by H. P. Bayne
“She was his sister,” Sully explained, hoping that might be enough to prevent Zane’s shooting Bulldog now that he’d regained his balance.
“I’m sorry about that. You can believe me or not. I don’t care. But she didn’t leave me any choice.”
“You’d better fucking explain that to me, you bastard! You owe me at least that much!”
Zane, it seemed, couldn’t argue that point. “It started with Ken Barwell. I knew him through the Black Candle, and he offered to set me up in business to help me get through university. I love The Hub; it’s like home. But the pay is shit. So I started selling for Barwell, and I was turning a good profit. Only I discovered pretty quick what kind of scum he was when he attacked Abby, one of the girls I was looking after. I decided I was going to screw him over, hit him where it hurt. Figured if I played my cards right, I’d get him out of the picture and get my hands on his stock.”
“The drugs?” Paul asked.
“And the guns. There’s a good market for them. Barwell gets his supply—drugs and guns—from a major player out west, and Ken regularly owes the guy huge stacks of cash. I figured if I got ahold of his stash, it was only a matter of time before his supplier came at him for money Ken couldn’t get his hands on. In the drug world, that means you end up stuffed in a trunk and taken somewhere for a conversation with a baseball bat or a shotgun. Only I couldn’t get close enough.”
Sully thought back to that tense conversation with Ken Barwell as Bulldog provided the conclusion. “Sparrow ripped him off for you.”
“He wanted at her in the worst way afterward,” Zane said. “She knew it and she was scared. I told her I’d protect her, but she went to Bree instead. She told her all about the rip-off and the fact Barwell was out to get her.”
“And Bree came to me asking for the money to pay off Ken,” Paul said. “She told me what Sparrow did, and asked me to act as a go-between. I reluctantly agreed and did what I could to smooth things over. Ken agreed to let Sparrow go once the money was paid, but he wanted another condition met. He wanted the name of the man who sent Sparrow to rip him off. And Bree knew, didn’t she? She figured out it was you.”
“She was going to rat me out to Barwell. I had no choice. I had to keep her from telling. Do you have any idea what Barwell would have done to me had he found out?”
Sully put an arm out in front of Bulldog to act as a restraint. If Bulldog so chose, he could shove right past but he stayed where he was, allowing the exchange to continue between the two coven members. Because, come right down to it, that conversation was all that was keeping that door open and preventing Zane from adding to his kill list.
“You’re not only a coward, Mazur, you’re an idiot too,” Paul said. “Bree and I had a big blowup right before she was killed over whether or not to provide your name to Barwell. But I’m the one who wanted to identify you. She wouldn’t hear of it. Bree said she couldn’t live with having your blood on her hands when Barwell came for you. She asked me to look after Sparrow instead, to help her disappear from both Barwell and from you. I never thought in a million years you were capable of murder. I knew Danny Newton’s history so, when Bree turned up dead, I just figured it was a domestic homicide like they were saying. Had I known how right Bree was about what kind of scumbag you were, I would have figured out a way to hide her from you, too.”
“I didn’t want to kill her, and I honestly didn’t think I could go through with it,” Zane said. “I was watching her that night, trying to figure out a plan when I saw her husband smacking her around inside the house. She was a mess when she left, and I followed her for a minute or two until I figured no one was around to see. Then I gave her a good crack on the head. I got her back to my car, tied her up and took her to one of those empty Riverview houses.
“I didn’t think I could finish it. With Gabby, it happened so fast. She just basically slipped through my fingers and was gone. With Breanna, it was going to have to be deliberate. I had to psyche myself up to it. She started to wake up, though, and I don’t know why, but the thought of her looking at me, seeing me doing it, it freaked me out. So I just did it as quick as I could. I meant to take her back home after, dump her next to her drunk husband for the cops to find, but in the end, I just left her there.”
An enraged roar tore from Bulldog’s throat, Zane saved only by the hindrances to the shorter man’s movements in the form of deep water and Sully. Even so, it was all Sully could manage to hold his friend back.
