Cane moved to her other side and started to assess her. “How do you feel? Anything hurt? Do you need anything?”
“I-I don’t know. My head kind of hurts.” She placed her hand over the superficial wound and bump that had been developing. “I feel really…funny. Like I’ve been drinking or something.”
“Yeah. We think Davenport gave you something to knock you out. It’s probably still wearing off,” Cane said, pulling her hand away from the wound Skye had cleaned and bandaged while Charlie was sleeping.
“I’ll get some ice for that bump, honey.” She handed the bottle of water she’d been holding out to Cane. “Help her drink this. Small sips, not too much. Her belly might be upset. I’ll grab something light for her to eat, just in case.”
When Skye walked off to the kitchenette, Cane slid closer to Charlie to help her with the water. “You’re going to be okay. Are you sure nothing else hurts? Do you…remember anything? Did he…?”
“No.” Charlie placed her hand on Cane’s knee. “He didn’t rape me. I don’t think he was actually there at all. I remember it getting dark and a few flashes where I must’ve woken up or something. I remember him tying my hands. There was something…” Her hand covered her mouth briefly. “I couldn’t talk or scream. I had something in my mouth. It felt like I was choking.”
“He had you gagged and bound. Do you know who it was? Did you recognize who it was?” Cane was still digging for answers as gently as he could, but dammit, he wanted answers and blood.
“Anson. I already told you.”
“Charlie, that’s impossible. We would have seen him coming.” Cane was concerned with her fixation on Davenport being Anson and worried she was regressing into some kind of flashback or hallucination. “Henry Davenport is who you went to see. Did you see Anson there too?”
“No.”
“Then I think we’re dealing with some sort of copycat and you’re still confused from whatever shit he gave you to knock you out.”
“No, Cane. I know what I saw, and I know what I heard. I heard him before I saw him.” Charlie began to cry. “I heard his voice. He said my name, both names. He called me by my real name, Emily. He also said, Charlie. How would a copycat know that? Your team named me Charlie. Unless he hacked Brother’s Keeper…”
“He couldn’t have. There isn’t a file to hack. It’s all encoded and your new identity isn’t even online anywhere. It’s in a paper file in the vault in Portland. He wouldn’t have had access at any point.”
“I don’t know what to tell you then. It was him. I saw it in his eyes. I will never forget that voice or that look he wore. It was dark and menacing…cold. It was him. It just didn’t look like him.”
“Honey, it’s okay. You need a little rest so that stuff in you can finish wearing off,” Skye interrupted, rejoining them at Charlie’s bed. “Let’s have a little more water and get some crackers in you.”
Cane nodded in agreement, but before he could walk away from her, he scooped her in his arms and held her. A single sob was all she had in her. He let her go when she pulled away. “I knew you’d find me.”
The change in Cane’s demeanor was enough to make anyone hide and take cover. He was a ticking time bomb looking for a war to join. He grabbed his holster, slung it over his shoulders, then gave Eddie the gun he’d held earlier in the night.
“The generator in this room will last longer than the hotel, and since nobody knows about it, it can’t be sabotaged. You have food and water to last a few days. If the power comes back on before I come back, you call this number and follow this script exactly, understand?” Eddie was a deer in headlights. “You don’t answer that door for anyone unless they relay this exactly.” Cane pointed to another set of words. “Do you got it, Eddie?”
“I…uh…yeah. But where are you going? Why would we need food and water for a few days? We’re getting out of here, right?”
“Yep. As soon as Charlie is up to it. Meanwhile, I’ll be taking a trip down the hall to the penthouse. See if I can find anything…a clue? Something.”
“Whoa,” Skye said. “What if he’s there?”
“That’s what I’m counting on.” Cane strapped a knife to his ankle.
“Shit,” Eddie muttered. “Why can’t we just get the fuck out of here?” The weight of his responsibility should Cane not return in a timely fashion was getting the better of him. “Why do you have to go all commando right now — wait for back-up or whatever it is you do.”
