by Cindi Myers
The bad men. Maya massaged her throbbing temples, a memory more painful than the ache in her skull taking shape. Two men grabbing her roughly as she waited for Gage. One of them, the larger of the two, had pulled her arms behind her back and held her while the other one slapped her when she tried to scream. Then everything went black.
“Who are the bad men?” she signed to Casey. “Where are we?”
But the little girl didn’t know the answer to either of those questions. “I think they’re the same men who killed Mommy and Daddy and tried to hurt us that day at Paige’s house. One of them came in the window at Gage’s house and brought me here.”
The child must have been terrified, left in this concrete bunker alone. Maya pulled her close. “Gage will come for us,” she said, then signed the same message to Casey.
After a while some of the panic subsided and she sat back, rubbing her arm where it still ached. “You must have hurt your arm when they threw you in here,” Casey signed. “You hit the floor really hard. I hid when they came back, over in the corner.” She pointed to a shadowy corner farthest from the door. “But they didn’t even look at me—they just threw you down here.”
Maya stood and went to the door. There was no knob or latch on this side, and it fit so tightly in its frame that she doubted she could wedge even a knife into the gap—if she was the kind of person who carried a knife around, which she wasn’t. “You can’t open the door from this side,” Casey signed. “The only way out is up there, but it’s too high.”
Maya looked where her niece pointed and started at the sight of two metal grates. She was sure these were the same grates she and Gage had been standing over. He would have returned to them by now. What would he do when he discovered she wasn’t there?
He would do everything in his power to find them. The certainty with which this thought came to her should have surprised her, but when she thought of Gage, she thought of him going without sleep and walking miles through the woods and doing everything he could to find Casey—and then, once she was found, taking the two of them into his own home to protect them.
“Gage will be looking for us,” she told Casey. She pulled the girl close again. “We just have to wait for him. As soon as he can, he’ll be here.”
* * *
MAYA HADN’T WANDERED AWAY, Gage knew. She wasn’t like that. She wasn’t the type to be distracted by a pretty flower, or to strike out on her own. He examined the ground around the grates and the crushed weeds and broken branches testified to a struggle. A strand of blue thread caught on a thorn attracted his attention and he pulled it free. Not thread, but Maya’s hair. She had fought with someone here and been overcome.
Gage followed the path of the struggle, moving as quickly as he dared through the undergrowth. The trail led back to the development, but disappeared when he reached the crumbling asphalt of the street. He scanned the deserted landscape. No sign of Maya. No sign of anyone. He pulled out his cell phone, already knowing he wouldn’t find a signal, but needing to be sure. He would have to go back to his SUV and drive down the mountain until he was within range, then call everyone back up here to search. That would take at least twenty minutes—twenty minutes in which whoever had taken Maya could get farther away, or in which they might decide to kill her.
She might already be dead. But he rebelled against that thought. If whoever had taken her wanted her dead, he would have shot her on the spot, the way he had killed Angela and Greg Hood.
He started down the street at a run, but he didn’t get very far. A man stepped out of the empty concrete bunker and turned toward him. Gage stopped and stared. “Wade? What are you doing here?”
Wade Tomlinson’s eyes were flat, his mouth set in a hard line. “I was really hoping I wouldn’t have to do this,” he said. Then, before Gage could react, Wade pulled a gun from his jacket and fired.
Chapter Twenty
The impact of the bullet sent Gage staggering back, pain radiating from the center of his chest. Wade fired again, striking lower and Gage fell, grappling for his sidearm. He freed the weapon from its holster and fired, the shot soaring wide. He struggled onto his knees and aimed at Wade’s fleeing figure, but before he could squeeze off a shot, someone tackled him from behind. An arm like an iron bar pressed against his windpipe, and a big hand wrenched the pistol from his grip.
“I shot him twice. Why isn’t he dead?” Wade came running up, panting.
“He’s wearing a vest, you moron.” Brock Ryan’s clipped voice sounded loud in Gage’s ear. Gage fought to free himself, but it was like trying to wrestle with a gorilla. Then he went still as the barrel of a gun—maybe his own weapon—pressed against his temple.
“Don’t! Someone’s coming!” Wade looked over his shoulder. Gage, fighting to remain conscious as Brock choked off his windpipe, heard nothing, but Wade grew frantic. “They must have heard the gunshots. We have to get out of here.”
“Open the door to the bunker,” Brock ordered. Still gripping Gage in a choke hold, he dragged him backward toward the bunker. “We’ll leave him with the kid.”
“The woman is in there, too,” Wade said as he fumbled with the lock.
Brock swore. “What is she doing here?”
“I saw her while I was waiting for you—she was over by the air vents. I had to get rid of her, so I stuck her in the bunker with the kid.”
“Why didn’t you just kill her?”
Wade shook his head. “I told you before, I didn’t sign on to kill women and kids. That business next door with the kids’ parents was wrong—it wasn’t part of this deal at all.”
“You didn’t have any trouble taking the money, though, did you?” Brock sneered. He took the cuffs from Gage’s belt and clamped them around his wrists, then shoved him into the bunker. When the door had closed behind them, he forced Gage against the wall. Gage gasped for breath, the cool of the concrete against his cheek helping to revive him.