He spoke quietly to Bulldog, his back to Zane as he relied on his friend to be his eyes. “Bulldog, no. He’ll shoot you. You think Bree wants that?”
“Bree’s dead!”
“She’s here, man. She’s right here, beside you. Don’t, okay? Please. Just don’t.”
Bulldog was heaving breaths like a man who’d just run five blocks flat out. His eyes, fixed on Zane with a hate Sully had never known in Bulldog, finally shifted away from his sister’s killer and settled on his friend, enabling Sully to witness the gradual return of sanity.
“Where is she?”
Sully nodded to Bulldog’s left, where Breanna stood, lifting her hands toward her brother’s face, fingers reaching out as if to touch his jaw.
Bulldog’s voice was a whisper. “I’m sorry I couldn’t protect you, Bree. I’m so sorry.” Then he returned his glare to Zane. “If you think I’m letting you leave here with Sparrow, you’re dead wrong. You’ve got a max seven rounds in that thing with one chambered. There are three of us and you’ll need all seven just to stop me.”
Sully turned in time to see Zane trying for a smirk, the expression of a man who was only just finding his legs as a killer and was trying to look the part. “Leave with her? I don’t want to leave with her. I came here to kill her. You’ve just made it easy for me. I thought she and I were going to be something but your sister got to her first. I’ll tell you something, man. I’m finally starting to figure it out. No bitch is worth this hassle. You can have her. She’s all yours. You can all go to hell together.”
He stepped back and, before any of the others could reach the door through the relentless tug of water, he’d sealed them inside.
19
Sully and Paul pushed water aside to reach the door, Paul moving to unlock the PIN pad box this side of the panic room’s entrance.
He’d just got it open when they heard a pair of gunshots from the other side, the sound dulled by steel and solid wood.
Sully wasn’t surprised when Paul’s efforts to key in the combination came up empty.
Paul slammed his palm against the wall. “The bastard must have shot out the mechanism.”
“And there’s no other way to unlock the door?” Sully asked. “Nothing we can trip?”
“If it were that easy, it wouldn’t be a very good panic room, now, would it?”
Bulldog had found another problem, busy shoving against the door behind which Paul was keeping Sparrow. “Forget that door. Help me with this one! The water’s too high and, if that little girl’s in it, she could be drowning!”
Sully didn’t bother sharing the obvious: that even if they got Sparrow out of the room, she’d drown with them regardless. Even so, there was something to be said for the comfort of having someone with you when you went, and the thought of the teenager being stuck back there alone wasn’t right. Sure, Breanna would no doubt be with her—the ghost had disappeared the moment Zane sealed them in here—but chances were Sparrow wouldn’t know that. Nor was it likely to make her feel a whole lot better if someone told her she was trapped back there with a dead woman.
Paul joined Bulldog at the door, pulling a set of keys from his pocket and holding them in front of his flashlight until he could find a particular one.
Bulldog turned heated eyes on Paul. “Why do you keep the door locked?”
“The room was designed for the possibility of intruders. It locks from either side with a key. My father had this idea that if someone chased him into the panic room’s outer chambe
r, he could either barricade himself in the inner one until help arrived, or lock the intruder in there. He’s nothing if not paranoid.”
“I meant, why do you have Sparrow locked in there?”
“I told you, I made a promise to Bree to look after her. I’ve been trying to keep that promise.”
“By holding her against her will?”
Paul took the keys below the water’s surface, presumably to unlock the door. “It turned out it wasn’t just Barwell or Zane she needed protecting from. She’d become her own worst enemy.”
Any further explanation was prevented by Paul’s exclamation of, “What the hell?”
Bulldog’s eyes fell from Paul’s face to the water, as if he could see what it was bugging the other man if he focused in hard enough. “What the hell, what?”
“I’ve unlocked it. I mean, the handle’s moving back and forth all right. But the door won’t open.”