“We’ve gone over this.” Cane made his way to the door. “It isn’t that simple without power or communications of any kind. We’re off the grid and flying blind here. Without an ounce of intel or knowing who we’re really up against, it’s too much to gamble right now. We wait it out, let Charlie get more stable, then we move when we absolutely have to.”
Eddie paced, hands on hips as he tried to talk himself into something. “Do you need help? I mean, should you go alone? I could come with you.”
“No.” Though Cane was appreciative of the offer, he knew Eddie was better off in the hidden safe room than he would be watching Cane’s back, especially if there was a confrontation. “Look, your plan to get out of here before you found me was a good one. If you absolutely have to leave, take the laundry shoot, head out the back, you’ll see a black van. Key is under the seat. Charlie will know where to go. They’ll need you if I don’t come back. Skye will have to help Charlie, and you’ll need to have their back. You can do this. You need to do this.”
Eddie nodded. “Your girl will be safe with me. Just come back and don’t leave this hero shit to me.”
“She’s not my girl.” Cane wasn’t sure why out of everything Eddie had just said the only thing he could reply to was his relationship status with Charlie.
Eddie’s brow sprung up as he watched Cane eye her across the room. “Hmmm, you sure about that? Could’ve fooled me.”
With one last look at Charlie, Cane left.
CHAPTER 14
Cane methodically made his way back to the safe room after an unsuccessful recon mission to the penthouse. It was empty. No evidence of Davenport or that he’d been there. No evidence Charlie had even been there. The room had been emptied and scrubbed down. Who knew if there would be fingerprints anywhere. He’d have a team work over that room, top to bottom, when resources were available.
Charlie insisted it was Anson Deveraux, and Cane had a hard time wrapping his mind around that. It made more sense that she was having a psychosomatic episode related to the original abduction, but she was adamant, and who was he to say she was wrong? He hadn’t been there.
All he knew was Henry Davenport, a man with an untraceable past, had checked in to that hotel. He also knew Anson Deveraux, who had been carefully and intentionally leaving Brother’s Keeper a trail of clues, suddenly vanished somewhere in Brazil several months prior. The likelihood of the two identities being one and the same was next to nil unless he’d done something drastic. Deveraux had been known to change his appearance, like his hair color, colored contacts, or even use prosthetics like a fake nose just to throw everyone off.
Would it really be too farfetched to believe the guy would do something so dramatic as surgery to change his appearance? He had to know despite the intentional bread crumb trail he left, it wasn’t entirely how they got so close to him and even apprehended him not once, but several times before he inevitably escaped.
The guy was smart, scary smart. There’s no way, as narcissistic as he was, he didn’t know they’d been developing software that could see through the extra facial hair and fake appendages — they could find him…unless those temporary factors suddenly became permanent to throw off electronic security measures that were used to track him. It was a long shot, but entirely impossible.
Maybe Charlie was right. Henry Davenport, a high-tech Silicon Valley billionaire was also international serial killer Anson Deveraux. The more he thought about it, it was less and less difficult to link the two. Davenport was the bank behi
nd the elusive world traveler. His bottomless pockets could afford him the luxuries of flying around the world undetected if he knew the right people because money could buy anything, even a team of subordinates employed to enable the deeds of the world’s most notorious murderer.
Knowing there was a loaded weapon on the other side of the door to the safe room in the hands of an untrained loose cannon gave Cane pause. He knocked and waited for Eddie. When he hadn’t heard a sound, panic began to fill him, and he knocked again, harder this time. Still nothing.
He’d told Eddie to answer the door for no one but him, so he called out, “It’s O’Reilly. Open up.”
Still nothing. A sinister thought entered his mind. What if he’d left them sitting ducks? What if Davenport, or Deveraux, stepped in the minute Cane left? The guy was crafty — it wouldn’t take much for him to figure out a way in, and it wouldn’t surprise him if Eddie fell for some bogus bullshit and played doorman and gave the guy access.
