by CJ Lyons
I took a step inside, following them, but Ryder pinned me with his arm. “Me first.”
“They may be hurt.” Of course they were hurt. What was I saying?
“Wait.” He stood inside the door and systematically aimed the light to all corners, as if slicing an imaginary pie. Crucifixes, dozens of them, covered the walls as well as full-length mirrors painted in bright colors, as if they were stained-glass windows. The light swept across the floor littered with water buckets, rotting food, blankets bunched up into a nest, before finally coming to rest on the glint of chains.
Ryder hesitated, his light spearing a naked teenage girl, wrists and ankles secured by manacles with another length of chain joining them behind her back, leaving her essentially hog-tied, lying facedown. I stepped forward again, but he grabbed my arm, holding me back while he completed his search.
As I chased the younger children with my light, I held my breath and counted. Seven little ones, in addition to the girl chained up and motionless on the floor.
Devon pushed past us. “Esme!”
His voice shook as it careened from one metal wall to the next. No answer.
“She’s not here,” I told him.
Ryder hauled Devon back by his handcuffs and shoved him against the wall alongside Tyree.
Tyree’s expression had grown stony, and he stared at his feet, avoiding any chance glimpse inside the room. I wondered how much he knew about what was going on down here. Maybe those booby traps back in the tunnels hadn’t been designed to keep people out so much as to ensure that no one escaped.
Holding my light down at my side so it wouldn’t blind the children, I tried to prioritize. The little ones gave out a collective squeal of fright when I stepped inside the doorway. They ducked their heads down, huddled together in a ball of terror.
I approached the unconscious girl slowly. Ozzie was bolder than I was. He dropped to the ground, slunk on all fours to the girl, licked her neck. When he got no response, he looked to me, tail dragging, then to her, and began to echo the children’s moaning with his own primal warble. The hair on my arms stood up, ready to fight or flee.
“I’m going to need some help.”
“Let me,” Devon said from the doorway.
Ryder frowned, considering all the angles. We’d gone way off the map of protocols, rules, or regulations, but he didn’t seem as worried about getting in trouble as he was for my safety and the children’s.
“It’s okay,” I told Ryder. “Uncuff him.”
Ryder sucked in his cheeks, then nodded, holstering his gun so he could unlock Devon’s handcuffs. “You try anything—”
“She’s safe with me,” Devon said.
Ryder stared him down, but he didn’t flinch.
Devon joined me in the dim light and helped me roll the girl onto her side so I could assess her.
“She okay?” Ryder asked. He stood at the doorway, gun drawn on Tyree. Protecting his crime scene, protecting his prisoner, protecting all of us against whoever else stalked the darkness.
“She’s breathing.”
Devon slid his lock picks free and began working on freeing the girl from her restraints. Ryder saw what he was doing, gave him a look, but then nodded. Guy talk for, “I’ll let you slide this time.”
“Why don’t they run?” Devon asked. “The door’s open.”
I glanced over my shoulder at the children watching us warily from the farthest corner. How long had they lived here in the dark? “Same reason why they haven’t come to us for help. The people who did this to them were people they trusted. Now they don’t trust anything—or anyone.”
The girl’s eyes stared straight ahead, unblinking. Her hair was matted with sweat, blood, and dirt. I brushed it away from her face. Patches of it had been ripped from her scalp, leaving oozing sores behind. Ozzie licked my hand, as if letting me know he hadn’t forgotten about me.
Music hit me like a tidal wave. A piano tune filled with melancholy, grief-stricken, making my heart weep.
My mind felt like it was being spun around by an unseen dance partner, images colliding, sounds flashing, smells and tastes and colors all swirled together. Nothing coherent—nothing except pain and despair.
It was coming from the girl. No words, not like Patrice, but impressions kaleidoscoping together.
She had been injected with something, and from then on, everything was a blur. Faces surrounded her, warped like Dali’s melting clock. She’d been forced to kneel, her back lashed. Burning. Something branded into her flesh. Electrical shocks searing through the most sensitive areas of her body. More pain and atrocities pummeled my mind. So much that it was hard to tell where the pain was coming from. It seemed to dance along her nerve endings in a never-ending stream of anguish.
