“London?” someone asked, sounding shocked, or disbelieving. Maybe both.
There were more cages, three of the walls made of cement and the bars facing her looking really solid as they disappeared into the floor. She spotted Jake in the cell across from the couple. He gripped the bars, looking at her with shocked amazement, and that stupid crooked grin.
“There aren’t any guards in here,” he told her. “You aren’t alone, are you?”
London glanced up and down the short hallway between the jail cells. There wasn’t anyone else in there. Nor did she see a large ring of keys hanging on the wall as there would be in an old Western.
“London?” It sounded like London’s mom, her voice hesitant and surprised.
London moved down the hall, past the jail cells holding the couple and Jake. There was another cement cage next to the one where the couple was. London stared at her mother and father.
“London,” her father said, rushing to the bars.
She lowered her gun, taking her father’s hand and grinning at him and her mom. “Fancy finding you two here,” London said.
Ruby Brooke laughed, the sound rough and husky from years of smoking cigarettes and probably other stuff, too. “What in the world are you doing here?” she asked, reaching through the bars and stroking her daughter’s face.
“I’m here to rescue you.” London felt an overwhelming urge to laugh, too.
She stared at her parents, at the two people who were always on top of their act and calm and cool during a crisis while she had been the child freaking out and panicking. It amazed her how suddenly she felt incredibly calm and in control of her senses.
“Honestly, though, I never thought I’d be staring at the two of you behind bars.”
Her father looked grayer than he had the last time she saw him, but his confident bellow of a laugh hadn’t changed. “There’s a big difference between being caught and being captured, my dear,” he said, speaking under his breath so Jake and the other couple wouldn’t hear him. “See if you can get that panel open that’s on the wall over there. The keys to open these jail cells are in there.”
She hurried to the cabinet in the wall at the end of the hallway near the door. There didn’t appear to be anyone racing down here to prevent her from freeing their prisoners and she could still hear the man upstairs wailing and complaining. At least he was still alive. No one was helping him, either. If they were, he’d be screaming even louder at them or be silent by now from their knocking his ass out in frustration. Maybe she and Natasha had eliminated all the guards when they were first ambushed in the garage.
London held on to that belief. It helped keep her calm. She closed the door she’d entered and faced the cabinet that was flush in the wall. It didn’t surprise her that it was locked.
“Aim your gun at the door handle,” the large man in the cage nearest her suggested.
London glanced at him. The man’s short brown hair and blue eyes, not to mention his incredible height and muscular stance, reminded her of Marc.
“London, these are my parents, Greg and Haley King,” Jake said from his jail cell. “Mom, Dad, this is London. She’s Marc’s girl.”
“You’ve got yourself a guy?” Ruby asked from the cell at the end of the hall.
“We’ll talk about it later,” London announced, turning her back on all of them, holding her gun in both hands, and aiming. Odd how she’d pulled the trigger without giving it a thought when men lunged at her. But standing in front of the cabinet and staring at the handle, she suddenly wondered the best way to shoot it.
“Aim and fire, baby girl,” her father instructed.
“I know how to shoot, Dad,” she said. Then, needing her parents to see that she wasn’t the scared child anymore, she added, “I got down here past all the guards, didn’t I?”
“You shot all the guards?” her mother asked, her disbelief almost annoying, if it hadn’t been so comical.
“Every single one of them,” she said, aimed and fired, jumping at the loud sound when the bullet slammed into the metal handle. The door flew open and flew shut, making even more of a racket.
London reached inside the small closet built into the wall and pulled out a ring of keys that did in fact look just like they did in old Westerns. Everyone behind her cheered and sang her praises. Maybe the adrenaline that got her this far was suddenly crashing inside her. London almost swooned when she turned, reaching and grabbing the bars to Marc’s parents’ jail cell. She didn’t fight Greg King when he reached through the bars and took the keys from her, then unlocked his own jail cell.
There wasn’t any doubt at all that she’d faint when all of them were around her, both her mother and father pulling her into their arms, hugging her fiercely, and saying all the words she’d ached to hear all her life. At the moment, though, too many other thoughts started plaguing her and ruined her ability to enjoy her parents’ praise.
“Where is Marc?” she asked, turning in her mother’s arms and facing Jake and his parents.
“They took him the night we arrived,” Jake said.
“Natasha is upstairs in a really nice office. She’s been shot.”
Jake’s mother shrieked and covered her mouth with her hands.
“Oh God! Where is she?” Haley asked, looking frantic but breathing deeply as if she was searching for some inner calm.
London glanced at her parents, who were watching the Kings. They both looked at her when she focused on them and smiled at the same time.
“Pretty impressive, baby girl,” her father said, stroking her arm. “I should have known it was in your blood. Now who is this Natasha?”
“She’s someone I recently met,” London said, moving when Greg, Jake, and Haley headed to the door. “She found this place, but when this tall, dark-haired man shot at us and she got hit.”
“And you didn’t?” London’s mother asked, moving in alongside her and studying her, looking concerned when she tried running her hands down London’s side.
“No. I shot him.”
Greg King stopped at the closet in the wall and pulled out several black poles, handing one to Jake and another to her father.
