“I don’t know. Maybe she thought we had more than we did, took the offensive route.”
“Pft.”
“Not everyone can handle the cloak-and-dagger shit like you can, Ty.”
“No, but if Nikki Webb was the woman who killed Milton on the beach and the cook in the kitchen, she had a man with her. How the hell does Kline fit in? That means we have three killers on the island. And the Snake Eaters can’t fucking be trusted.”
“Right.”
“As soon as we get armed, we’re taking Amelia and keeping her with us.”
“Agreed.”
They took a wrong turn and had to backtrack, getting confused with all the lights out. Zane insisted he knew where they were, though, and Ty trusted his mental maps to get them there.
“Okay, so was that crazy or savvy?” Zane finally asked.
“What?”
“Nick. Is he pretending to be crazy to scare people into telling him the truth? Or is he actually crazy and scary?”
Ty winced, shrugging. “Sometimes I don’t know.”
Zane snorted. “That was ruthless. It was kind of hot.”
“Don’t fucking start with me, Zane. I’m not even kidding.”
Zane laughed, but went quiet when they found the door to the room ajar. A sense of impending doom began to settle in Ty’s stomach.
Zane turned his light off, and Ty toed the door open. There was just enough light still coming through the windows for him to see the broken glass of the empty gun cabinet.
“Well, that can’t be good,” Zane whispered.
Nick let Kelly lead them to their rooms to gather all the weapons they’d packed. Nick trailed to a stop in front of Nikki Webb’s door.
Kelly turned and gave Nick a questioning shrug. “What are you doing?”
“I’m going to search her room.”
“But Six told us to—”
“Fuck what he told us, Kels,” Nick growled. “He’s not our Six anymore, and he’s wrong this time.”
Kelly looked stunned for a moment before nodding. He strode closer and grabbed Nick by his shirt, yanking him closer to kiss him. “I’ll meet you back here in five.”
Nick nodded, breathless as Kelly pulled away. He watched Kelly fade into the darkness, then turned to the room Nikki Webb and what’s her face, the Sun Tzu fan, had shared.
He knocked first, wishing he could remember the other woman’s name. She’d fucking spelled it for him, for Christ’s sake. There was no answer to his knock.
He knocked again, then waited a beat before trying the doorknob.
A sound from the stairwell halted him. He went still, cocking his head to listen. There was a thump upstairs, then a grunt and a quiet click. He crept toward the stairs, listening intently. The only sound he could discern was the soft whimpering of a small child. It was so distant he couldn’t tell if it was coming from upstairs, or from his memory of the past.
With a last look back at the hallway, he started up the dark steps to investigate.
When Ty did a head count of the people milling about in the dining room, he was alarmed to find only half the people on the island were present, and neither Nick nor Kelly were among them yet.
“Where the hell is everyone else?” he asked Deuce in a whisper that seemed to echo in the large room.
Deuce shrugged. He was still drenched from the rain in the sunroom. “Everyone refuses to come out of their bedrooms until the ferry gets here. And frankly, Ty, with all the good guy shooting going on here, I don’t blame them. Why do you want all of us down here?”
“Will you bring Livi over here, please?” Ty requested, trying to keep his tone soothing.
Deuce went to retrieve her, murmuring to her as they rejoined Ty near the doorway.
“What’s going on?” she asked.
“Do you know about the passages inside the walls of the house?” Ty asked her, deciding that easing into things was no longer an option.
She blinked rapidly at him, shaking her head. “The what?”
“Ty,” Deuce said disapprovingly.
“I’m not joking. Nick and Kelly found an entrance in their bedroom. There are passages that go through the entire house. That’s how the killers got into the kitchen and killed the cook. That’s how they’ve been moving around without being seen. Deacon, all the rifles and small arms used for hunting have disappeared. Someone is either armed to the fucking teeth, or they’re making sure none of us can be. No one is safe locked in their rooms. We need to get everyone down here, make sure we have safety in numbers. And we need to find every carved angel with a ball and chain in its wing. Those are the entrances. I also need to know every single fucking person on this island who knew about those passages.”
