Expired Game (Last Chance County Book 5)

by Lisa Phillips

  He opened his eyes and saw she was right. Dean’s face was far more injured than her sister’s, but both had been punched and hit repeatedly. “Is this what it took to bring them down?”

  Jess huffed. “You’d rather they just gave up?”

  Now there was a loaded question. But seriously, when had he and Jess ever seen eye to eye? They could barely agree on the best way to make a pot of coffee, let alone what their relationship would be. Now that both of their siblings were injured and unconscious, they were going to have to figure a way out of here.

  At least he didn’t need her for that. Though, he wasn’t going to discount an extra set of hands. He couldn’t carry both of them.

  “What now?”

  “There’s a door at the end of the hall.” Ted swallowed the lump in his throat. If his emotions hadn’t gotten the best of him so far, he didn’t think they would overwhelm him now.

  He stood. “I’m going to go and see if I can get it open.”

  He turned away to the door and was almost to the hallway before she said, “What aren’t you telling me?”

  Ted glanced over his shoulder. “We don’t have enough time for that right now.”

  “Okay, then I have another question for you. What is it about our immediate situation that means we need to be in a hurry to do something about it?”

  Ted gritted his teeth together. “I’m going to find a way out.”

  “Good. But I want to know what will happen if you don’t do that fast enough.”

  When he said nothing, she simply stared at him. His brother and her sister laying on the floor on either side of her. “How about...Dean and Ellie could be in an emergency medical situation?”

  She studied him. “You know what this place is, don’t you?” Jess got up and moved to him, closing the gap between them. “Where are we?”

  “I can’t be completely sure.”

  “But you have an idea. Right?” She shrugged. “What is this, some kind of facility? A prison? We can’t be in Last Chance anymore. There’s nothing like this in town. So where are we?”

  “We haven’t left town. And this facility is my father’s doing.”

  “And you know that because?”

  “I designed it.”

  Ted turned and walked out of the room, not wanting to see the look on her face when she realized what he meant. Yes, his father had been involved in some terrible things that involved manipulating and hurting other people. Even back here in Last Chance County. Pierce Cartwright had done whatever he wanted to secure his own end—even going so far as to change the course of covert operations across the world. Simply so his financial backers made even more money, and his father could get promoted to the job of CIA director.

  Her footsteps scurried across the floor behind him. “Ted, please tell me you haven’t been working for your father this whole time.”

  He shook his head but didn’t stop looking for a way out of this place. “Not for a long time, but so much of it is still in play.” He waved around them. “Like this place.”

  She looked like she might be sick. Ted figured he would just get it over with and tell her everything right now.

  “He had me puzzle out a whole lot of things, researching security systems. Penal facilities. Even advanced psychology. There was barely a single part of military or covert operations that I didn’t study extensively. So if you ever want to do some enhanced interrogation, I can tell you some really sketchy but extremely effective methods. Too bad for me that’s what Dean is trying to fix in the people he helps. People like me are the reason his work exists.”

  “As soon as we get out of here,” she said. “You and I are going to have a conversation about how you still seem to think the bad things your father did reflect in any way on you.”

  “What happened is what happened. I’m not going to be a victim. But I’m also not going to pretend I’m a good person who’s done good things.”

  “Is any of us a good person? Sure, we’re capable of great love and kindness. Even self-sacrifice. But there’s a reason why those things are fruits of the Holy Spirit.”

  “So you’re going to be all spiritual now?” They hadn’t talked about any of that stuff, but they probably should have. “This is the time for that?”

  Ted wanted to talk it over with her. Who else would he do that with? She was the only one who understood. The only one—or so he’d thought—who was in the same spot he was. Questioning. Searching. Had she decided to accept all those things the pastor talked about on Sunday mornings? The stuff about every day, not just salvation.

  “What’s the rush?” She shook her head. “There has to be a phone around here somewhere. We can call for help.”

  “You won’t find any communication with the outside world. This facility is completely self-contained, designed to keep everyone here isolated.”

  “So it’s a prison?”

  “You remember what they said about the place where Kaylee was held?” She had to remember, considering they’d heard all about it from Dean and the rest of the guys who’d gone to rescue her with Stuart. “This is a lot like that. Somewhere my father—or in this case, more likely the fire chief—can keep anyone he wants to be contained while he convinces them around to his way of thinking.”

  “Well, isn’t that a horrifying thought.”

  “To us, yes. To him, it’s just a game.”

  “The fact you just said that means you’re nothing like him or your father.” Before he could respond to that comment, she spoke again. “And I don’t think you know how much you mean to me. So don’t shut me out.”

  He wanted to say there was no time for more. Instead, Ted pulled her to him and hugged her, planting a kiss on the top of her hair. “I have to find a way out of here.”

  “But it’s designed to keep people in, right?”

  “We can’t call for help, and no one knows where we are. That means it’s up to us to get out.”

  “Do you know where we are? Or why we’re all wet like we were thrown in the lake or something?”

  Ted had been thinking the same thing, asking himself the same questions. Trying to figure it out from the moment he regained consciousness.