Finally, thrown into the darkness, chained up, drugged, and left to die.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
As Devon knelt over the girl, guiding the lock picks with a light touch, he glanced around. This place, he’d never been here before, but something about it felt so familiar… a lost memory danced out of reach, then was banished once more as he focused on Esme.
She wasn’t among the ragtag group of children. Was that a good thing or bad? Did it mean she was already dead?
No. Whoever had saved her from falling from the shelves had risked getting shot. They must want her alive—he had to keep hold of that hope.
One lock snapped open, and Devon started in on the final one. God, the smell. It’d been a long time since he’d done any grunt work, been forced to endure a stench like this.
“Hold it,” the cop, Ryder, shouted from outside the door. A thud came from the hallway. Fool that Tyree was, sounded like he’d tried to run.
“You knew, didn’t you?” Ryder’s voice sliced through the darkness.
Devon glanced over just in time to see the cop shove Tyree into the wall, the handcuffed man stumbling. Tyree wheeled around, his eyes dark with fury, the muscles in his forehead drawing together into two knots the size of walnuts.
“Answer me!” Ryder wasn’t shouting, not yet. Devon had the feeling the cop was the kind of man who seldom had to shout to get what he wanted.
“Fuck you! You think cuz I live in this shithole, cuz I run with a bunch of punks, I’m an animal? That I’d hurt little kids?”
Tyree. Such a consummate actor. He actually believed his own bullshit. Because Devon knew for a fact that the answer to all of the above was an unequivocal yes.
“Like you give a shit.” Ryder obviously wasn’t buying Tyree’s innocent act. “I saw the look on your face. You knew something was going on. Who did this?”
Tyree shrugged his massive shoulders. “You want anything, talk to my lawyer.”
The cop tilted his head, looking at Tyree as if Tyree was nothing more than a paper target. Easy to shoot, easy to forget. Devon had seen that look before. He held his breath, thinking he might not have to worry about Tyree for much longer.
The cop blinked, the tiny movement seemed to take more effort than lifting a two-ton weight, lowered his weapon, shook his shoulders free of tension. He glanced inside the room, met Devon’s gaze without flinching, then turned to focus on the darkness down the hallway behind them.
Devon found himself exhaling in disappointment. Tyree was responsible for this and so much more—including Jess’s death, Devon was certain—that it might have been nice to have him taken care of, once and for all. Especially at the hands of a cop, with Devon able to watch without taking the rap. Yes, that would have been nice.
Nicer still would be Devon doing the job himself. Face to face, eye to eye. Jess deserved that much.
As soon as he had Esme back, he promised himself.
He popped the final lock and turned to Angela, expecting at least a smile or nod. Instead, she sat frozen, eyes unblinking, one hand caught in the girl’s hair.
Shit. Not again. Ozzie made a whining noise, his nose pressed against Angela’s arm, as if he knew she was having another of her fits. Devo
n didn’t know what to do. She was breathing. Should he move her? Put his wallet between her teeth so she didn’t choke? Maybe he shouldn’t try to wake her. Didn’t that kill sleepwalkers?
That’s what she most resembled—minus the walking, of course. Her muscles were bunched up, tense like she was awake, but paralyzed.
Last place on earth she should be was stuck down here, especially not with men with guns wandering the tunnels. Last thing he should have done was let her tag along with him.
“Angela? Come on back now,” he whispered. She’d helped him—he’d keep her secret. For now, at least. He touched her hand, gently removed it from the girl’s hair before she could jerk or fall and hurt the girl.
Angela shuddered as if electricity had jolted her. Blinking rapidly, she looked around, fear tugging at her features, mouth open, ready to scream. She scrambled away from him, but then snapped her mouth closed, her gaze becoming focused once more.