Deuce was nodding urgently, but Livi seemed stunned. Even when Deuce moved away, she remained rooted to the spot, her mouth ajar. Ty put a gentle hand on her shoulder. “Are you okay?”
“The ball and chain wings,” she said, her voice dazed. “There’s one in the nursery.”
Ty’s heart dropped. “The one on the third floor?”
“The kids are all up there,” Livi whispered. “We thought they’d be safe with the nanny and a bodyguard at the door. Ty . . . Amelia is up there.”
Nick climbed the winding stairs, his mind a swirl of emotions he didn’t normally find himself hindered by. He was grieving over the life he’d been forced to take. He was conflicted over the combination of guilt and nonchalance he was feeling over the decision to take that shot instead of the admittedly more risky option of trying to restrain her. And he was angry. He was furious, in fact, and no amount of trying to walk it off seemed to be able to cool him down.
That in and of itself told him that he was closer to cracking than he had been in a very long time. It had gotten beyond his normally impressive level of control, and with nowhere to go and lick his wounds, it would continue to spiral unless he could find a way to block it all out until he had a chance to decompress.
He and Ty had been through many fires together. They’d had a few fights. After the year they’d spent not communicating at all, Ty had been the one to reach out to Nick, first saying that he missed him and then adding that he needed help from someone he could trust. Nick hadn’t hesitated. He never did. Ty was his best friend, and no matter what they did to each other, they would always be brothers. His loyalty was reciprocated too, with Ty jumping to his side whenever Nick needed him.
Nick wasn’t sure he could forgive Ty for all the lies he’d uncovered in the past year, though. He hadn’t been able to get over it even while they’d been deployed, and now that they were here, embroiled in someone else’s problems again, Nick couldn’t reconcile the anger and betrayal. Not this time.
He came to the last riser of the staircase, and his thoughts were interrupted by another thump and a quiet whimper. Something about the sound—a sound he heard in his dreams, a sound he’d made hundreds of times as a boy—made the hairs on the back of his neck stand up. He took the last few steps two at a time. He moved quickly and silently in the dark, taking care the floorboards beneath his feet didn’t creak. He got to the nursery door and nearly tripped over the body of the Snake Eater on the ground. It was Hardin. Blood was streaming from a wound on the man’s forehead. Nick checked his pulse and found nothing. He put his palm over Hardin’s staring eyes and closed them.
“Hooah, soldier,” he whispered. He patted the dead Snake Eater down, but his weapon was gone. Nick reached for his own gun and raised it toward the door.
He hesitated only another second before he pushed the door open. The nanny was standing near the massive fireplace with her back to the door. The five Grady cousins were all cowering in the corner, the oldest boy trying to shield the younger ones with his small body. He was no more than ten.
“You can’t take her!” he shouted at the nanny.
Maisie backhanded the boy so hard he stumbled to the side. He quickly recovered and put himself back in front of his cousins with a determined sn
arl, blood dripping from his lip.
Nick saw red and shoved into the room. The woman turned when she heard him, startling and taking a quick step back. Nick stalked toward her, not slowing when she pulled a gun with a silencer from the folds of her dress and pointed it at him. She wasn’t even holding the damn thing the right way. He flinched when she pulled the trigger, but nothing happened. She’d forgotten to take the safety off.
She fumbled with the weapon, still backing away from him, her face contorting in terror. She screamed for help, the shrill cry enough to pierce eardrums. She finally managed to get the safety off, and she fired rapidly, a frightened spray of bullets from a person who’d obviously never handled a gun before. One of the shots burned as it went past Nick’s ribs. She nearly stumbled over her own feet when the shot didn’t even slow Nick down, and Nick was on her before she could even think about reloading the gun. She tried smacking at him and kneeing him in the groin, both moves he easily deflected. He held her gun hand by the wrist and wrapped his fingers around her throat, picking her up by her neck until her toes were barely able to touch the ground.
