“Then let’s tread very carefully.” Guy entered the farmhouse through the wooden front door that was once painted blue, but now stood faded, the flaking paint littering the floor of the hallway beyond. A sour smell lingered on the air, a mixture of decay and damp. Hunter longed to turn around and go back outside and run through the forest, breathing in the scent of pine and good, fertile earth.
But this was where his mate needed to be, and he would stay by her side every step of the way. Even if each step was over rotted-out floorboards and fragments of old cloth which used to be brightly colored drapes hung at the windows. It was as far removed from the lives of the people he usually guarded as it could possibly be.
“Fan out and look for anything that looks out of place,” Cynthia instructed as they entered the hallway. “Everything in the house is in much the same state as the hallway, so if you see anything that looks new, or clean, then it’s likely suspect.”
“Let’s search the other ground floor rooms. Then we’ll head upstairs,” Guy added. “Once we’re certain the house is clear, we’ll enter the kitchen.”
“Okay.” Hunter stuck close to Cynthia as she made her way toward a door to her right.
“This is what used to be the sitting room. The other door is the dining room.” Cynthia reached out for the doorknob and turned it slowly. She pushed it open slowly, looking at the doorframe for any sign of a disturbance. Hunter was fully aware someone may have attached some kind of incendiary device to the doorknob, but he couldn’t smell anything suspicious.
“I never knew my bodyguard training would be so useful,” Hunter confessed.
“I told you, you never know when explosives might be rigged in a room. Or a car, or a garage,” Guy called over as he and Liam entered the other room.
“Guy trained you to sniff out explosives?” Cynthia asked.
Hunter nodded and laughed. “Oh, yeah, I have been thoroughly trained. So too has my bear.”
“I won’t send a man or a woman into the field unprepared,” Guy said as Liam entered the dining room. Then his face became serious as he followed.
“Ready?” Cynthia looked up at Hunter who nodded.
Slowly, she pushed the door wider, until there was room for them both to step inside. Cynthia was right, the room was filled with rotted-out furniture, the sofa, in particular, looked as if something might have been living in it. The smell of urine filled the air, stinging his eyes.
“I should have picked somewhere a little nicer for our first date,” Hunter joked.
Cynthia forced a smile on her face. “It’s terrible, isn’t it? I can’t even begin to imagine what the children who were brought here must have thought.”
“Let’s not dwell on that now. We’re here to try to reunite the children with their parents. That’s a good thing. A positive thing.” He placed his hand on her shoulder, making her jump a little. “And don’t ever blame yourself for any of this. You helped uncover this operation, the children had already been taken, and what the men did with them when they knew the police were closing in on them was not on you.”
“I know. But it still breaks my heart.” Cynthia put her hand on her heart...and then froze.
“What is it?” Hunter whispered in her ear.
“There.” She pointed at the floor, but he couldn’t see what she saw. “The wire.”
He moved around her, taking each step with slow precision. “I see it.”
Hunter crouched down and placed his hands on the dirty floor. Then he crawled forward, tipping his head to the side as he tried to figure out what the wire was attached to.
“What do you see?” Cynthia hissed from behind him.
“The wire goes into the floor.” He pointed to where the wire was threaded between two exposed floorboards. “It’s attached to something inside the sofa.”
Hunter cursed himself for not picking up the scent of humans before. They had been in this room, but the scent of ammonia from the stale urine masked it almost completely. He just hoped it hadn’t masked explosives, too.
Carefully, he moved forward, one step at a time until he was next to the sofa. As he reached out to lift the rotted-out fabric, Guy’s voice shouted, “Clear,” from the other room.
“We have something,” Cynthia called back.
The sound of footsteps approaching and then entering the room told Hunter backup had arrived. “What do you see, Hunter?” Guy snapped.
“There’s a wire going down between the floorboards.” Hunter pointed to the location of the wire. “It’s attached to something that’s hidden inside the sofa. I can’t tell what it is yet.”
“Cynthia, you should get back out of the way,” Guy instructed.
“I might be able to help see what’s in there,” she replied, taking out her phone. “I have a great zoom on this thing.” She hunkered down and pointed the phone at the sofa. “If Hunter can expose what’s in there, I’ll get a photo of it.”
“Hunter, can you lift the fabric and let us get a clear shot of the equipment?” Guy asked.
“Yes.” Hunter reached out with steady hands and parted the fabric. “It looks like a small box.”
“I’ve got the picture.” Cynthia stood up and walked carefully back toward Guy and Liam.
“Hold still until we’ve figured out what this is,” Guy instructed.
Hunter kept his cool and kept his hands steady while behind him the others examined the photo.
“It looks like a signal box. A transmitter of some kind,” Liam said. “This here isn’t just a wire, it’s a camera. The kind you use to look under doors or in small spaces.”
“Like when you’re trying to find a stash of drugs or other contraband in the space between walls,” Guy added.
“But what are they recording?” Cynthia asked. She turned around and looked at the equipment. “What if it goes under the floorboards and comes out in the cellar?”
