When the Shadows Fall: A Romantic Thriller (Blackwood Security Book 14)

by Elise Noble

  Pool noodles, lane markers, deflated beach balls, wetsuits, a baseball glove, an old set of scuba apparatus… Nearly all water-related. If I had to guess, I’d say the room was a storage area for the swimming pool, which meant we were around four hundred yards north of the main building. Even if a miracle happened and Team Blackwood did show up, hunting for me would be like looking for hay in a needle stack. Almost impossible and with a high likelihood of blood being shed. Why couldn’t we have been near the sports field? A hockey stick might actually have come in useful.

  “Sky, what’s happening?” Asher asked.

  I threw a paddleboard aside and hit pay dirt. Another door! But where did it go? I tested it with my shoulder. Solid.

  “Come over here and help me.”

  “What the fuck is going on?”

  “We need to break down this door.”

  “Why?”

  “Because your uncle is a criminal, and he’s going to kill me and possibly you as well if we don’t get out of here.”

  “You’re gonna have to explain that statement.”

  “He was waving a gun at me. How much more of an explanation do you need?”

  “He probably thought we were burglars. And you attacked him first.”

  “Okay, fine. That room we were in? I’d say it housed a good proportion of all the famous paintings that have gone missing over the past, oh, four or five decades.”

  “And you know this how?”

  “Because…” I took a deep breath. “Because I was sent here to search for them.”

  I kept my eyes on the door. Not because I thought it might suddenly open, although that would have been nice, but because I couldn’t bring myself to face Asher.

  “You… I… So, what are you? An undercover cop?”

  “A private investigator.”

  “You’re a… How old are you?”

  “Eighteen. This is my first job, and aren’t I doing great at it?”

  “Hell.” I knew if I turned around, I’d find Asher’s hand scrubbing at his hair, but my feet stayed where they were. “You lied to me.”

  “I didn’t tell you the whole truth.”

  “Bullshit. You lied. Your parents—are they even your parents?”

  “No.”

  “I can’t believe this. I told you secrets I’ve never told anyone.”

  “I did the same.”

  “Did you? Really? Or was it just an act?”

  “No! It wasn’t like that. Everything that I said happened to me, it happened. I grew up on the fucking streets, Asher. My real dad beat me. Is that what you want to hear? Does that make you feel better?”

  “Better? Better? The only thing that would make me feel better right now is flying back to San Diego and never seeing you or this place again.”

  “Then could you please help me with this door?”

  “Fine.” He muttered curses under his breath, but he did at least line up next to me. “Fine. On three.”

  “One… Two… Three.”

  Ow, fuck, that hurt. Pain radiated through my shoulder, and the door didn’t budge an inch. Asher gave it a kick for good measure, then hopped a bit.

  “It’s solid,” he groaned.

  “Yeah, I’d noticed.”

  “Do we try again?”

  “And break the other shoulder too? Sure, why not?”

  Bloody hell. This time, the pain was hotter. More intense. That sturdy old piece of oak was probably laughing at us. There was no give whatsoever in the wood, and not a millimetre of light showed around the edge. I guessed at a bolt top and bottom, the same as the door to the cavern. I’d heard them shoot home when the men locked us inside.

  “We’re not trying a third time,” I said.

  “Gotta agree with that.” A pause. “You really think there’re stolen paintings in all of those boxes?”

  “Yup.”

  “Why? Why would Saul take them?”

  “It’s a long, long story, but there are various reasons. At first, it was retribution for crimes committed during the Holocaust. Then simply for the money. And lately, he’s been using them to buy favours.”

  Asher sat down on a plastic container and covered his face with his hands. “I fell for all this bullshit. Yours and theirs. How do I even know who’s telling the truth now?”

  I crouched in front of him. “I’ve got no reason to lie anymore.”

  “And it’s not just me you lied to. What about Vanessa? She thinks you’re her friend.”

  “Uh, she knows why I’m here. And she is my friend.”

  “She knows?”

  “She helped me to put some of the clues together.”

  “So it’s just me who’s the schmuck?”