“What did you do with Casey?” Gage asked.
“We didn’t kill her,” Wade said. “I’ve done a lot of bad things and never blinked, but I draw the line at shooting a kid.”
“Shut up,” Brock said, though whether he was addressing Gage or his partner was unclear.
“Why did you kill the Hoods?” Gage asked.
“They were like you—poking their noses where they shouldn’t,” Brock said. “Search him,” he ordered Wade.
Wade patted him down and removed the gun Gage wore in an ankle holster, his pocketknife and baton. When he had stepped back, Brock pressed the gun to Gage’s head once more. “Walk!”
Gage walked to the back of the hut, where Brock reached high over his head and pressed something on the wall. A panel slid back to reveal another locked door, which Wade opened. They passed through this door into a rock-lined tunnel so narrow Gage and his captors had to hunch over and shuffle along single file. This opened into another concrete-walled room, lit by bright fluorescent bulbs and filled with what seemed to be laboratory equipment. An astringent smell that reminded Gage of high school chemistry class stung his nose.
He turned his head to try to see more, and Brock jabbed him with the gun. “No sightseeing.”
They halted in front of a steel door fitted with a heavy lock. “The boss isn’t going to like this,” Wade said as he fit a key into the lock.
“By the time he finds out, we’re going to be long gone.” Brock nudged Gage. “And you’ll be dead.” Wade eased open the door and Brock shoved Gage hard, almost throwing him into the chamber on the other side. Then the heavy portal closed and locked behind him with a heavy thunk that chilled Gage through.
* * *
“GAGE!” MAYA RAN forward to embrace him. She had never been so glad to see anyone in her life—to know that he was safe and alive, and that the man who had brought her and Casey here hadn’t killed him. At the same time, the knowledge that he was tr
apped with them filled her with dread. If Gage couldn’t save them, who would?
She ran her palms up his chest, the solid feel of him reassuring her, but her fingers snagged on a hole in his uniform shirt. She drew back, horrified to realize he had been shot—not once, but twice. “You’re hurt!”
“Just bruised. The vest did its job and saved me.” He turned his back to her and extended his bound wrists. “The key to these are in my right front pocket.”
She retrieved the keys and unlocked the restraints. Casey bounced up and down in front of Gage, fingers moving rapidly as she signed. “Tell her she’s talking too fast for me to understand,” he said.
“Slow down,” Maya signed.
With an exasperated expression worthy of a sixteen-year-old, Casey slowed her movements. “She wants to know if you’re all right and what happened,” Maya translated. She handed Gage the key and the cuffs. “I want to know the same things.”
He flexed his fingers and rubbed his wrists. “Wade Tomlinson and Brock Ryan got the jump on me,” he said. “They’re the ones who took Casey, and they murdered her parents.”
Maya tried to place the names. “Wade is the man who runs the outdoor store, isn’t he?” she asked, picturing the muscular man who had come to the police department to report on some suspicious characters he thought might be responsible for the thefts at the high school.
“Yes. And Brock is his partner. The drawing the forensic artist made from Casey’s description resembles Brock. He’s a big, imposing guy. And strong as an ox.”
Maya stared at the bullet holes in his uniform shirt. “They shot you twice but when that didn’t kill you, he brought you here? I’m more than grateful, but why would he do something like that?”
“Brock was going to kill me, but they heard someone approaching and wanted to get me out of sight before they were discovered.”
“Are you sure you’re not hurt?” she asked.
“I feel like I was kicked by a bull and I’ll probably have a couple of major bruises, but considering the shape I’d be in if it wasn’t for my vest, I’m doing great.” He pulled her close. “Better now that I know you and Casey are okay.”
She kissed him, his lips firm and warm against her own, and so alive. She wanted to keep kissing him like this for at least the next several hours, but that was time they didn’t have. Reluctantly, she eased back from him.
Casey tugged at his sleeve and signed a question, her movements emphatic, her expression grave.
“She wants to know how we’re going to get out of here,” Maya said. “The door is sealed tight and the only other opening is up there.” She indicated the grates overhead. “I think those are the same ones we were looking at when you left to get tools and someone—I never saw who—overpowered me.”
Gage studied the grating, then walked to the back wall of the bunker and started feeling all around. “What are you doing?” Maya asked as she and Casey followed him.
“This bunker is behind the one that’s visible at the development,” Gage said. “When we searched it earlier, we thought it was just an empty storage space, but it had a hidden door. Brock and Wade opened it and led me through a tunnel to another chamber that was set up like a laboratory. At the back of that chamber was the door to this one.” He ran his hands up and down the wall, frowning. “But I think this is the last in the line of structures. Those grates were only a few yards from the fence line, and a few feet beyond the fence is a rock shelf—there’s no room for another chamber.”
“But what are they doing with all these underground chambers?” Maya asked.
“How much did you see on the way in?” he asked her.
“Nothing. I was unconscious.”
“I’m pretty sure that middle space was a laboratory.”
“Do you think it’s a meth lab or something like that?”
