Becca returned from the alley but avoided standing too close to the car. She adjusted the scarf around her neck as if she were bundling against the cold, but it was really to hide any lip movement as she communicated with them while approaching the building.
“Ready?” Diego asked.
“Absolutely,” Becca said. “I know you have my back.”
* * *
As Becca walked the quarter-mile from the alley to the abandoned apartment building where she expected Patrick to be, she channeled her adrenaline into one thought. Save them. Her head seemed to chant the mantra with every step.
Right foot. Save. Left foot. Them.
She was on a march to save Eve and Catherine, but also to get justice for Samantha and any other man, woman or child Patrick or the Circle—or any other criminal—had touched or ever would touch.
Patrick was right about one thing. It was good to know one’s purpose in life, and for a moment she felt a glimmer of empathy for him. Good versus evil. He’d been lost, and his quest for understanding had led him even further astray.
Then again, he’d made some evil choices that couldn’t go unpunished.
And what about people who made good choices and still got punished? People like Nico, and Eve and...her. Becca wanted to run back to Diego and tell him she was done punishing herself. She was ready to tell him the entire story, beg his understanding and explore what they could have together.
Those things that were barriers before are still there. Her conscience, or maybe it was her heart, kept trying to tell her things would be better...kept trying to hope that Diego would see the good Becca...not the things she’d done.
Then again, he wasn’t thinking with his head when they were together. It was a whole other part of his anatomy that reacted to her, and that passion was strong. But it wasn’t lasting. Eventually, what they had would burn out, and at what cost? He would lose his career, his future, his reputation...worse, he would hate her.
Becca couldn’t do that to him.
“Did you know tomorrow is Valentine’s Day?” Diego’s voice said through the tiny earbud she was wearing, hidden in case Patrick was watching.
“Valentine’s Day?” She hadn’t looked at a calendar in days.
“In a couple hours.” Humor laced his voice.
She smiled, but was getting too close to the building to risk moving her lips to talk. What was he trying to say?
“I love you.” Diego’s words were clear, yet she must have heard him wrong.
Her step faltered, and the silly grin dissipated behind her scarf.
“You’re going to drop that on your woman now?” Nico’s tone was incredulous. “Not cool, Sandoval.”
“And on a party line, no less,” Einstein broke in from his headquarters at his house, which was wired to tap or hack or whatever he did best.
“I’ve been trying to tell her for a while now,” Diego defended himself. “I just couldn’t find the right time.”
Becca blew out a breath of frustration. So he chose now, when she couldn’t see him, couldn’t hold him.
“I didn’t want you to run away again,” Diego added.
The cracked, weedy parking lot she crossed was desolate, with areas of ice where snow had melted and refrozen. It echoed the feelings inside her. She’d warm to Diego, then be forced to refreeze when she remembered her guilt.
“I know you can’t reply, but we’ll talk when this is over.” Diego’s statement was confident. Would he be so sure of his feelings when he knew the truth?
“Head in the game,” Nico said gruffly.
On the front door of the abandoned, crumbling apartment building was a circle with a ring of fire like on the wall of the building in New York, but smaller. She wouldn’t have seen it if she hadn’t been standing right there. “Video camera,” she muttered as she eyed the camera attached to the upper right of the door, tucking her chin to her chest so it was even less likely anyone watching in the dark would see her lips move. Patrick was watching her from behind the safety of a camera lens. The team had been right to let her come alone and keep their distance, though she’d had to fight them on it. Patrick was testing her.
“Use the code word,” Diego said. “If you need anything—anything—we’ll be there in seconds.”
He was scared for her, she realized. And it wasn’t because he wasn’t confident in her abilities. He respected her, but he also loved her. And love was a risk.
Love.
A little thrill went through her at the word. But the tiny word carried great responsibility. If she let anything bad happen to her, it would hurt him. And hurting Diego was not okay with her.