Bulldog pushed Paul aside with more force than was likely necessary. “Let me at it.”
He shoved, then shouldered the door, putting as much force into it as the barrier of water would allow. The door didn’t budge.
With nothing else working, all three men lined up, Bulldog and Sully putting their shoulders to the task while Paul reached between them to push. Sully felt the door shudder slightly, but otherwise there was no indication the force was accomplishing anything except bruises for the three of them.
Bulldog grabbed Paul’s flashlight and cast its beam into the seams and corners of the doorway, as if looking for the source of the problem. “I don’t get this.”
Paul had an idea—but it turned out to be one nobody wanted to hear. “Could be the water pressure’s too uneven. If the other room’s filled up, we won’t be able to budge the door until it’s the same our side.”
Bulldog redirected the glare of the flashlight full into Paul’s face, making the other man flinch and turn his head away. “Don’t you even say something like that.”
Why his brain picked this moment to recall it, Sully didn’t know, but he found himself flashing back on a recent moment in his apartment above the bar, to a trapped bird and a ghost with a flower cupped within bound hands. Dez had been standing right outside, unable to enter what had, only moments before, been an unlocked and open door. Breanna had done it, had kept the door shut and sealed, trapping Sully in there with her until she could deliver her message to him.
And, suddenly, Sully saw another possibility.
“Paul? You said the room’s supposed to be airtight, right?”
“Yeah, like this one. There’s a setup to allow oxygen in but it’s supposed to be safe in there from fire, flood and any other natural disaster. Obviously, my parents should be looking for a refund.”
“Maybe they don’t need one.” Sully pressed an ear to the door, listening. “Sparrow? Can you hear me? Sparrow, please, if you can, answer me, okay?”
The reply was dull and muffled, but it was there. “What?”
Bulldog gave a quick bark of laughter. “God, it’s good to hear your voice, kid!”
Sully flattened out a hand, motioning it toward the ground in a call for quiet. “Is there any water in there? Any flooding?”
“No! Get me the hell out of here! Now!”
Sully met Paul’s eye. “Looks like the room’s holding, after all.”
“So why can’t we get it open? All the pressure’s on our side.”
Sully didn’t answer immediately, searching for the right words. Bulldog had no similar reservations.
“You think Bree’s keeping the door sealed, don’t you?”
Sully shrugged, ignoring the raised eyebrow and bemused expression Paul had turned on Bulldog. “She’s capable of it. And she knows it’s flooding out here. All of this, bringing us here, it’s all been about protecting Sparrow, about saving her. I think she’s still trying to do that.”
“What are you two talking about?”
Bulldog granted Paul a glance. “Long story. And you probably wouldn’t believe it, anyway. Just re-lock the door.”
Sully didn’t bother explaining to Paul, who was doing as Bulldog asked. The dull thuds of pounding fists on solid steel and muffled yelling suggested Sparrow wasn’t so easily convinced.
Sully tried shouting back, but thought it likely she hadn’t heard him above the sounds of her own protests.
He turned to Bulldog. “You try. Tell her it’s flooding this side. She’s better off staying in there until we can figure a way out of here.”
Bulldog did as asked. “Sparrow, it’s Bulldog, from The Hub! I’m Bree’s brother! The water’s really high this side, so we’re going to leave you in there for now, all right?”
“Bulldog?” came the muffled reply. “Please, let me out!”
“I can’t! Not yet! Soon, okay?”
It said something, whether for the level of trust Sparrow had in Bulldog or in Bree, that Sparrow quieted, the sounds of thumping and yelling stopping.
Sully and Paul had, in the meantime, worked their way to the other end of the short hall, Sully shining a light so Paul could examine the keypad. Using the tip of Sully’s knife, Paul set to unscrewing the faceplate in the hopes a solution lay beneath.
There were a few minutes for questions, and Sully took advantage. “You said you were trying to protect Sparrow from herself. What did you mean?”