She fought to bring the gun up, choking and sputtering. The way she fought, she certainly wasn’t the one who’d taken out the Green Beret at the door. She wasn’t alone. Just as he thought it, Nick heard the heavy footsteps of someone coming down the hallway. Her partner must have been doing a perimeter check, leaving her to retrieve Amelia alone.
“How many?” Nick asked, letting her toes graze the floor so she could breathe to answer.
“They’ll get what they want no matter what you do,” she managed to say. “Half a million pounds for one little girl. I couldn’t say no. No one could.”
Nick loosened his grip, setting her back down. He yanked the gun from her hands and tossed it away, still glaring at her with murderous intent. He waved a hand at the children. “Fireplace,” he snarled.
They hustled to obey. Nick told them how to open the secret door. Then he raised his gun.
Maisie took a halting step back and stumbled over a toy on the floor. “You’re not a killer. Not like them. I can see that!”
“Is that right?” Nick asked with a slow smile. He began backing toward the fireplace. The footsteps grew slower and quieter as they approached. He couldn’t risk a gunfight with an unknown number of assailants and five children in the room. He’d have to retreat.
“Maisie?” a man whispered from behind the half-open door. The accent was Scottish.
Nick waited a breath, until he could feel the wall behind him, until one of the kids reached up and took his hand. Then he raised his gun and fired at the man in the doorway.
Ty had to fight the urge to dive to the ground when the anguished screams and booming gunfire echoed through the house. Everyone froze, struck momentarily dumb by the unexpected sound of battle. Ty’s eyes met Zane’s for a brief moment before they both lunged out of their chairs and sprinted out of the dining room for the stairway. They met Kelly on his way down, out of breath and panicked.
One look at him and Ty knew something was horribly wrong. “What is it, is it Nick?”
Kelly shook his head jerkily, his eyes straying to the people in the foyer. “Not Nick.”
“The kids?” Deuce blurted.
A tray of coffee crashed in the foyer. Concerned cries echoed off the marble of the great hall. There were gasps and murmurs as the panic and confusion became contagious.
“What do you mean, what happened?” Deuce demanded. His limp was almost absent as he rushed up the steps.
“They’re gone,” Kelly whispered. “Nick and I split up. When I came back he was gone, and when I heard the shots I went up to the third floor, but the room’s empty. There’s no one there but two dead bodies.”
“Where’s Nick?” Ty asked again.
Kelly opened his mouth, but no words came out. He managed to shake his head and spread his hands wide. “He’s not up there, he’s not down here. He’s gone too. Maybe he went after whoever took the kids.”
Zane cursed under his breath, the sound sending shivers down Ty’s spine. “Do you think Nick got lost in a flashback?” Zane asked.
Deuce grabbed Ty by his shirtfront. “You said we could trust him!” he shouted.
Ty gripped his arms and shook him violently. “Stop! We’ll find them. Come with me and keep your mouth shut.”
Ty and the others followed Kelly to the third floor playroom where the kids had been stashed for safekeeping. The nanny who’d been assigned to watch them was laid out on the floor, bleeding from several gunshot wounds. Her face was bloody. A windowpane was shattered, and the wind whipped into the room, tugging at their clothing and hair. Bullet holes littered the rock walls behind her, and more had lodged into the door of the nursery, like she had fired back at an assailant shooting from the doorway.
The room itself was a shambles, with toys tossed about and furniture turned over.
“Is this . . . normal for a kid’s room?” Zane asked carefully as they stood and surveyed the scene.
“Aside from the dead nanny and the bullet holes . . . sometimes,” Deuce answered helplessly. He caught sight of something and pounced on it, picking up Amelia’s ratty gray lamb and holding it up for Livi to see.
Livi covered her mouth with her fingers as tears began to stream down her face.
“We’ll find them,” Ty assured her. “Someone get in those fucking walls and start looking.”
“Could Nick have done this?” Deuce shouted. “Someone took out that guard, and he was a Green Beret!”