“If it does, what are they recording?” Liam asked, as he knelt down and slowly crawled closer to Hunter.
“I’m going to take a closer look,” Hunter said as he inched forward, taking a better look at the equipment. “There’s a green button flashing on the inside, it shows there’s power reaching it. I think there’s a battery pack.” He craned his neck forward. “Yep. There’s a battery pack wired to it, and an antenna sticking up.”
“It’s sending a signal somewhere. Can we track it?” Hunter asked.
“Not easily. I don’t have the right equipment,” Guy told them.
“What we really need to know is what information it’s sending,” Liam said as he ran his fingers along the wire that went between the floorboards. He gave it a gentle tug. “There isn’t much give in it.”
“It has to go to the cellar.” Cynthia put her hands on her hips. “My guess is it’s to record any movement down there.”
“And since we believe the letter was sent to specifically get you back here, they must be hoping to film you.” Guy ground his teeth together, his chest rumbling as he mulled over this information.
“You know what we have to do,” Cynthia told Guy.
“We don’t have to do anything,” Hunter said as he let go of the fabric of the sofa and got up. He crossed the floor to join the others.
“This is why we are here. To stop them once and for all, and to find out who sent that letter. They’ve made sure I’d come here. Now we play them on our own terms. Isn’t that what we agreed?” Cynthia asked.
“It might be what we agreed, but that doesn’t mean I like it,” Hunter said firmly.
And he didn’t like it, he didn’t like it one bit.
Chapter Fifteen – Cynthia
Opening up the trapdoor was one of the hardest things she’d ever done. What if the men had come back here and hunted down the children? What if when she opened the door, she was met with the sight of Joey and Horatio dead?
How would she find the words to tell Michaela she’d failed?
“Death has a strong smell. An unmistakable smell,�
� Hunter told her gently. “We can’t smell death.”
She nodded, reached down for the bolt keeping the trapdoor locked and pulled it back. Then she yanked up the trapdoor and covered her mouth as the stench hit her. “Still not death?”
“Still not death,” Hunter assured her.
“Good to know.” Cynthia’s hand trembled as she placed it on the handrail and reached for the light, which was just inside the door. In an instant, the darkness was illuminated, and she could see each of the twenty wooden steps that led down into the cellar.
“It’s okay, just act naturally as you go down, but look for the camera, it should be somewhere on your right.” Hunter placed his hand on her back, sending his strength into her. It helped. In a small way, it was comforting to know he was there. That he would always be there.
She took a deep breath and stifled a sob, not wanting to show her weakness. Not that she was hiding it from the men who were with her, more that she was hiding it from whoever might be watching. “I’ll let you know what I see.”
They had concluded that only images were being captured by the camera, no sound. She would be free to talk, and she was also going to film the whole thing because that was what she would naturally do. This feedback would give them something to work with.
Hopefully. It was all unknown. All she knew for certain was this was the place she had to be. This was where she was being lured to and this was where the threat must end. She didn’t let herself worry about whether the children were out there in the forest. They would deal with that afterward.
“There’s nothing to see, only the steps,” Cynthia said as she walked down the wooden steps carefully. They had been reinforced and repaired, unlike the rest of the house, but they still didn’t feel safe. “I’m about to look to my right, I think this is about level with where the camera goes under the floorboards.”
She was approximately halfway down the stairs, she could see the cells below, but couldn’t tell if they were all empty. As she swung her head slowly to the right, she aimed her phone in that direction, too, sweeping it in a wide arc as she turned away from the camera, which she had seen in the corner of her eye.
“It’s there. There’s no sign that it’s recording.” She kept going down the stairs, forcing herself each step of the way.
“We have to assume it is recording and anyone watching will be alerted to you being here,” Guy said.
“Okay, I’ll keep going.” She wanted to turn around and run back up the stairs, and never set foot in this hellhole again. The stench was almost unbearable, and she wished she hadn’t eaten before she came down here. But if she hadn’t eaten, she might not have had the strength to go down those twenty steps.
“What do you see?” Hunter asked from the top of the stairs as she reached the bottom. It was if they were on different planes of existence, the distance between them too great for them to ever be together again. Her heart ached to feel his presence, her body ached for his touch.
“Nothing yet.” She pushed the thought of the distance between them to the back of her mind. He was only twenty steps away from her. If she needed him, he would be by her side in an instant. His super senses would track down any danger, his super strength would keep her from harm.
“I’m here for you.” Hunter’s words were exactly what she needed to hear.
“I’m going to work my way along the length of the cellar,” she called up as she left the relative safety of the steps and headed for the first cell. The door stood open and she pointed her phone toward it, the light from the gadget illuminating the darkness just enough to show it was completely empty.
What had she expected? A body. She screwed up her eyes for a moment and forced herself to breathe even though the smell was horrendous.
Moving to the next cell, she found it empty also. And the next. Cynthia worked her way along the row of cells to the right. She counted six and then had to turn to check the remaining two, which were positioned on the back wall of the house and tucked under the stairs.
