She grabbed the A-D volume and pulled it out partway. When nothing happened, she shoved it back in and then moved on to the next.
“What the hell are you doing, Hanna?”
“Ever seen any spy movies? Read Nancy Drew or the Hardy boys? I’m looking for a secret passage, that's what I'm doing,” she mumbled under her breath.
“Just get out of there, go back to the auction.”
Screech sounded tired now, tired and annoyed.
But his plan was flawed. Drake was somewhere halfway across the world trying to track down Ken Smith; he didn’t have time for them to write down a list of names and take photos of rich people’s faces. No, they needed something tangible and they needed it now. They needed something that would get Drake off the hook for everything that he’d done, allowing him to come back and live a normal life.
None of the books led to any secret passage, of course, and by the time Hanna got to the second row, she grew tired and bored of the charade.
“Nothing here,” she grumbled.
Hanna straightened when she heard footsteps right outside the door.
Screech must've noticed the sudden change in posture from the video feed because he immediately asked her what was happening.
The footsteps were so close now that Hanna couldn’t risk answering. Instead, she crouched low and scampered along the far side of the desk, and then made her way behind the partly open door. Before she could peer out, someone started to push it open, and Hanna sucked in a sharp breath and flattened her body against the wall.
“I'll be back in a minute,” she heard a female voice say to someone in the hallway. “Just a minute.”
And then a woman in a dress stepped into the room. Barely breathing now, Hanna watched as the woman smoothed her outfit, which, while similar to Steffani Loomis’s, wasn’t identical, and then started toward the desk.
Hanna followed with her eyes and then ground her teeth in frustration. She’d forgotten to put the photographs back in the folder.
“What the hell?” the woman whispered, her back still to door.
Hanna didn’t hesitate; she reached up and pulled a long metal chopstick from her hair and strode forward.
“Don't move,” she said as she pressed the point to the back of the woman's neck. “Don’t move and don't make a sound.”
Chapter 52
Drake didn't dare close his eyes that night, even though he was beyond exhausted and his makeshift lean-to was actually quite comfortable.
His brother, on the other hand, didn't seem to have any trouble falling asleep. Within minutes of finishing laying down a bed of ferns, the man jammed his cutlass into the earth, curled up on his side, and began snoring softly.
Drake watched his brother sleep. He watched his chest slowly rise and fall, watch the man's flaccid features twitch every so often.
Clearly, taking Diego's life had done nothing to hinder his slumber.
Even though Drake had been careful not to close his eyes, he must've drifted off at some point, because the next thing he realized was that he was no longer beneath his lean-to. In fact, he wasn’t even sitting.
Drake found himself hovering over his brother's body. And his hand… his right hand had started to ache.
With abstract curiosity, he looked down and noticed that he was gripping the handle of his cutlass. Not only that, but it was half-cocked, the curved blade aimed at Dane’s mid-section.
Drake gasped and almost stumbled backwards. He didn’t remember doing any of this.
After a deep breath, he looked down at Dane and then almost tripped again; Dane was awake and staring up at him. He didn’t say anything, didn’t even move. He just stared.
With considerable effort, Drake unfurled his fingers and the cutlass fell to the grass. As he retreated to his makeshift bed, he watched Dane close his eyes and slowly turn onto his other side.
There's something wrong with him, Drake thought. But as he looked up at the bright moon, he realized the same could be said about him.
That the same could be said about all of them.
Chapter 53
Screech slammed the door closed without even saying goodbye to Beckett. The man had been acting strange—stranger—than he normally was, but Screech didn’t have time for that now.
He had Hanna to worry about.
“I should have never let her go,” he cursed himself as he moved to his computer and stared at the video from her pendant.
Something had spooked Hanna, and she was moving quickly now, causing the video feed to stutter.
Get out of there, he pleaded silently. Get the fuck out of there!
But Hanna didn’t appear to be going anywhere.
Screech threw the folder that Beckett had given to them on the desk without looking at it. The feeling of helplessness that came over him then was similar to how he’d felt while watching Leroy deal with the thugs in the trap house. Sure, the environment couldn’t have been different, but in many ways, it was the same.
“Fuck,” he swore.
The door opened, and the image started to rise and fall now that Hanna's breathing had become more rapid. A woman stepped through the door and started towards the desk. And then Hanna was on the move again, only she had something in her hand now. Something long and sharp and glinting.
“Don't move,” Hanna said. “Don’t move and don't make a sound.”
Chapter 54
The woman tensed, but she didn't lose control and start shaking or sobbing as Hanna expected she might have.
This wasn’t Steffani Loomis, but it wasn’t a run-of-the-mill auction participant, either.
Hanna's trade lay mostly in her ability to ply information from men, but she wasn’t opposed to extracting what she wanted from a woman. And the way this woman resisted the urge to panic with a sharp object pressed to her neck by a stranger, suggested that she might be able to help them.
Hanna wasn’t sure how, but she was about to find out.
In one smooth motion, she spun the woman around while keeping the needle point aimed at her throat.