She waved him off, chest heaving as she gasped for air. Bent over double, body racked with spasms, he thought she was puking, but nothing came out.
“Are you okay?” Doctor or not, she wasn’t going to be much help to anyone if she kept having these spells or seizures.
She shook herself and dared to push back up to a sitting position, steering clear of touching the girl again.
“I was with her,” she gasped. Tears slid down her cheeks, but he didn’t think she even noticed them. “Inside her. I saw, I felt—everything that happened to her.”
Devon stared at her. Now it was his mouth hanging open. Give him the dirty double-dealings of the Russians any day. Because he had no idea what the hell to do with this psycho-crazy bullshit.
<<<>>>
“You guys okay in there?” Ryder didn’t try to mask his impatience. They were sitting ducks down here at the end of this fatal funnel.
The pipes overhead gave out an occasional moan that made the hairs on his neck jump to attention. There was no movement in his field of vision, but who knew what lurked beyond the shadows? Or above them on the catwalks. Not like he could recon, not without abandoning Rossi and the children. Most he could do was check the doors lining the corridor within the limited vision of their light. All padlocked. No sounds coming from within.
What if there were more kids behind them?
No time for what-ifs. Had to work with what he had here and now. Work this problem, move on to the next.
Jesus, he was sick of these tunnels, wanted to get the hell above ground again, get back to finding that little girl. And the punks who took her. And the ones who’d left these kids here.
Animals.
He glanced inside. Rossi sat cross-legged in front of the dog and the younger kids. The little ones pushed behind the dog’s bulk, using him as a shield, making themselves as small as possible.
“Hey there,” she said in a soft, low voice, pretending to be talking to the dog. “My name’s Angela. What’s yours? Ozzie? That’s a funny name for a dog.”
The dog helped out by wagging his tail and licking her cheek, showing the kids she wasn’t a threat.
A timid pair of eyes met Rossi’s in the dim light. Instantly fled again. Ryder leaned his weight forward, tempted to go in, but knew he’d only spook the kids further. Someone had to keep guard.
Price emerged from the room, carrying the unconscious girl in his arms. Up close, Ryder could see she was only sixteen or so, Asian. She was limp, arms and legs dangling loose, eyes wide open, staring at nothing.
“Any of you guys want to go home?” Rossi asked the other children in a singsong voice. She hummed softly, her body moving to the rhythm, head nodding, until the kids began to mirror her.
Heads nodding, shoulders hunching. A few sobs. Two more hit-and-skip glances.
Rossi tried another tactic. “Who’s hungry? Anyone?”
One, the tallest, slowly raised his hand. Emboldened by his example, the rest did—the youngest one last, looking to the others first.
“Okay. You want to come with me and get something to eat? What do you want?”
Silence except for the shuffling of bare feet. The dog now sat at her side, facing the kids, but they didn’t run away. Progress.
“McDonald’s,” came a hoarse whisper, Ryder couldn’t tell from which kid. “Pizza,” came another.
“Ice cream!” a girl, one of the smallest, sang out.
“Anyone else vote for ice cream?” Rossi asked.
“Me, me, me!” Now they were all looking at Rossi, hands raised again. She stood up without using her hands, one smooth, graceful movement. The children grabbed on to her. She entrusted the dog’s leash to the oldest ones and shepherded them out into the hall.
“Let’s go.” Ryder grabbed Tyree’s arm, his hand barely fitting halfway around, and spun him back down the hall that ended up beneath Good Sam. They led the way, followed by Price with the girl and Rossi playing the Pied Piper.
The air grew warmer, and a rushing noise filled his ears as they reached the end of the corridor. To their right was a set of metal double doors. The noise came from beyond them. It was growing louder, a steam locomotive stoking its fires.
Ryder tried the doors. They opened. He blinked against the sudden light. Only a few fluorescent bulbs lined Good Sam’s basement corridor, but compared to the darkness they’d been in, it was as blinding as staring into the sun during an eclipse. The kids clamped their hands over their eyes, peering through slits made by their fingers.