She stepped up to the large metal door and knocked. Her phone buzzed in her pocket. She pulled it out to read a text from Patrick.
Leave your coat there. Lift your shirt and then your pants legs so I can see you’re unarmed.
“You don’t trust me,” Becca stated aloud so her backup would get the gist. If Patrick was watching her, he might be listening, too.
She stripped off her scarf and coat and dropped them on the ground, then pulled up her shirt and pants legs, to reveal to the camera that she had no weapons. Silently, she cursed Patrick for putting her in a position of weakness, but she had skills in hand-to-hand combat that still gave her the upper hand.
She apparently received his approval. The lock on the door clicked open as if controlled electronically, and she was able to enter the building, but there was nobody inside. She hesitated for a moment on the threshold. Though Diego and Nico were only a couple of minutes away, would it be time enough to get there if she couldn’t handle Patrick?
The gutted apartment building was so much like the one she’d entered in New York City—the one where Selina had been held—that Becca had flashbacks to that cold day. To the names on the cell walls. Was that what awaited her? More names? The echoes of more victims?
It was dark with only a few flickering candles lit, like an emergency exit path, along a hallway that led to another door. Beyond had to be the stairs to the basement. She hesitated at the precipice, uncertain what surprises awaited her on the other side, but having enough of an idea that her survival instincts were kicking in, keeping her from going even one step further.
“Go on,” Patrick’s voice encouraged over a speaker.
Startled, she jumped, then spied a tiny black dot beside the door frame, a hole where a spy camera was likely aimed at her. She felt a cool draft at her ankles and looked down at her feet. Tendrils of fog reached from beneath the closed door and wrapped about her legs as if they’d pull her under. Patrick liked drama. Then again, he was a filmmaker of sorts.
Bracing herself, mentally running through the various martial arts holds she could use on an attacker of his size if he were on the other side of the door, she turned the knob. The fog machine was right inside, on a landing, so that the makeshift fog spilled down the stairs that led into a dark basement. Candles lit every other stair, glowing through the cloudlike waves that curled and engulfed them. She couldn’t see beyond those dozen or so stairs.
Then a light switched on. A red spotlight illuminated a cell door, identical to the one in Brooklyn, at the base of the stairs. More drama. Becca picked her way down the stairs toward the object within that light. A scratching noise started on the other side of the door.
“Eve?” Becca was suddenly uncertain. “Catherine?” There was a lock on the door. A strong one.
Like in Patrick’s basement, this door had a small window at the top. He’d apparently copied the Circle’s methods in his home decorating. Becca slid the window open. A hand—scratched, bloody and streaked with dirt—reached through, and she jumped back, a scream lodging in her throat.
“Please get me out,” a raspy voice said.
Eve. Becca’s heart clenched and she scrambled back to the window. “Eve Reynolds?”
“Yes.” Her hand was replaced by what Becca could see of a face—a nose and a pair of vibrant blue eyes. In the red li
ghting, she looked ghostly.
“I’m Becca.”
Eve gasped softly. “Becca?”
“A friend of yours is very worried.” As she whispered, Becca scanned her surroundings for another camera. She was certain Patrick was watching all of this, his own private performance. Where was he? Nearby, in the building, or off site watching from afar?
Eve’s eyes flashed with blue fire. “Where is Patrick?”
“Watching.” Becca touched Eve’s fingertips where they curled about the edge of the window. They were filthy, the nails broken as if she’d tried to claw her way to freedom. Then she remembered the dirt walls in Patrick’s root cellar. Perhaps he had held Eve there for a while. “And he’s got a plan for us.”
Eve seemed to notice the red spotlight and the fog for the first time. The whites of her eyes flashed as she glanced to her left. “The other cell. He brought in another woman a couple hours ago.”
“I’m sorry you got mixed up in this,” Becca whispered, feeling somewhat responsible.