“They’re better than having nothing,” he said, then focused on her with eyes that were just like Marc’s. “How many men did you shoot? Did you shoot a woman?”
“I don’t know,” she said, shaking her head. “I think three in the garage and one in the office and no, no women.” She frowned at the black sticks. “What are those?” They were like small broom handles without the brooms on the ends of them.
“They send out electric charges,” Jake explained, indicating a button that was barely visible at one end of the pole. “They’ve got enough juice in them to knock a man clear out.”
“We’ve got to go to Natasha.” Haley sounded worried as she tried pushing around her husband to the door. “And we need to find Marc. He’s in here somewhere. They wouldn’t have killed him.”
“Why did they separate you?” London felt as if she was pushed out the door and turned to study Jake’s brooding expression when he stared at the large empty room they walked into.
“What is that noise?” Ruby grabbed London’s arm, sounding shocked and causing everyone to pause and stand and listen to the wailing and moaning coming from upstairs. “Is that your man?”
Already Haley was hurrying to the door leading to the stairs. Her husband was right behind her.
“No. That is the man I shot. I got him in the leg and he told me where all of you were when I agreed to give him something to hold against his leg to stop the bleeding,” London admitted, following the Kings up the stairs with Jake and her parents behind her. “He charged into the office upstairs when Natasha and I were on the computer.”
The man on the floor, who was curled in a ball hugging his leg and covered in blood, looked up at all of them, terrified. “Help me. Please, I need help.”
“You’ll get help. Trust me,” Greg told him, stepping over him an
d hurrying to the desk.
Haley slid to the floor where Natasha lay, not moving, although she wasn’t covered in as much blood as the man was.
“We’ve got to get her to a hospital,” Haley announced, looking up at the rest of them.
“Marc’s car is in the garage,” London announced, pointing to the door where they’d first entered but staring at Natasha, who looked grossly pale and very still. London couldn’t look away from her new friend even when she ordered herself to do so. Natasha had been as scared as London was when they entered the office, unsure of what they would find. Her stomach twisted and the room started spinning when Haley clutched Natasha against her chest. Natasha’s head fell limp off the side of Haley’s arm, looking very lifeless.
Greg lifted his niece into his arms and Jake hurried to the door. London found the flashlight Natasha had used when they left the car and climbed the stairs behind the men and in front of her parents. They weren’t all going to fit into the car, but they hadn’t found Marc yet. As desperately as London wanted this nightmare to end and to be back in safe and comfortable surroundings, she knew someone had to remain behind and find Marc.
She turned on the flashlight, but her father found a light switch on the wall, turning it on and flooding the large, almost warehouse-sized garage with light.
“Does anyone else think Evelyn and your other son, Marc, aren’t here anymore?” London’s father asked, running his hand along the black SUV that was parked in front of Marc’s car.
“We need to confirm that.” Jake took the keys from London when she offered them to him and hurried to help get Natasha into the car. “I’ll remain behind. We need to search this entire facility.”
“You two take her to a hospital,” Jonnie decided, facing Greg. “Come back for us. We’ll find your boy if he’s here.”
Greg nodded, giving Jonnie an appraising once-over and glancing at London before turning to his wife. Haley was climbing into the backseat and reaching for Natasha when they eased her into the car. Jake and Jonnie moved around the garage until they figured out how to open the door in the ground. A rush of fierce, cold air filled the garage as the runway heading up to the outside appeared. Greg climbed into the driver’s seat and the Mustang roared to life. London backed up and stood between her parents, wrapping her arms around herself and trying to ward off the cold as she watched Greg skillfully back the car up the incline until he disappeared into the night outside. They were left there without transportation other than the black SUV. God only knew where the keys were. She glanced around at the cold underground facility where all the terror that so recently entered her life began. If Marc was here, she worried he was in worse shape than Natasha.
There was no way all of this could end with him being dead. London knew how unfair and cruel real life could be, but she refused to accept that he was dead. Turning, she walked away from her parents and Jake, gripping the gun she still held in one hand and the flashlight in the other. She was going to find Marc.
Chapter Sixteen
Marc couldn’t feel his hands, ears, or nose. The soft loafers he wore didn’t do shit against the rocky, hard snow-covered ground. His feet burned so badly he started worrying frostbite might kick in and make it hard for him to keep walking across the frozen desert. Evelyn pressed on alongside him, though, keeping a hard, determined pace with her duffel bag bouncing against her back. They hadn’t said anything to each other for a while now. He’d worry she was leading them into a frozen world of nowhere if it weren’t for the cell phone she held with some kind of navigation program on it. She glanced down at it from time to time and continued walking without a word through the pitch-black, frozen night.
More than once it crossed his mind to knock Evelyn out, hitting her just right to render her unconscious. She wouldn’t grind her teeth, if there was in fact some kind of remote that would activate whatever was under his skin. He considered it again when Evelyn glanced at her phone, holding the glowing device up in her hands and studying it as she slowed her pace.
“Over here,” she broke the silence between them, grinning up at him as if she’d just accomplished some feat and was proud of herself. “We’ll be enjoying a hot shower and hot meal here soon enough.”