Eddie was a shyster, but he wasn’t stupid. Cane wasn’t giving him enough credit. The last thing he told him was to answer for no one unless they recited a specific code to gain access. “Eddie. It’s Cane. Grab the binder and listen up. I’ll give you the code.”
A short pause ensued before Cane said a quick prayer, hoping he was right, and Eddie was just being a good soldier, protecting the assets. He began to recite the three-line paragraph that served as the code to get in, and low and behold, the door cracked.
“Jesus. You were gone long enough.” Eddie stepped aside to let him in. “I was starting to think he got you.”
“Nah. He wasn’t even there,” Cane said, beelining it for Charlie. “The room’s been scrubbed. No sign of him ever being there.”
“So?” Charlie asked. “Do you believe me now?”
“Charlie, I want to believe you. You know better than anyone who Deveraux is. If you say it was him, then we need to prove it was him. If you’re right, he went to extreme measures — we’re talking plastic surgery — to change his appearance and skate by every single security measure in place.”
“Plastic surgery?” Eddie asked. “No offense, but what’s so special about Charlie that he’d do that?”
Charlie smiled. “Nothing other than I got away. I’m his fixation — an obsession. He’s a narcissistic sociopath with the natural instincts to kill — a total psychopath. His ego is his greatest tool and will eventually be his demise.”
“This guy thinks he’s smarter and a better player — this was his way of displaying that,” Cane added.
“This isn’t a game,” Skye said. “These are people’s lives.”
“He thinks it’s a game. This is like foreplay to him. He gets off on it,” Cane went on to explain. It was important for Eddie and Skye to have the full picture if they were all going to get out of there alive. “He needs it like you need air to breathe. It’s the only thing he thinks about. Everything he does or says serves a purpose that leads to his end game. If he is indeed this Henry Davenport — which is obviously an alias — he quite literally became a billionaire with the sole purpose to fund his need to kill. To win. To breathe.”
Eddie tossed his hands up. “This is fucking insane. I don’t feel any better being in here while he’s out there. If what you’re saying is true — this guy is…both guys, or whatever — then we’ll never wait him out. He’ll wait us out. He’s obviously a very patient guy,” Eddie said with an ounce of sarcasm.
“Which is why we need to leave.” Cane went to a floor-to-ceiling linen cabinet and opened the side by side doors wide to reveal a full arsenal of weapons. He grabbed a bag and began to fill it. “This place is too big with too many hiding spots. Based on those schematics, he knows his way around as well as I do. We need the upper hand.”
“Okay. So, laundry chute?” Eddie asked.
“Nope. That was last resort if I didn’t come back,” Cane said. “We’re going out the front door.”
“What?” Skye panicked. “I was barely okay with the laundry chute all the way down. Out in the open, though? Aren’t we sitting ducks?”
“Not any more than the chute. At least I can see what we’re walking into. The chute is literally a crap chute.” Cane knew it seemed safer to slide down a tunnel and out a back door, but reality was, anyone could be anticipating that very move and be waiting. “He won’t be expecting us to go out the front door, if he’s here and still looking. He’s going to try and catch us using the most covert way he can imagine.”
“So, right in plain sight. That’s the plan.” Eddie walked to the cabinet and started grabbing guns to stuff in his waistband. “I don’t really see how that’s safer.”
Cane grabbed the extra guns Eddie had been stowing away. “You get one,” he said, choosing the easiest weapon for Eddie to use. “We’ll take the stairs we came up to get here. We’ll be hidden most of the way. Once we hit the ground floor, we stay along the wall, down a corridor that runs along the perimeter.”
Cane tossed Eddie a flak jacket and put one on himself. “I only have two, ladies. You will never be exposed unless we’re with you, and we’ll be your cover.”
“I have to wear one?”
“You have a gun. You’re a primary target. You need to wear it,” Cane said. “Only you and I will be out in the open, if at all.”
“So…we’ll be…in the walls?” Skye asked. “Sounds like we’ll be under cover most of the time then.” She shook her head in disbelief. “Just like one of my movies.”