He holstered his gun, exchanging it for his cell phone, calling Petrosky. “I want Daniel Kingston on scene by the time I get back,” he ordered. “Lock down any exits from the tunnels and get the lights on down there. No one gets in and no one gets out.”
“Kingston’s here,” she said, her voice almost drowned out by the rain. “The brass are kissing his ass, apologizing, and none too happy with you. He’s threatening to bring charges.”
“For what? We had exigent circumstances—”
“They don’t fucking care, Ryder. Kingston’s pissed off we barged on to his private property, and they need someone to blame. Guess who’s front and center?”
Ryder didn’t give a shit about Kingston or his bruised ego. Once the word about the kids got out, all that would be secondary—shit, the press. He couldn’t risk them hearing. “Lock down all the exits from the tunnels,” he repeated. They reached the hospital’s elevator bank, and he pushed Tyree inside the first one that arrived, held the door for the others. “Meet me over at Good Sam’s ER. Bring a CSU team. I’ve got a crime scene that needs babysitting.”
“What did you find down there?” She sounded half-excited and half-scared, as if he’d successfully returned from an expedition to the South Pole. “Albino alligators?”
He flashed on the vision of the children alone in the dark. The press was going to feast on this like maggots on a rotting corpse. But Petrosky knew how to keep things clamped down, give him time to do his job without the media interfering. “Just hurry.”
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
I was used to being pulled in conflicting directions by the needs of my patients—but not literally. The bright lights and noises and people in the ER scared the little kids, and they tugged at me from behind. One of the youngest had stopped, buried her face against my thigh, gripping my legs in a death hold so I couldn’t move.
Carmen, the ER nurse I’d grabbed when we came out of the elevator, looked over in dismay. “I don’t have beds—” Her gaze said so much more, but like any good nurse, she didn’t voice her real emotions in front of patients.
“I don’t think we can separate them anyway. Not yet,” I said.
Devon gently deposited the unconscious teenage girl onto a gurney parked outside an exam room.
“Carmen, take the girl into a room. She’ll need a full assault workup, tox screen—I think she’s been given PXA.” Thankfully, Shari, one of my Advocacy Center nurses, was working the ER tonight. The girl was in good hands. “Devon, help me take these little guys into the Cente
r’s observation area.”
He’d been looking toward the stairwell, and I knew he wanted to get back into the tunnels, continue his search for Esme.
“The police are closing the tunnels, and whoever took Esme saved her from the shooter,” I reminded him. “There’s nothing you can do for her right now.”
It took him a moment to nod in agreement. “Which way?”
He peeled the little one away from my legs, scooping her up into his arms. She squealed, at first in fright, but then in laughter when he made a squinchy face and blew a raspberry. Then she broke my heart by squelching her laughter with a fist shoved against her mouth and cringing as if waiting to be punished for the joyful noise that had escaped her.
With Ozzie’s help, we herded the kids down a side corridor and pushed through the double doors to the Advocacy Center.
The Center has two fully equipped sexual assault examination rooms, plus a large interview room that resembles a dentist’s office waiting area with vinyl love seats, a low table perfect for kids to sit and draw at, and tubs of age-appropriate toys. Of course, most dentist offices don’t also boast a one-way glass wall, video cameras, and anatomically correct dolls.
The kids tumbled into the room but then withdrew into their huddle again, taking Ozzie with them. The sudden silence, broken only by their sniffling, was heart-wrenching.
Some of the older ones tugged at the hems of their T-shirts, obviously embarrassed at being half-dressed. Despite its casual decor, the room was too bright, too formal. They shied away from the furniture, not touching anything.
Again, I wondered what had happened to them. How long had they been imprisoned underground? Not long enough to suffer nutritionally. They looked skinny and hungry, but not dehydrated, and there’d been evidence of food containers where they’d been kept prisoner. I’d spotted a few flashlights as well, but it was obvious that they’d spent a lot of time in the dark. Did they feel safer hiding in the shadows? Or was it a simple matter that the flashlights had died?