“There’s something here.” Her heart hammered in her chest, and bile rose in her throat. She didn’t want to look, she didn’t want to know what horror awaited her.
“Are you okay?” Hunter asked, the need to be with her and protect her evident in his voice.
“Yes. I’m okay.” She had to do this alone, she couldn’t alert anyone else who might be watching to the fact she was not alone.
Cynthia shone her phone in the direction of whatever was on the floor in the cell. She took a moment to compose herself, whatever it was, she would get through this, she would get over it and move on. When she started the investigation into child trafficking, she knew she would find scenes disturbing and heartbreaking, she could not back away now.
“Talk to me, Cynthia.” Hunter’s voice gave her strength and focus.
“There’s something on the floor. It looks like a bundle of clothes. I’m going to take a closer look now.” She crouched down, her legs unsteady, but her resolve firm.
“Be careful, is there something you can use to touch it?” Liam asked. “A stick or something similar.”
Cynthia looked around for something to use, but the cellar had been almost completely stripped out by the police when they raided the house. Backing away from the pile of clothes, she went to the corner of the cellar, where a stick lay discarded on the ground. Bending down, she picked it up warily, not knowing where it had come from. Certainly, the police would have removed it for forensic testing if it had been down here before. They had removed everything that might have DNA samples attached and the stick was the kind of makeshift weapon used to threaten the children.
“Are you still with us?” Hunter asked.
“I am, I’ve found a stick. I’ll use that to search through the clothes.” Cynthia returned to the pile of clothes and steeled herself for what she might find. “I’m about to move the clothes.”
She prodded the clothes gently at first, trying to feel for any resistance, anything that might indicate this was something other than a few dirty garments. It was soft, no bones belonging to a dead body. Inserting the end of the stick under the outer layer of clothes, she flipped it over and then repeated the action until all the clothes were laid out in front of her.
“What do you see?” Hunter asked, frustration in his voice.
“I’m not sure.” Cynthia crouched down to get a closer look at the pile of clothes. “They look familiar.”
“Familiar how?” Guy asked.
Cynthia closed her eyes for a moment, trying to pull a memory out of her head. Where had she seen these clothes before? She was suffocated by her surroundings and found it almost impossible to focus. Her brain was screaming at her to run, to turn around and get herself out of there before it was too late. They had no idea what the camera was for. They had no idea how much danger they were in.
How much danger all of them were in all in. She’d pulled the men waiting in the kitchen into this mess and they might be about to pay the consequences.
“Cynthia?” Hunter’s voice called her name and she grabbed hold of it as if he were throwing her a lifeline.
“Joey,” Cynthia said, suddenly remembering the description his parents had given to the police. “A blue T-shirt with the number nine on the back. And a pair of blue denim shorts. But there’s more. A couple of other kids’ shirts and pants.”
“Do any of the clothes belong to Horatio?” Hunter asked.
“I can’t tell. I’ll bring them up.” She took a step back, pulling away from the clothes that belonged to the missing children.
“No, leave them there, the police should examine them before they are moved,” Liam called down.
Of course, they should. She knew that. However, she wanted to take them out of this place, just as she would want to take the children they belonged to out of this place. “I need to check out the next cell.”
The last cell. Cynthia hoped it would be empty. She hoped that whatever they wanted her to see was her
e.
But would it be that simple?
No.
As she inched her way along the cellar toward the last cell, she caught sight of something pinned to the wall. Photographs. Images of four children. Two she recognized as Joey and Horatio, two she had never seen before.
Cynthia lifted her phone and shone the light on them, her mouth dry with fear. What did this all mean? Why would someone incriminate themselves by leaving these clothes and photographs here?
“Talk to me, Cynthia.” Hunter’s voice seemed closer.
“I’m okay,” she assured him. “There are photographs on the wall. Horatio and Joey, plus two others, a boy and a girl.”
“What kind of photographs?” Hunter asked.
“Like mugshots.” She closed her eyes briefly, fighting nausea in her stomach. “We found similar photos in one other location.”
“Taken by the kidnappers?” Hunter asked savagely.
“Yes.” Cynthia stepped closer, her foot brushed against something on the ground. Closing her eyes, she steeled herself to look at the ground. Hunter had assured her there was nothing dead down here, but it didn’t stop her brain conjuring up images of broken bodies. But it was just a child’s toy.
Cynthia reached out for it but didn’t pick it up. She couldn’t destroy potential forensic evidence. But then as she looked closer, she recognized it. This was Thomas’s toy. Her mind reeled and the world spun. As she stared at it, she saw the envelope with her name on it tucked underneath the toy. This had all been staged for her. They’d known she was coming. The question pressing on her brain was what exactly did they want?
“I’m coming down,” Hunter called.
“No,” she called loudly, her voice firm. “I’m coming back up.”
Cynthia quickly bent down and retrieved the envelope but left the toy where it was. As she straightened up, she took one last look at the photos and then swung around, walking quickly, but not running back toward the stairs. Climbing them took all her strength, the shock of what she’d seen below almost too much.
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