She had long, straight dark hair that covered most of her face.
“Who are you?” Hanna hissed, wary of raising her voice too high in case there were others just outside the door.
The woman slowly raised a hand and brushed the hair away from her face.
Hanna gasped.
“Jasmine?”
The woman's green eyes went wide; she was clearly surprised that her assailant recognized her.
“Who are you?” Jasmine shot back.
Hanna's heart was pounding in her chest now, and she felt confusion washed over her.
“What—Jasmine, what are you doing here?” she stammered, ignoring the woman's question.
Jasmine's expression didn't falter.
“How do you know my name?”
Hanna’s mouth was suddenly incredibly dry, making it difficult to swallow, let alone speak.
Jasmine, the mother of Drake’s child, was here? With these people? Jasmine, ex-wife to Clay Cuthbert who had been slain by the Church of Liberation on orders of ANGUIS Holdings, had now joined them?
It didn't make sense.
“Why?” Hanna finally breathed.
Jasmine's eyes narrowed further and then they sprung open.
“Oh my god, you're with him,” she said softly. “You helped Drake escape.”
Confusion transitioned into anger.
“How could you? How could you betray him like this?” Hanna demanded, her voice raising an octave. “How could you do this to Drake?”
Jasmine started to shake her head.
“No, no, you don't understand. I love Drake. It's not what you think. I'm on your side.”
Her response took Hanna by surprise, and she lowered the metal chopstick a little. When Jasmine took a step back, however, Hanna raised it again and ground her teeth.
“You’re on my side? You're working with them, aren't you? You're working with Steffani Loomis and Ken Smit
h and all these other assholes,” Hanna accused.
Jasmine was shaking her head more violently now.
“No, no, it's not like that. I'm trying to bring them down. Ever since Clay was murdered… I-I-I’ve been trying to infiltrate them. To figure out what they're all about and shut them down from the inside.”
Hanna's upper lip curled. She didn't know what to make of this. It was a catch-22; if it was true, that would make it necessary for Jasmine to be a good liar. And if she were a good liar, there was no way to determine if she was telling the truth.
“Fuck,” Hanna swore. She tilted her head to one side. “Screech, you getting this?”
She was distracted for a split-second, but that was still too much. Jasmine suddenly strode forward and with a lightning fast hand, she snatched the metal chopstick from Hanna.
“I'm sorry, but I'm too close.”
As Hanna reached for the weapon, the door behind her flung open and thick hands grabbed her around the waist and held her tight.
As she was dragged away, Hanna heard Jasmine say, “This is an impostor… she was snooping around in here. I caught her looking through Steffani’s things.”
Chapter 55
Leroy was bored out of his mind. He’d spent the better part of the last hour checking people into the auction. People who looked exactly like one another.
Ah, the irony, he thought as he glanced down at C.J. Yobooty’s ID card.
At one point, he’d stopped even bothering to look for the names that the guests gave. He simply ushered them in. What did it matter, anyway?
It’s not like this was his job.
His partner, a much bigger and thicker man who went by the name of Trevor Bernard appeared equally as uninterested in the task.
Anything for a payday, I guess.
As the crowd slowly started to thin, Leroy turned to the other and offered something in the way of conversation. Anything to alleviate his extreme boredom.
“How long you been doing this gig for?” he asked.
Trevor grunted and looked at his watch.
“Around seven.”
Great. Real conversationalist, this one.
Leroy blew air out of his mouth and stared up at the moon. He was about to ask Trevor what time they could leave this place when his earpiece crackled.
“Leroy, we’ve got a problem.”
Leroy suddenly grew serious.
“Aha,” he said, trying to make it seem like he was just confirming Trevor’s answer. It only partly worked; the man was staring at him curiously.
“Something's happened… something’s happened to Hanna. I need you to go check on her. Goddamn it, I said just observe.”
Leroy swallowed hard and glanced over at Trevor. The man wasn’t looking at him anymore; he was now talking in hushed tones into his walkie-talkie.
“Yeah, that might be difficult,” Leroy said. Trevor turned back to him.
“Hey, kid, what did you say your name was again?”
Leroy glanced down at his name tag.
“C.J. Yobooty.”
The man's walkie squawked, but Leroy couldn’t hear the subsequent words on account of the mic in his ear acting up.
“And how old are you?”
Trevor took a menacing step forward and Leroy took an equally large step backward. Another step and his ass butted up against the wrought iron railing.
“Old enough, what is this, anyway? You want my social security? You my boss now?”
The man shook his head and continued forward. Leroy had nowhere to go now.
“Naw, but the boss, the real boss, he wants to see you.”
“Yeah?” Leroy inquired, sliding down to a lower step. His heart was racing, and he could feel his muscles tense as he prepared to bolt. “And who might that be?”
“Major Loomis.”
And that was when Leroy knew that this was a one-way street that he had to veer off. He hated the idea of leaving Hanna here by herself, but he couldn't do any good if this brute got a hold of him.