  He was about to answer when an alarm beeped in the hallway. Through a speaker high on the wall, an electronic voice made an announcement while the display at the end of the hall scrolled the same words in glaring red letters.

  “Airlock containment breach. Five minutes to airlock containment breach.” The alarm beeped again, and the message repeated itself

  “Uh…Ted.” Her voice contained a wealth of worry.

  “We’re under the lake.”

  Thirty-one

  Jess gaped at him as she realized the implications of what he’d said. “We’re going to drown down here?”

  She couldn’t wrap her brain around believing him that they were at the bottom of the lake. But since she couldn’t prove he was wrong, there wasn’t much point in arguing. And it seemed as though there wasn’t enough time for that, either.

  Five minutes.

  He looked about as happy over this entire situation as she was as he shook his head. “I, for one, don’t plan on still being down here when the whole place fills up with water.”

  “I can’t believe we’re at the bottom of the lake.” How was it even possible that there was a facility submerged at the bottom? “Surely someone would have found this place by now.”

  He opened his mouth to reply but was cut off from speaking when the alarm sounded again.

  Jess winced as the noise sliced through her temple, making her headache worse.

  “You think I’m lying?”

  She shook her head as he’d done. Unfortunately, that didn’t help her head feel better either. “Of course not.”

  She didn’t say anything else. Not when she could see the fear in his eyes and knew he was purposely pushing her away, because he thought he was responsible somehow. Ted wanted nothing more than to never have to confront his fear. And
yet, here it was, staring him in the face.

  “Hello?”

  Jess spun to the open door. “That was Ellie.” She wasn’t above being the police officer who took control of the situation, so she said, “Find us a way out.”

  She heard him mutter as she raced back into the room, but ignored it. Whatever had happened between the two of them, they could wait to figure it out when they got out of here. When Ted didn’t have such visceral dread rolling through his whole body the way she did. The only difference between them was that she pushed away the feeling for later. When they knew they were safe, it would hit her, and she could fall apart in a place where it was okay to do so.

  Until then, she was going to work the problem while she pretended fear didn’t have a hold over her.

  “Ellie.” She knelt beside her sister and saw her eyes flutter. Jess laid a hand on her sister’s shoulder. “Ellie, are you awake?”

  Her sister moaned and opened her eyes. “I heard someone in the hall. I guess it was you. Where are we?” She looked around.

  Jess only had the time to say, “A place we need to get out of. Quickly. Do you think you can walk?”

  Her sister nodded. “If I have to.” She sat up abruptly, breathing a sigh of relief when she spotted Dean beside her. “But we have to wake up Dean because there is no way I can carry him.”

  Jess figured that given the man was heavier than either of them and all muscle, that was probably true. Maybe Ted would be able to help the two of them, and they could get Dean to whatever exit doorway he managed to find.

  She told her sister, “Ted is looking for a way out right now. As soon as he finds one, we need to be ready to move.”

  Her sister pushed up to a seated position. “Okay.”

  On Ellie’s face, bruises and abrasions had swollen the skin around her eyes and mouth. Despite that, she turned to the man now beginning to stir. Jess had never been more proud of her sister’s strength.

  Dean’s fingers flexed by his sides, and he shifted. His lips parted, and a moan escaped as his eyes began to flutter.

  Jess turned to her sister. “Stay here with him. I’m going to go check on Ted’s progress.”

  Her sister nodded, all her focus on Dean.

  Jess winced, just thinking how much worse Dean had been injured than her sister. That was a good thing. She and Dean would agree on that much, while Ellie might argue against it. But whichever way they viewed it, this was bad. She wondered if her future brother-in-law was going to come out of this with a concussion.

  Or something much worse.

  She found Ted down the hall, around the corner. A place she hadn’t explored yet. As she approached him, that alarm sounded again. Along with the electronic voice alerting them of the containment problem.

  “Is it just me,” she asked him. “Or are those announcements getting closer together?”

  She didn’t want to correlate it with contractions. This was nothing like having a baby, and she didn’t know anything about that anyway. But still, there was a sense of impending inevitability.

  Ted shot her a look.

  “Any luck with this?”

  “If we get out of here,” he said. “Then it won’t have anything to do with luck.”

  Did that mean he was willing to concede the fact God was the one in ultimate control? Her sister had been talking to her about spiritual things and that had started bleeding into her conversation with Ted earlier. She was still reasoning it all out but didn’t figure trusting Him to help them out of this would necessarily be a bad thing.

  “Okay. So is it possible?”

  She didn’t exactly want to die down here. There were a lot of ways Jess had imagined the end of her life. Especially as a cop. She hadn’t exactly thought that drowning in an underwater facility at the bottom of the Last Chance Lake was anywhere on the list.

  “I’m working on it,” he said. “I need a couple more minutes. What about Dean and Ellie?”

  “They’re coming awake. I told her they need to be ready to go.” She didn’t want to ask but figured she had to. “How long do we have?”