Eve gave a harsh laugh and swiped at her nose. Her hands were shaking—probably as much from adrenaline as food depravation. “My own fault.”
“I’ll be right back.” Becca moved to the next cell, identical to Eve’s. She slid the metal window open and peeked inside. Dark. The red light suddenly turned off, shutting her into darkness, just before a blue light nearly blinded her. It was aimed directly at the second cage, encouraging Becca to explore.
Becca caught the outline of a woman within. “Catherine?”
Chapter Twenty-Three
The body moved, pushing itself up from the floor. “Becca?” Catherine’s voice triggered a flood of relief, quickly followed by concern.
“It’s me.” Becca nearly cried, watching her friend struggle to her feet. Catherine was okay, but when her face appeared in the window, a large purplish bruise covered one cheek and more marks lined her neck.
Catherine put a hand to the bruise. “I’m sure it looks worse in this light. Blue’s not my color.” That she could joke at a time like this surprised a laugh out of Becca.
“You’re strong.” Becca whispered fiercely. “You remember that.”
“Don’t worry about me. Kick this guy’s ass.”
Becca would, as soon as he presented it to her. First, she was going to have to lure him out of his hole. She turned to face the cavernous basement, knowing Patrick had to be watching. “I’m here. What’s next?”
The blue light turned off and a yellow one came on, highlighting the third and final cell in the basement. This door was open.
Patrick’s voice echoed in the basement. “Get in and close the door.”
* * *
From a block away, Diego sat next to Nico and listened in. The windows of the car fogged with their body heat. Einstein was listening from his computer station at his house.
“We got eyes yet?” Diego asked.
“Working on it.” Einstein was hacking into the video and computer lines Patrick had established. Nico had a computer laptop open in front of him. The man had seemingly come back to life when he’d heard Eve’s voice.
“Get in and close the door,” Patrick’s voice said. He was ordering Becca to make herself his prisoner. The ultimate trust test.
Diego tried to ignore the desire to storm in there and grab the weasel by the throat. The urge to rip him to shreds was strong.
“You guys hearing this?” Becca whispered.
“You’re doing fine,” Diego said, after switching the mic so she could hear them. “We got you. We’ll get you all out safely.”
Diego heard Patrick repeat his orders to Becca, just as the image on Nico’s computer screen changed from black to... “Holy shit,” Diego muttered. “Is that fog?”
“Gentlemen, we have eyes.” Einstein sounded satisfied.
Nico grimaced. “Fog and the crazy lighting will make a rescue op a bit murkier.”
“Any idea yet if Patrick’s on the premises?” Diego asked Einstein.
“Affirmative,” Einstein replied. “He’s there. The CPD sniper unit using infrared spied him passing an upstairs window, but no clear shot.”
Diego’s gaze met Nico’s. “The moment he moves to the basement, we move in.”
* * *
Becca was calling herself all kinds of stupid for letting herself get locked inside a cage. Hell, she’d locked herself in willingly. The feeling of four close walls, with only a tiny window as her connection to the outside world, squeezed the breath from her chest.
Until she remembered her auditory connection to Diego. He’d said the words she’d never expected to hear. I love you.
Almost as if he realized she was worried, Diego spoke through the mic. “I’m here with you. We’ve got eyes and ears on you now and we’re moving closer to the building. Patrick’s in an upstairs room but on the move.”
Be careful. Heavy footsteps echoed on the stairs. The door to her tiny window swung open a moment later, and the man she’d bumped into in the New York hotel, the one who’d seemed so polite and...nice...as he thanked her for catching his camera, stood in front of her.
He grinned. “You’re finally here.”
As if she had a choice. “Wouldn’t miss it. Now that I’m here, why don’t you let my friends go as our first act of good faith?”
“You mean your enemies.”
“I mean the two women who you made my responsibility by dragging them into our affair. I thought you wanted to be my partner, my friend.” Her accusation rang with disappointment.