Her amiable nature didn’t relax him or end his thoughts of knocking her out cold. Especially when she hurried forward but stopped suddenly, looking around as she began walking in circles. Marc stopped, watching her while worrying he was slowly freezing to death.
“You really need to learn to trust me.” She grinned as she stomped her foot on the ground. Then squatting down, she reached for something on the ground.
He was amazed when she picked up what looked like a remote and began pushing buttons on it. Evelyn hurried toward him, turning around before she reached him and backing into him as she held the remote out and looked as if she were trying to find a channel to watch while aiming at a TV that wasn’t there.
He took a step or two backward when the ground parted, just as it had when he and Jake had been taken to their underground prison in the black SUV. Evelyn didn’t reach for Marc or gesture for him to follow her when she hurried toward the dark hole appearing in the ground. There wasn’t any hiding his surprise when a platform rose out of the ground with a car parked on it.
“The escapemobile,” she announced, laughing. “I told him it would come in handy,” she mumbled, not elaborating as to who “him” was.
Marc walked around to the passenger side after Evelyn jumped into the car and started it. The platform it was on stopped when it was flush with the ground. He felt the ground give way slightly when he stepped next to the car. There was a hollow thud as his weight caused the platform the car was on to rock. He chanced it, climbing into the passenger seat. She had the car running but didn’t try putting it into drive until Marc adjusted the seat backward so he could fit inside alongside her.
Evelyn laughed, driving the car off the platform and holding the remote up between them, pointing it backward and pushing a button on it. “No reason to give away my secret garage,” she said, still chuckling when she dropped the remote between them. “Don’t worry, Neanderthal. The heat works fine and you’ll thaw out soon enough.”
He turned to make a comment but didn’t react quickly enough. Evelyn had a syringe in her hand that must have been in the car. She stabbed Marc in the side of the neck with it and the sharp pinch was the last thing he felt before everything around him went black.
*
“Wake up, sweetheart.”
Marc blinked, thinking for a second London rubbed his arm. He wanted to pull her into his arms. Cuddling with her would keep him warm and at the moment he was cold as hell.
“Come on, Neanderthal,” Evelyn whispered, leaning close enough that her breath prickled his flesh.
Marc blinked and leaned forward, resting his head against his hand for a moment before rubbing his face and squinting at his surroundings. Bright lights glowed against the black night, which illuminated the parking lot and curved drive in front of a large hotel.
“The valet will park the car,” Evelyn told Marc, nudging his arm until he looked at her. “Wake up. Now. Come on. We’re going up to our room now.” Her words were choppy and didn’t make sense.
She got out on her side of the car. Marc reached for his door, ignoring the young college kid who held on to the passenger door as he climbed out. Evelyn said something about him being a sound sleeper as she passed over keys and a bill for the tip. Marc didn’t care what she told the kid but instead focused on the fancy hotel, searching for some indication of where they were.
Evelyn was already at the front desk when Marc walked through the revolving doors. She laughed easily with the lady behind the counter. Marc pictured London behind the counter at the lodge, her friendly, relaxed nature making it easy for anyone to approach her with any question or just to check in or out. He didn’t bother looking at the woman talking to Evelyn but instead stared at the sign next to the front desk.
WELCOME TO PHOENIX.
Crap. Evelyn had done some driving. Marc rubbed his neck, remembering when she’d injected him with something strong enough to knock his ass out as she drove across the state of Arizona. She accepted the card keys and walked across the lobby, apparently feeling she didn’t need to tell Marc to follow her or look over her shoulder to see if he was.
He waited until they were in the elevator before grabbing her wrist and lifting her hand. Then removing the card keys from her hand, he released her and read the room number on the cards.
“Why are we in Phoenix, Blondie?” he asked, pocketing one of the cards and flipping the other one between his fingers while staring down at her.
“Because I got tired of driving.” She pressed her lips into a straight line, narrowing her gaze on him. Apparently, studying his face told her that he wasn’t in the mood to be bullied by one of her drugs being used on him. She relaxed her expression and focused on the elevator doors. “I’m not taking the rap for any of this,” she said under her breath, then stormed out ahead of him when the elevator doors opened.
Marc took his time walking down the plush-looking hallway, partially because he was still groggy from whatever she’d shot him with. He also needed to make his brain work. Evelyn had driven all night and he got a good night’s sleep. That would work to his advantage if he could get the fog out of his brain. Evelyn stopped in front of one of the doors, not looking at him. Marc double-checked the room number against the number on the cardholder, slid the plastic card out, then reached around her and opened the door.
“What are you doing?” she asked when he walked into the room and collapsed on the king-sized bed.
He thought of asking her the same thing when he noticed there was only one bed in the room. Marc stretched out, lying from corner to corner and rolling over, easing a pillow under his head while his feet almost reached the end of the opposite corner.
“You’re not sleeping while I shower.” She didn’t comment on him being sprawled out on the entire bed. “Until I know I’m clear of this mess you’re my insurance policy, and that means we’re both going to have to live with a few rules.”
Get Lucky Page 29