“Yeah, sure,” Leroy said, trying to act casual. “No problem. Does he want to see my name tag?”
As he said this, Leroy reached down and unhooked the name tag from his shirt.
“What? Your name tag?” Trevor said with a snarl. “Why would he—”
Leroy flung the name tag like a Frisbee and it hit Trevor squarely in the face. The man cried out and Leroy used the distraction to bound down the stairs. Before his partner had even collected himself, Leroy was sprinting across the lawn, putting as much distance between him and the Loomis Estate as he could.
Chapter 56
Hanna didn't struggle; there really was no point. The two men who grabbed her were far stronger than she and struggling would only result in her getting a broken arm. But that didn't mean she wasn't frightened. She was frightened; Hanna was terrified.
She was also confused. She had no idea if Jasmine was telling the truth or if she had just been trying to save her own skin. Hanna knew full well how manipulative people could be; after all, she’d used this fact to her advantage to survive over the years. It was improbable, but not impossible, that Jasmine hooking up with Drake and even having a child with him was all part of Ken Smith’s master plan.
After all, Ken had been using Drake as a pawn in his quest for power for a year or more. What better safeguard against him acting out than to control his child?
“Hanna? Hanna?”
She’d forgotten that Screech was still in her ear.
“This is my debutante ball,” she almost moaned, trying to alert Screech of where she was being taken without letting the men dragging her know that she was mic’ed up. “I don't want to be taken down into a basement. I don't belong in some sort of dungeon.”
One of the men held the door open while the other tried to lower her into a concrete cellar.
An all-encompassing panic struck her then.
She’d been in a basement like this before, years ago. A man had grabbed her off the street when she was only thirteen and thrown her in a cell for nearly a week before she’d managed to escape. That had been one of many close calls after her mother had abandoned her.
“Let go of me, you fucking goons,” she shouted, losing her accent entirely. She kicked and thrashed, but the man switched his grips and put her in a half-nelson.
I shoulda brought a fuckin’ gun. I would shoot this motherfucker in the face. I would—
“Let go of me!”
But the man didn’t let go. His partner grabbed her legs and together they carried her down a rickety set of wooden stairs. This place was so different from the rest of the house that Hanna felt as if she’d been dragged into another dimension.
“What is this place?”
Her eyes darted about, and she noticed a solitary window cut out of the concrete foundation. The moon was weak, but she thought she could make out a treeline in the distance.
“Fucking trees! Is that a forest? I can see a fucking forest!”
Hanna was spun around and before she knew what was happening, she found herself plopped down in a chair. Once again, she tried to wriggle free, but these were professionals. They used heavy leather straps to affix her legs and arms to the chair.
“Get the fuck off me!” she screamed, gnashing her teeth at any piece of flesh that came near her.
“Search her,” one of the men said. The other man nodded and stepped forward.
“Get off me! Help! Help!”
Hanna tried to topple the chair, but it was bolted to the floor. That was when she saw the dark stains on the concrete.
Stains that could only be one thing: blood.
Her panic reached a crescendo and Hanna let out a blood curding scream. Someone upstairs had to hear this, didn’t they?
Rough hands were on her then, searching her from her ankles up to her thighs, unceremoniously patting down every inch of her body. When they got to her head, Hanna kept trying to hide her ear, but the man grabbed her chin with an unrelenting gri
p. He found the earpiece and yanked it free.
“Audio,” he said simply, handing the device over to his partner.
“No!” Hanna screamed.
The man didn’t even appear to take notice; he just dropped the earpiece to the ground and crushed it beneath his heel.
“She's clean,” the man who’d searched her said. Without exchanging any other words, the two men started back up the stairs.
The idea of being alone down here was truly terrifying. The week that she’d been trapped in a cage, not knowing if she’d get food or water or see another face again, had been the worst of her life.
“You can’t leave me here!” she thrashed so violently she became dizzy. “You can’t leave me here!”
When the men shut off the light and left the basement, Hanna’s pleas degenerated into screams.
Chapter 57
Delirium had begun to set in. Drake hadn’t slept at all during the night; he was too afraid of what he might do.
When the sun finally rose, and Dane awoke, he didn’t mention what happened the night prior. He just set about packing up his things as if nothing had happened.
“Just a few more hours,” his brother said as he looked upward as if the sky itself would lead them.
Drake nodded and prepared himself for another long slog through the jungle. He was exhausted, both mentally and physically, but something inside of him had stirred.
Excitement was an odd feeling; part anxiety, part fear, part anticipation. For Drake, his excitement was rooted in the knowledge that everything was coming to an end soon, one way or another. If his brother’s estimation was correct, in a few hours, they’d be at the original Church of Liberation.
He wasn't sure if Ken or Wesley Smith would be there, if Diego had told them the truth in the moments before he’d been murdered. If they were there, there was no guarantee that he'd come out alive, or if the man who'd bested him so many times over the last few years would continue to come out on top. Drake didn't know if he would see Screech, or Jasmine, or Beckett, or even his son Clay ever again.
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