Gage shook his head. “Remember, I told you most of the meth these days comes from Mexico. If Wade and Brock are making drugs here, they’d have to have a way of distributing them. We haven’t noticed an increase in traffic on this road, and Eagle Mountain Outdoors is right around the corner from the sheriff’s department. We would have noticed any suspicious activity there.”
Maya looked at Casey. Even though the little girl was deaf, her lipreading was improving, and Maya didn’t want her upset by their conversation. But Casey was over by the door, tracing her finger along the faint crack between the door and its frame. Maya turned back to Gage. “Is that why they killed Angie and Greg? Because they found out about the lab?”
“I’m not sure,” Gage said. “Brock said they were killed because they had been nosing around where they didn’t belong. That makes me believe they saw something they shouldn’t.”
“We have to get out of here, or we’ll die here, too,” Maya said. “Maybe we can wait by the door and when they come back, we can overpower them.”
“I don’t think they’re coming back,” Gage said. “At least, Brock said they were leaving.”
Panic clawed at her throat as she absorbed these words, but she fought against it. “We have to get out of here,” she said again, her voice shaking only a little.
Casey hurried to them. She pointed overhead and began signing. Almost immediately, Maya began shaking her head. “No,” she signed in reply. “I won’t let you.”
“What is she saying?” Gage asked.
“She says we should lift her up and she can crawl out of the grate and go for help. It’s a ridiculous idea. Much too dangerous.”
Gage tilted his head back to study the opening. “She’s the only one of us who could fit through that opening,” he said. “If we could get one of the grates out of the way. But we couldn’t budge them from the outside.” He looked around. “There’s nothing we could use for a ladder, but if I boosted you onto my shoulders, you could lift her up.”
“Gage, no! It’s too dangerous.” She took a step back from him.
His eyes met hers. “It’s dangerous, but it’s not impossible. And it may be our best chance.”
“She’s only five. How is she going to get all the way into town by herself? And what if she runs into Wade or Brock on the way?”
“She’s the smartest, toughest five-year-old I ever met,” Gage said. “And she doesn’t have to get all the way to town. She just has to get to Jim Trotter’s place at the end of the road.”
Maya hugged her arms over her stomach, aware that Casey was watching this debate—and aware that everything Gage said made sense. “None of this matters if we can’t get the grate loose,” she said. “And how are we going to do that?”
“If you stand on my shoulders you can see if you can get it loose from this side.”
“Oh, well, if it’s that easy, why didn’t I think of it?”
“Come on,” he said. “Take off your shoes and get on my back. From there, you can climb up onto my shoulders. I promise I won’t let you fall.”
Skeptical and yes, a little afraid, she nevertheless did as he asked, aware that they were out of other options. She owed it to them all to at least try. She kicked off her shoes and removed her socks as well. Then Gage bent over. “Hop onto my back,” he said. “Then you can crouch on my shoulders. I’ll straighten up, then you straighten up.”
He made the moves sound easy, but they were anything but. “What am I supposed to hold on to?” she asked as she straddled his back, debating her next move.
“I don’t know. Maybe—try clasping your hands on my forehead...ouch! My forehead, not over my eyes!”
She moved her hands up, aware that Casey was giggling at the two of them. She managed to plant her feet on his shoulders and crouched there, straddling his head and feeling ridiculous. She was also sure he was risking a back injury and a possible hernia trying to lift her. After all, those gymnasts and ice-skaters being lifted into the air by their partners were usually several inches sho
rter and many pounds lighter than her.
“I’m going to stand up now,” he said.
“Okay.” Her voice only quavered a little. She tightened her grip on his head and added a headache to the list of pains she was inflicting on him. He straightened, breathing a little hard with the effort. She crouched on his shoulders, trying to work up the courage to stand.
“You have to stand up now,” he said.
“I know. But that means letting go of your head.”
“I won’t let you fall,” he said. “You have to trust me.”
Hadn’t she been trusting him all this time—to find Casey, to find Angie and Greg’s killers, to protect her? Surely she could trust him now to hold her up—or at least, to catch her if she fell. Slowly, she straightened her legs, letting go of him at the last minute, extending her arms for balance. He reached up and gripped her shins, steadying her. When she was standing straight, she let out the breath she had been holding and grinned. “Okay, what do I do now?”
“Can you reach the grate?” he asked. “See if you can move it.”
The bottom of the grate was about ten inches over her head. She reached up and grabbed it. It moved a little from side to side, but wouldn’t budge up or down. “There are some metal clip-type things holding the grate in place,” she said.
“If you wedged something in them, could you break them?” he asked.
“I don’t know. Maybe. But we don’t have anything to use as a wedge.”
“Come down now.” Did she imagine the strain in his voice?
She clambered down, jumping the last three feet to the ground. Gage straightened and rubbed one shoulder. “There must be something we can use to break those clips,” he said. He patted his pockets and pulled out the handcuffs, a set of keys and his wallet.
“What about a key?” she asked.
He considered his car keys. “I think the metal is too brittle. I’ve tried to use keys to pry things before and they snapped off.” He replaced the keys in his pocket. “But I think you’re on the right track. We need something metal and sturdy.” He began unbuckling his belt.