  “How could I have told you? What would you have said? Even after Saul pointed a gun in my face, you still thought it might have been a mistake.”

  Silence.

  I reached out and took Asher’s hand, and my heart stuttered when he flinched.

  “Whatever else happens here, everything between us was real. You have to understand that. I really fucking like you, Asher Martinez.”

  Hammering on the door made us both jump, and somebody yelled instructions. Saul? The waiter?

  “Stay back, both of you. We’re armed.”

  We stood as the bolts thunked back, and the door slowly swung towards us. The waiter. He was turning out to be a real pain in the ass.

  “You, come with us.”

  He motioned with the gun in his hand, and I took a step forward.

  “Not you. Him.”

  Asher didn’t move. “I’m not leaving without her.”

  “Get out this door, or I’ll shoot her right now.”

  “Just go,” I whispered. “I’ll be okay.”

  Although I had no freaking clue how. This was possibly the worst situation I’d ever been in.

  “But—”

  “Go!”

  As soon as the door closed behind them, I ran forward and pressed my ear to the wood. Where were they taking him? Which direction?

  “Take him to Saul,” the waiter said. “He wants a word.”

  “And her?” somebody asked.

  “Saul wants to keep the bitch as leverage for now, and he’ll most likely have questions for her.”

  “So we’ll dispose of her later? Because we’ll have to prepare for that.”

  “Then prepare,” the waiter snapped. “I need some fucking Tylenol.”

  CHAPTER 37 - EMMY

  “WE NEED TO go in for a closer look,” Alaric said. “It’s time.”

  “How?” Nate asked. “I’m not doing jail time for paedophilia.”

  “I’m talking about going undercover.”

  “As what?”

  “Schoolgirls?” I suggested, twirling my hair. “Me, Dan, and Sofia? From the back, we’d look the part. Just don’t ask us to turn around and show off our wrinkles. Or do maths.”

  Sofia was sitting on my lap, and I had my hand on her thigh. I was ninety percent sure Black knew I was only doing it to annoy him, and I was one hundred percent sure I didn’t care. When he scowled, I let my fingers creep higher. Sofia just giggled. I had an inkling she was edging towards one of her manic phases again, but that sure beat her being miserable.

  We’d all congregated at the rented house near Shadow Falls this evening. The little clues Sky had been finding… It felt as if this was building up to something bigger. And I might have been snarky about it, but I did agree with Alaric. We needed to go into the school for a closer look.

  “Beth and I could visit Sky,” he said. “Say we’re checking up on her.”

  And what would they do? Wander around the gardens again?

  “Maybe I’ll go and have a mooch,” I murmured, half to myself.

  “When?”

  “No time like the present.”

  “We’re in the middle of a storm.”

  “Perfect. Everyone else’ll be tucked up inside, watching TV.”

  “I’ll come with you,” Blac
k offered.

  “Ace. Then if there’s lightning, it’ll hit you first.” Another scowl. This was almost like a sport, and I’d scored twenty-seven points already today. I reached out a foot and nudged Ryder. “What’s Sky doing? Is she busy with that dude?”

  Now Rafael scowled too. Interesting. Did it run in the family?

  “She’s gone quiet. The last thing she said was that she was heading over to the main building. Probably took an opportunity to sneak around.”

  “Can you ask her?”

  “Hey, Sky. Whatcha doing?” His forehead creased into a frown. “She’s not answering.”

  “Perhaps she can’t,” Alaric said. “Are there people about?”

  “I can’t hear any voices.”

  A tiny bud of concern formed in my gut. “I’ll try texting her. Maybe the storm screwed with the comms? Could that happen?”

  “Thunderstorms can cause disturbances in the partially ionised plasma of the ionosphere and distort radio signals.”

  “Is that a yes? I didn’t understand anything you just said.”

  “It’s a yes, but it would be more of an intermittent crackle, not total silence.”

  Two minutes passed, but Sky didn’t answer. I began to get a bad, bad feeling about this.

  “I’m going over there.”

  “Wait.” Ryder held up a hand. “There’s something coming through on one of the bugs.” His frown deepened. “This…this is odd.”