He frowned. “Only if I can trust you to make the right decisions.” At least now she knew where she stood on the trust scale—hovering just around zilch.
“Decisions about what? I’m locked in a cage. Pretty sure there are no decisions under my control at the moment.”
Becca didn’t like the grin that spread across the portion of his face that filled her window.
“That’s where you’re wrong. You’re going to make some tough choices today. Good versus evil. Society versus the needs of man. All the questions that plague men on a daily basis.”
Not most men, Becca would wager. But this one certainly wrestled with it, if his video collection was any indication. Think like a mindhunter. What would Lorena say about all of this? What would she do?
The same thing a security expert would do. Find his weakness, exploit it.
Patrick’s weakness? He wanted to feel important. Recognized. Like he was holding the secret to life in his hands... He wanted to belong.
“I thought your documentary interviews were stunning. How did you get all of those people to talk to you?” Becca stepped closer to the window, putting them on more friendly, intimate footing. As if there wasn’t a steel door between them and he had the only key.
His demeanor seemed to shift. His grin widened and he seemed to quiver like the whiskers of a rat. “You watched them?”
“As much as I could in such a short period. Pretty impressive collection of data. I’ve dealt with criminals on a daily basis and never gotten even one of them to talk to me the way they did to you. You must have a special charm.”
“I always thought it was a gift.”
“It is. And the way you knew just what questions to ask to get at the heart of the matter...” She looked at her surroundings as if she’d just remembered where she was, then steadily met his gaze. “I’d love to discuss this more. You must be a wealth of information.”
“We can talk just fine as we are.”
“I feel more comfortable if the person I’m having a conversation with trusts me.”
Patrick smiled. “Me, too. Which is why we’ll soon get on with the games.”
“Games?” Becca didn’t like the sound of that, or the eager gleam that came into his eyes.
“You didn’t think I’d brought the three of you here for nothing, did you?” He laughed and a chill went down her spine. “But first, I have to set the stage. And you’ve got to get ready for your audience.”
She swallowed and looked about nervously. Was Diego hearing all of this?
“A select group of people from around the world are able to watch this via internet. Don’t worry. I screened my viewers carefully. They get to vote on who lives and who dies...but not until you each state your case.”
* * *
“He’s in the basement,” Einstein told Diego. “I’m switching the broadcast to your phone now. He’s got all three women in separate cells, adjacent to each other.”
Einstein had not only hacked into Patrick’s feed, but he’d found a way to block the feed from the external cameras so that Diego and Nico could approach the building undetected from the front, and CPD officers from the rear. Guns drawn, they made their way through the dark, moonless night to the door Becca had entered.
Before they crossed the weed-choked lot, he glanced at the video Einstein was sending to his phone. Outrage flared as he saw the tiny cages on the screen. They were just like the one in which Selina had been held. “Where’s Patrick now?”
“Somewhere in the basement, but off screen for the last thirty seconds.”
It made sense since he’d said something to Becca about setting up for the show. Diego didn’t like the sound of that at all. He motioned to Nico that they’d approach the door.
“He’s making the internet feed live,” Einstein said.
“Are you able to see what he’s broadcasting?” Diego knelt at the door to inspect the lock.
“Working on getting into that exclusive club now.” Einstein’s confident tone indicated he’d be able to do it soon.
On his phone, Patrick’s image appeared on the screen for a moment as he adjusted a camera angle. He disappeared just as quickly, then spent a couple minutes bringing three chairs into the viewing area. The chairs were wooden ladder-backs with armrests.
“Almost ready,” Patrick called, presumably to the women.
“Diego?” The sound of Becca’s whispered voice rippled through him. “He’s making me change clothes. We’re going to lose our connection. I won’t be able to talk directly to you.”
Diego stilled. Shit. The mic through which she communicated was sewn into her shirt. “I can hear you as long as Einstein remains tapped into Patrick’s broadcast. I’m right there with you.”
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