Ty met Kelly’s eyes, at a loss. They both knew Nick would never, ever hurt a child, no matter how lost in his memories he became. But would he hurt the Snake Eater who’d been guarding the door? Or the nanny? If they stood between him and someone he thought he needed to rescue? Yeah. Definitely.
Zane cleared his throat and stepped closer to Kelly, speaking so low Ty could hardly hear. “Would the, um . . . the medication he’s on, would it cause behavior like this?”
Kelly shook his head vehemently.
“What medication?” Ty asked.
Kelly rubbed at his eyes and shook his head again. “He takes propranolol for a tremor in his hand.”
“Tremor,” Ty echoed. “What the fuck, since when?”
“Propranolol?” Deuce said as he came closer. “That’s sometimes prescribed for PTSD.”
“That’s not Nick’s issue,” Kelly said.
“The hell it’s not,” Zane grumbled. “Every member of your team has PTSD.”
“What are you, a shrink now?” Ty snapped. Zane shrugged.
“It can be hidden well, especially by people like you,” Deuce insisted with a wave of his hand at Ty. “Could he have snapped and done this? Or run off?”
“What do you mean, people like me?” Ty took a step that put him face-to-face with his fuming brother.
Zane stepped between them and put a hand on both their chests.
“Something would’ve had to have triggered him,” Kelly said.
“And Nick sure as hell wouldn’t hurt those kids,” Ty added with a pointed look at Deuce.
“Then find them, Ty!” Deuce shouted.
Zane took Deuce’s shoulder and held him even when he tried to shove away. “You need to calm down,” he said quietly.
Livi was still crying, but she gripped Deuce’s elbow. “They’re right. We’re not helping by panicking.”
Deuce took a deep breath and stepped away, running his hands through his hair. Ty gave Livi a nod of thanks, then noticed several more people in the doorway, watching and waiting. He hesitated, momentarily indecisive.
“You’re sure no one came by you, Doc?” Zane asked Kelly.
“Positive. I was right there at the stairs when the shooting started. By the time I got up here, it looked like this. No one got by me.”
“Means they went through the walls,” Ty murmured.
“Okay, we need to find the kids,” Zane announced, taking control when Ty still hesitate
d. “Split up into groups of four or five, no one goes anywhere alone. Check every room top to bottom and then lock it behind you as you leave. Start at the wings and work inward to the center of the house.”
Zane divided them into groups and then assigned each group a wing and level of the house. The groups split off and headed for their assigned areas. Ty was already fidgeting, trying to map out the directions Nick could have gone as Zane gestured to Emma, who was still standing at the doorway. “You come with us. We’ll circle the house, see if we can pick up anything outside. If Nick’s in the walls, he would have headed for that escape door at the corner of the patio. Deacon, Livi, you two stay here in this room in case the kids ran for it and try to come back. Got it?”
Deuce’s jaw tightened, but he nodded. “Find my baby.”
“We will.”
They collected flashlights, then Ty led Zane, Kelly, and Emma down to the front door and outside. There had been a break in the storm, but Ty didn’t know if they’d be able to find anything out there, or how long the rain would hold off. They spread out and began scouring the grounds, Ty and Zane moving one way, Kelly and Emma the other, searching in a circle around the mansion for tracks or signs of a struggle. It took them too many minutes to reach the gardens in the back of the house where the inner passages would have led someone to exit.
Ty was too worried to talk, too worried to question Zane about how he’d known Nick was taking medication, or why Nick hadn’t told Ty about any of these things that were going on in his life. What the hell kind of friend had Ty been to him that he felt he couldn’t share? And now Nick was missing, God knew if he was okay, and the last real words Ty had exchanged with him were in contempt and anger.
It made Ty physically ill. His hand holding the flashlight began to tremble.
“He’s okay, Ty,” Zane said.
“We can’t know that.”
“Got something!” Kelly called out in the darkness. He and Emma were waving their flashlights, and Ty and Zane hurried through the inky night to find them. When they reached the spot, they could see deep prints in the muddy grass. The strides were long and the footprints were obscured by motion and mud.
Ball & Chain (Cut & Run) Page 23