  “Put it on speaker.”

  Ryder switched it over, and yes, there were some crackles, but the words were clear.

  “Hey… Is this…? Hi? Is this working? I have no idea… Sky people? Dammit! Uh, if you can hear me, my name’s Vanessa, and I’m Sky’s roommate.” More static. “…went into a cellar with Asher. Like, we found this secret door in the music room? Behind a bookcase? And now it’s closed, and I can’t open it again. And I heard… I don’t know… I think maybe it was a gunshot? But muffled, like, far away? Hello? Hello?”

  Fuckety fuck. I was already strapping on my weapons before Vanessa finished speaking, and when I looked around the room, I saw everyone else was too. Guns, knives, Nate was stuffing a bunch of explosive charges into a backpack, and Sofia had enough shit in syringes to off an entire Death Row.

  “Go ahead with Alaric,” Black said softly into my ear. “I’ll follow on behind.”

  “Why? What are you planning?”

  He was up to something, I knew it.

  “Just do as you’re told for once, Diamond.”

  “Asshole.”

  Yet another scowl. Make that twenty-eight points.

  CHAPTER 38 - SKY

  I PACED THE storage room, the stray baseball bat I’d found hidden among the pool noodles resting on my shoulder. If anyone came through that door, I was taking their fucking head off.

  But that still didn’t solve the wider problem. There were more of them than me, and while I might get one or even two of those assholes, they’d defeat me in the end. What else could I find in this hellhole?

  I rummaged through boxes and baskets, tossing aside musty swimwear and a puckered inflatable shark. A handy plastic sign informed me the pool was ten feet deep with a cheery Warning: Danger of Death.

  Now they mentioned it. Bit late.

  Something scraped my skin, and I didn’t know whether to swear or sing the hallelujah chorus. A rusty screwdriver! I could put that through someone’s eye, or possibly, just possibly… I could lever out the hinge pins on the door to the cavern. They were on my side, and even down here, everything was well oiled. The waiter seemed to have a maintenance fetish.

  But again, that didn’t entirely solve the problem. The cavern was positively buzzing now, judging by the number of voices I could hear. I’d be walking out into a firing squad. Unless I managed to create some sort of distraction…

  I nudged the plastic drum Asher had been sitting on with my foot. There were two of them, side by side. How heavy were they? Perhaps I could toss them out the door first and Saul’s men would waste all their ammunition the way they did in the movies? On second thoughts… No, they weighed about a ton each. What did they have in them? Lead? No, hydrochloric acid and chlorine bleach.

  Acid and chlorine… Acid and chlorine… Who had mentioned those recently? Dr. Merritt?

  No.

  No!

  Sofia.

  Sofia, the crazy lunatic bitch. Mix the acid and chlorine disinfectant together, and you’d get chlorine gas. Voila. I could gas those fuckers out. The only problem? I’d probably end up dying myself. How long could I hold my breath? Long enough to get back through the passages? Back to the library? If I did make it, how the hell would I open that door? There had to be a handle somewhere.

  Didn’t there?

  I’d have given the gas thing a go if it hadn’t been for Asher. Risking my own life was one thing, but his as well? I’d fucked him over enough already. And Saul might kill me, but he wouldn’t kill his own nephew.

  Would he?

  Saul didn’t seem all that fond of Asher. Whereas I really was. More than fond of Asher, in fact, and I’d hurt him badly. Why, oh why, had I gone into that bloody cellar? That was the worst decision I’d made since I left the Academy nightclub with Brock bloody Keaton. The Academy… I’d have laughed at the irony if the situation weren’t so serious. Fuck my damn life. I wanted to make Saul eat his own balls—if he had any, that was. He didn’t seem to do much of his own dirty work. Did Ezra know what his brother was involved with? The younger Rosenberg seemed meeker, sometimes bumbling, but he ran the damn school. Would he miss a bazillion bucks in stolen paintings being stored right under his nose?

  So many questions, so few answers.

  There had to be some way out of this. There had to be. I was eighteen years old, and I’d only just started living, really living. I’d finally found my tribe. My family. I couldn’t lose them now.