  “Given how far apart those announcements are, if they continue to decrease at the same rate, then we have less than three minutes until this place starts to fill with water.”

  “Unless the leak has already happened, then three minutes is the time we’ll all be submerged.”

  He shook his head. “I don’t think so. That would be a full breach, not just the opening of the airlock. But either way, I’d rather not be around to find out. So in three minutes, let’s plan on being at the surface.”

  “That sounds good to me.”

  She moved back towards the room her sister and Dean were still recovering in, racing down the hall as fast as she could despite the chafing of her wet clothes. She’d never been as uncomfortable in her life as she was right now. And yet, had never been able to brush it off as easily as this either.

  She reached the room. “How are you guys doing?” She crouched, just as Ellie pulled Dean to a seated position. “Ted is about ready for us to get out of here.”

  She didn’t bother asking Dean if he could walk. Not when the alternative meant he would still be here when it was flooded with water. Not only were none of them prepared to leave him, but they would also do whatever it took to get him out if he couldn’t manage that on his own. All of them. Together.

  After all, that was what Dean would do for any of them.

  Her sister’s gaze met hers, and she knew that Ellie understood exactly what she was thinking. It didn’t happen often, but when it did, it certainly counted.

  They helped Dean to his feet while he gritted his teeth and tried not to let out the moan she knew was there. He was trying to remain stoic for their sakes. He probably figured Ellie could deal, and for once she didn’t mind so much. As long as they all kept moving. Working the problem, figuring a way out of here.

  “Let’s go.” She ducked under Dean’s arm and steadied some of his weight as they moved.

  Her sister did the same thing on the other side, proving that part of Ellie’s assessment of her future brother-in-law had been incorrect. He was willing to accept their help. Not so macho that he’d try and do everything by himself when he had the worst injuries of all of them.

  She said, “End of the hall, and then we’re going right.”

  “Copy that.” His voice was gruff, and she could hear the discomfort and pain he was in. What else had Hilden’s men done to him?

  “Just a little swim, and we can get you to a hospital.”

  Air escaped Dean’s lips.

  “Oh, you think I’m being funny.” They ambled around the corner. “It turns out I’m not. I’m telling you, if I’d made a list this morning of everything that might happen today, this probably wouldn’t have been on it.”

  He grunted. “You can tell me everything later.”

  Jess was the one who said, “Copy that.” And nodded to her sister, whose worried face was on the other side of Dean’s chest. Jess stopped, her arm still supporting Dean. “Ted?”

  “Of course.” He frowned in her direction, surveying his brother’s physical state for a split second before going back to his bundle of wires. “I have a miracle all ready to go. Let me just put the finishing touches on, and we’ll be all good.”

  Dean shifted and leaned against the wall. Ellie stood close to him while Jess moved to what was an exterior wall. She gaped at the tiny circle window. “We really are underwater, aren’t we?”

  The alarm sounded again.

  “We have less than two minutes before the flood gates open.”

  Ellie gasped. “We’re…what?”

  Dean said to his brother, “Later on, you’re going to explain all this to me.”

  Jess figured she could cut down on some of the time that would take. “Stephen Hilden is West. His guys dumped us down here, and he’s trying to kill all of us because there’s no way an ‘airlock containment breach’ is just a coincidence.”


  Ted spoke without taking his attention from the panel of wires in front of him. “He probably plans to destroy this facility with us inside it.”

  “That won’t go unnoticed.” At least, she figured that was true. Surely there would be some kind of disturbance on the surface of the lake.

  This time of night, would anybody even see it?

  “So what’s the plan?”

  Ted glanced over as he answered his brother’s question. “I’m trying to override the airlock mechanism. With the containment breach, the safety measures have kicked in.”

  Dean’s said, “But you’re trying to turn off the safety and open the door.”

  Ellie gasped.

  “At least it will be a quick death.”

  All of them turned to stare at Jess. She shrugged.

  Ted said, “One more second,” and went back to his wires. A few seconds later, there was a spark, and she heard a metal clang inside the wall. Shortly after that began the slow roll of a mechanism turning, like a great wheel beginning to rotate inside the wall.

  “Is that a good thing?” She glanced between the three of them. Her sister and the two men here were all smarter than her. They all probably understood what was happening, at least better than she did.

  Not for the first time in the last few days, she felt at a distinct disadvantage. But West hadn’t killed her yet. Jess was still a police officer, and she was as determined to take him down as she’d been before. Whether or not she gained any recognition from doing that.

  The truth was, Basuto could be dead. And the FBI might sweep the entire operation into their jurisdiction. The Last Chance Police Department could wind up with nothing left to show for months of investigation.

  Ted waved for them to follow him, moving down the hallway to a big door at the end. The one with the light display above it. He glanced around, as though looking for something.

  Ellie said, “We can all swim, right?”

  After they all murmured responses, Ted slowed. “Grab on to something. The door is about to open. After that, water from the lake will come rushing in and fill this whole place.”

  Jess gaped. “I thought the idea was to not drown!”

  He shot her a look. “Like Ellie said, we’re going to swim.”