“Essentially. Nobody knows about the passageway. It’s all part of this set up.” Cane went on to pull out his phone to review the hotel schematics he snapped a picture of. His finger traced the lower level. “We’ll only have two points of exposure. We’ll end up behind the shops, but there’s an intersection of sorts where the casino corridor opens on either end and there are restrooms on each side. We’ll have to cross that small section to the other side where we’ll be hidden again.”
“Okay. So, like forty feet maybe?” Eddie questioned. “Maybe a little more?”
“A little more. The only problem is this area is heavily populated right now. This is the only open access area in the entire hotel other than the stairwell to rooms. If he’s down there watching, my money is on him standing right smack in the middle.” Cane closed his phone and tucked it back in his pocket.
“Okay. Fifty-fifty odds. I like it,” Eddie said as he held up his gun. “And this little thing increases the odds for us. Two of us, one of him, and he may not even have a gun.”
“Oh, I’m sure he does,” Cane said. “We need to consider him armed and dangerous and remember we have a hotel lobby full of innocents. We don’t use these unless it’s life or death. There are a lot of people who want this guy alive so he can pay for what he’s done. We only shoot to kill if it’s justifiable.”
“Is killing someone ever justifiable?” Skye asked.
“If you saw what I saw this man do to innocent people…” Charlie chimed in, “you’d probably say yes, Skye. He’s a monster.”
“Save the politics for another day. Today is about survival,” Cane interrupted. “Are you ready to move, Charlie? We’re going down the entire hotel. It’s a lot of stairs. If you need more time, we can wait it out.”
She smiled. “No. I want out of here. We need to get these guys out of here too. You said you have a team coming, let’s get to them.”
With a confident nod, Cane said, “Let’s roll.”
The group entered the secret stairwell as planned and started their descent. It was quiet and sterile, cement on both sides, with steel risers and railing all the way down. Everyone was at ease. They weren’t in any imminent danger…yet. Their focus was to get down stairs — they’d worry about the rest when they had to.
CHAPTER 15
After several small breaks, they finally made it to the ground floor where they took another break and put the rest of their plan together.
“This is where the real work begins,” Cane said, capping
his water and putting it back in his backpack. “I need intel. We need to get a visual, so we know what we’re crossing and who.”
“Okay, and how does one go about being GI Joe and collecting intel?” Eddie said. “Do tell. This just keeps getting better and better and somehow feels like we are about to jump into an angry hornet’s nest.”
“On the other side of this wall is the employee corridor that runs behind all the shops. It’s a long tunnel just like the one we are in except it has doors into each business along this side,” Cane said. “I’ll duck in and see what I can see. This entire side is top-to-bottom glass front. I should be able see all the up and down the lane with the curve in the design.”
“I got the ladies back here?” Eddie asked.
Cane nodded. “You’re catching on, Ed.”
“Uh, it’s Eddie,” he corrected.
“No, Eddie is a pansy ass con. Ed has my back and is mission ready.” Cane had a hard time communicating feelings, so his harsh approach was really his way of telling Eddie he appreciated him, but more so, he trusted him — and that said a lot given the situation.
Through the broody bad attitude, there was a message Eddie, or Ed, heard loud and clear. The honesty in Cane’s words and confidence he placed in Ed, made him stand a bit taller and gave him a tough guy swagger. “We should change. Don’t you think, Cane? Skye and I are going to stick out and draw attention from people if they think we are on staff here.”
Cane raised an impressed eyebrow. “Good call. But we aren’t getting back upstairs and grabbing clothes.” Cane tossed his head back and closed his eyes with a deep sigh. “I can’t even believe I’m saying this. Skye, come with me. I want you to—”
“Pick out some clothes for me and Eddie…I mean, Ed.” It seemed Skye was catching on too. “I can do that. Do you know what store is on the other side of that wall?” she all but squealed. “I know just what to get.”
Blackout: A Romance Anthology Page 9