“Sparrow more or less went off the radar after Bree was killed. She fell back into drugs pretty heavy. I couldn’t find her, but neither could Ken, so there was that at least. When I finally caught up to her, she was a mess, from both drugs and grief. Bree had really been sorting Sparrow out but, after she died, and with Danny Newton in jail for the murder, it was like Sparrow lost her will to stay straight. It wasn’t just the coke anymore with her. She was getting into meth. Bringing her here has been as much about getting her clean as keeping her safe from Ken. She isn’t exactly a willing participant in the detox, which is why I’ve had to keep her locked in. Then the weather situation went from bad to nightmare, and now I don’t know what to do.”
“Well, stating the obvious, the first thing we gotta do is get all four of us the hell outta here,” Bulldog said. He’d spoken the words as much to Paul as to Sully, a clear sign his opinion about the businessman had changed.
Despite the peril of the situation, Sully found himself smiling. But it didn’t last long. Sparrow hadn’t, after all, needed saving from Paul. She’d needed protecting from Ken and Zane and from the rising river that was threatening to wash them into the next life. And while they’d found her, Sully was fully aware they hadn’t succeeded in saving Sparrow from anything.
Not yet, anyway.
Paul was fiddling with the exposed mechanism, the keypad’s faceplate left to dangle from a series of wires.
“It’s no use,” he finally grumbled. “I don’t know my way around this sort of technology. I had a hard enough time installing my entertainment system.”
Sully looked elsewhere for the answer. “Breanna, is there any way you can get this door open?”
She materialized next to him, focusing on the door before disappearing entirely. Sully waited, hoping, holding his breath as he waited for the click of a releasing lock.
But none came.
“Does someone want to tell me what’s going on here?” Paul asked again. He faced Bulldog. “Why is he talking to Bree? He does mean our Bree, right?”
“Yeah, he means our Bree. Sully?”
Sully sighed, no point holding back on the truth now. Given he was likely going to be spending the rest of his life with these people, they might as well get to know one another. “Go ahead.”
Bulldog provided the explanation. “Sully sees the dead, or at least the ones who die in bad ways like Bree did. They come to him for help. Bree wanted him to find Sparrow, to save her.”
“From me?” Paul’s voice was just one step above a whisper.
“From Mazur probably. From this flood. Maybe even from herself. She dedicated herself t
o helping girls who she saw as going down the same bad path she once travelled. And when she found out who Sparrow was, she would have taken her as a daughter. Bree never had kids of her own, so she would have gone all in with that girl.”
While Bulldog had been explaining, Sully was playing the flashlight beam along the frame of the door, searching for potential weak spots. There didn’t seem to be anything they’d be able to break through, but his eyes did settle on a large crack at the upper left corner, one that extended along part of the top of the steel door frame and then up toward the ceiling. It explained how it was the water had flowed into this otherwise airtight chamber; Sully guessed the pounding pressure from the rising flood had shifted the house enough to cause the small separation between wall and doorframe. A similar break had no doubt formed along the bottom, which was where the water had come in.
But now wasn’t the time to consider structural engineering in any detail. The most relevant fact was that the walls were still too solid and the cracks far too small to allow any real give. They’d have to find another way.
He’d have to find another way.
Sully pressed his hands flat against the door, hoping to feel some sort of thudding or shaking—anything to tell him Breanna was trying to free them.
He was met with nothing but silence and stillness, nothing to instil in him any hope.
The emotional exhaustion hit him hard. He dropped his forehead against the metal, the resulting thud the only reverberation he was expecting. He knew ghosts had limited energy in the physical world, and one could only imagine how much Breanna had spent in leading Sully here, in keeping Sparrow sealed in the dry room. It was possible she had nothing left to give. Or it might be she would never be able to manipulate a door this heavy and complex into unlocking for them.
Then he heard the thud.
Solid enough he felt it against his head.
Sully pulled back from the door just enough to call out Breanna’s name. He hadn’t expected a verbal reply, and the one he got—while muffled and a little hard to hear—was definitely not that of a woman.