  Breathe, Sky. Keep breathing. A lightbulb pinged in my brain. Keep breathing.

  What if? What if…?

  CHAPTER 39 - SKY

  I WEDGED ONE end of the Danger of Death sign under the door, then stuck two pool noodles under the other end to form a rudimentary funnel. Did it matter which chemical I poured first? I hoped not, but I had a fifty-fifty chance, which was a whole lot better than zero. I hefted a drum onto one knee and began tipping it. Colourless liquid splashed onto the sign and ran under the door. How much was I meant to use? All of it? Perhaps I should have paid more attention to Sofia’s ramblings.

  Glug, glug, glug. The hydrochloric acid didn’t smell of much, but I sincerely hoped nobody splashed through the puddle before I got to the good bit. Finally, the last dregs ran out of the drum, and I tilted the bleach in the same way. Yuck. That stank.

  The first shout came a minute later. A confused, “What’s that smell?” followed by footsteps. Time to get ready. I crouched down and fastened the buoyancy control device around my chest. I didn’t need to use it, but I’d strapped the scuba tank onto the back, which made it a lot easier to carry. The cylinder had fifty bar of air left in it, about a quarter full—not great, but if I didn’t exert myself too much, it should be enough to get me out of there. I put the matching mask on to protect my eyes and nose and tucked a spare into the BCD’s pocket. Okay. Ready. I picked up the baseball bat and waited.

  Waited.

  Waited.

  It wasn’t long until the bolts shot back, clunk, clunk, one after the other. Somebody coughed. Muttered, “You little bitch.” Saul? Or the waiter again? That seemed like something either of them might say. I stood to the left and waited for the door to open wide enough that I could see who was on the other side, and once I’d confirmed it wasn’t Asher, I let fly with the bat. The waiter’s skull caved like an eggshell. There was surprisingly little blood.

  During my training, I’d wondered how it would feel to kill a man. I always knew I’d have to do it someday. But now that I’d popped my cherry, so to speak, I felt nothing. Nothing at all. A man’s actions
determined his fate, and he’d deserved it.

  But where was Asher? Had Saul taken his nephew with him? The chamber was deserted, a soupy cloud of yellow gas making everything look blurry. Running feet sounded in the distance.

  I took out my regulator and nearly choked when I opened my mouth to yell.

  “Asher!”

  Please answer. Please.

  A shout came back, the voice unmistakable.

  “In here!”

  In where? The shout had come from my right, and I ran towards the sound. Those swines. Those utter bollocking fucktwizzling cuntwaffles. They’d left Asher with one hand cuffed to a wooden railing in a small room that looked like a shrine crossed with an office, all shiny wood and carvings and weird little statues. He had his eyes screwed shut and his shirt over his mouth, and anger burned through me like red-hot lava because his family, his own flesh and blood, had left him there to die.

  I fumbled the spare diving mask over his head, and when he opened his eyes, I stuffed the backup regulator into his mouth and removed my own for a second.

  “Breathe slowly. We don’t have much air. Do you understand?”

  He nodded, eyes wide, then ducked as I picked up a stone figure that might have been a saint or a sinner and swung it like I was aiming at Saul Rosenberg’s head. The railing splintered, and I tugged the handcuff free, then grabbed my bat again. Asher hesitated, and I hauled him towards the door, pausing to check the cavern was clear before we exited.

  Don’t fucking stop.

  But when I tried to run towards the exit, towards the music room, Asher pulled me in the other direction. No, no, no. I knew where I was going. I shook my head, but still he wanted to head the other way.

  He spat out his regulator. “Uphill. Go uphill. Chlorine gas…heavier than air. Sinks.”

  It did? Sofia had failed to mention that little snippet of information. But now that I thought about it, the air near the ceiling did look clearer. I followed Asher, and we set off at a slow, stumbling jog, leaving the light behind as we got farther along the highest passage. The waiter had taken my cell phone, so we had no way of lighting the path. How much air did we have left? I had no idea. I couldn’t see the gauge.