—he didn’t say impossible. You can breathe. You’re fine.”

  Liam followed her instructions, gasping less, as he drew his breaths more
deliberately. Still, though, he struggled, and Hannah looked up at Agnew, narrowing her eyes. “You’re making a very bad decision.”

  But he was looking at her curiously. “You’re unaffected.”

  “That’s right,” Hannah said. “You have no power over me.”

  Agnew looked towards where Hannah had been trapped in the glass box. “But …” his eyes narrowed. “Ah, I see. The spell was in the box itself, and you were within the box. The spell wasn’t actually on you. That’s interesting. That’s very interesting. Very interesting.”

  Hannah said nothing, glaring at him, as she stroked her hand down Liam’s back, helping him to measure his breathing.

  “The question is why,” Agnew said. “Clearly you are not …normal. I knew there was something different about you the night that you both disappeared from the bar in New Orleans. Something happened there that you didn’t tell me about. I thought it must be related to your blossoming relationship, but no—no it’s more interesting than that, isn’t it?” He walked towards her slowly. “I want to know. Why are you immune to me?”

  “Take your spell off him,” Hannah said, gesturing to Liam. “I’m not talking to you about anything until you release him.”

  Immediately, Liam stopped gasping, sagging in her arms. Hannah bent over him, kissing his hair and stroking his arm. “Shhh …You’re okay now. You’re fine.”

  “He’s okay, as long as you keep talking,” Agnew said. “Tell me what I want to know, and as long as you’re answering my questions, he’ll keep breathing on his own.”

  Hannah’s heart sank. She knew that she wasn’t going to be able to hold Agnew off forever, even if she told him her whole life story and the background of the entire Rockwell Clan. Eventually, he was going to come after Liam again, and maybe her, too, and then she would have no way to take him off guard. He would know all of her secrets.

  And if she didn’t answer his questions then he was going to get angry and go after Liam even worse than he already had.