by Tee O'Fallon
In that moment, something inside his heart broke free. His future was right there before his eyes and she was in it, front and center until the day he died. She was the one he was meant to spend the rest of his life with.
“Turn me on.” She pivoted on the seat, lifting the hem of her shirt to expose the body wire transmitter he’d taped to the small of her back.
Reluctantly, he hooked the tiny switch with his thumb, turning on the device. When she turned back to face him, his heart threatened to gallop right out of his chest.
“I don’t want you to do this,” he said, knowing they were transmitting live over the radio and not caring a damn who heard him.
“I have to face him. This is as much my battle as it is yours.” For a moment, her lower lip trembled, then her jaw went hard. “Let’s do this.” She tugged the scarf from her neck, letting it drop to the seat.
Before he could stop her, she was out of the SUV and storming to the front door.
…
Tess blew past the other men and their K-9s. In Matt’s hand was the device that would track her location via the subcutaneous bug he’d injected in her arm.
Don’t stop. Don’t look at them or you’ll lose your nerve.
Her heart hammered as she took the last few steps to the massive wooden front door of the house. Two cameras were tucked into the underside of the portico. Taking a deep breath, she raised her hand, readying to knock, when the door swung open. A man stood on the threshold. One she’d never seen before. He was tall, towering over her, and built like an ox.
He opened the door wider and stepped aside for her to enter. As she did, he looked past her and grunted. “Harley said you wouldn’t come alone.”
The door shut behind her and the deadbolt slammed home, echoing in the marble-tiled foyer. The place might be plunked down in the middle of rural New Jersey, but Boss Vincent Mangano had spared no expense.
A wide staircase with elaborate wrought iron railings swept gracefully to the second-floor bedrooms. Two spacious rooms flanked the base of the stairs, a living room to the left and a den with floor-to-ceiling bookcases on the right. Long hallways cloaked in shadow ran along either side of the staircase, leading to the back of the house. There were several closed doors, one most likely leading to the kitchen, the others perhaps to a closet or a pantry. According to old FBI intel reports Dayne had pulled on Mangano, there was also a basement that many informants had speculated was a repository for stolen goods.
The door adjacent to the right side of the staircase swung open. Tess’s heart beat painfully against her ribs, and she held her breath. A man came through the door.
Mark Pritchard.
The breath she’d been holding left in a whoosh. Her hands trembled. She’d been dreading her “reunion” with Harley but being near Pritchard again was equally as frightening. The last time she’d seen him, she’d done a bang-up job of racking his balls. He’d make her pay for that.
Thick-soled boots clumped as he came to stand in front of her. She thrust her chin out, wishing she were more courageous than she actually felt. Oddly, he didn’t say a word, but his gaze raked over her body in a way that made her shudder.
“Well, Pritchard?” she asked, wanting Eric to know who else was there with her. “Aren’t you going to say something?”
Pritchard’s eyes narrowed, then he yanked up the hem of her shirt. She opened her mouth, about to scream, when someone else’s hand clamped over her mouth. Pritchard grabbed her wrists, yanking them over her head. She struggled, but he was far too strong, holding her arms high enough that she had to stand on her toes or have her arms torn from their sockets.
His eyes widened, then he ripped the microphone from her bra, yanking off the wire and transmitter taped to her back.
A door creaked. Vaguely, she registered a third man in the foyer then a piece of duct tape replaced the hand over her mouth. She tried screaming, but it was no use. The sound that came out barely registered.
Pritchard yanked her arms down. The third man quickly bound her wrists in more duct tape. She twisted and squirmed, trying to free herself when Pritchard backhanded her across the face. Pain exploded in her head. Her vision blurred. Only the other man’s arm around her waist kept her from hitting the tile.
Pritchard glared at the man standing behind her. “For fuck’s sake, Russo. Can’t you control one little bitch?” He hitched his head behind him. “Get the kid,” he said to the other man.
Tess breathed heavily beneath the duct tape, barely able to suck in enough air. The side of her face throbbed, and she shook her head to clear it.
Jesse came through one of the doors in the back of the hall, stumbling as he was shoved into the foyer. His mouth and hands were also duct taped, but that wasn’t what had her heart nearly stopping. Over his shirt was a vest. Strapped to the vest were wires and narrow briquettes of what could only be one thing.
Explosives.
She began shaking her head in disbelief. Silent sobs rose in her throat. No. Please, no. Every ounce of fight she’d been about to unload fled.
“That’s more like it.” Pritchard smiled. “Now that I have your attention, baby brother is wired with enough C4 to blow his head into the ceiling and paint the walls with his intestines. So, you’ll do exactly as I say.” He pulled a slim device—a detonator—from his back pocket. “Or bye-bye Jesse.”
Jesse’s face was pasty white, and his chest rose and fell unsteadily. He wasn’t well, that much was clear. Uttering a soft cry beneath the tape, she nodded.
“That’s my girl.” Pritchard grabbed her breasts, squeezing them so hard she cried out, but the sound was more of a muffled squeak. “Always knew you’d grow up to have nice tits. Tonight, we’ll have more time together. Alone.” He grinned then gave her breasts one last squeeze.
Tess swallowed the rising bile in her throat. If this was any indication of things to come, she and Jesse were in desperate trouble. But with Eric and the other officers right outside, there was no way Pritchard would get away with this.
“Let’s move.” He hitched his head to the back of the staircase.
Two of the men shoved Jesse through one of the doors. Russo propelled her through the same door, then down a flight of stairs into the basement.
A full-size pool table stood in the center of the room, with an elaborate chandelier hanging directly above it. To the side was a full bar with rows of top-shelf whisky and vodka lining the wall. Expensive leather sofas took up the other side of the room, with a giant flat-screen TV on the opposite wall. Shiny hardwood floors gleamed, as did the matching floor-to-ceiling paneling.
Tess estimated that only a few minutes had passed since she’d gone into the house. There were still more than ten minutes before Eric would come in after her, but he’d have to know by now that the body wire had been found. They’d expected that, so it wouldn’t be enough for them to come after her. Yet.
None of this makes any sense.
The two men whose names she didn’t know now had pistols in their hands, but to what end? It didn’t matter that they were in the basement. The small army of cops outside would still hear the gunshot. Shooting her and Jesse would land them in jail for the rest of their lives. What were they going to do, dig a hole to China?
A soft click came to her ears, followed by the rush of air past her face. One of the panels on the wall popped forward, creating a two-foot-wide opening. Pritchard went through the opening. A click, then a light came on.
Her heart hammered faster. This is not good.
The crafty old mobster must have hired a master carpenter to create a hidden room, but that still didn’t explain how Pritchard planned to escape undetected, let alone with two hostages. Or two bodies.
Pritchard reentered the basement. “Years ago, Harley met an old mob boss—Mangano—at a restaurant in New Orleans. Turns out the IRS had pissed him off, too. You can imagine the instantaneous camaraderie. Mangano offered Harley use of the house anytime he wanted.”
T
ess still didn’t understand what was happening. She looked at Jesse, who could barely stand.
Pritchard opened the panel door wider, and she had visions of an enormous cavern stocked floor-to-ceiling with stolen swag, weapons, and bodies.
The men motioned for Jesse to go through first, followed by Tess, with the man named Russo taking up the rear. Lighting inside the room was dim, and the air was dank and musty. She squinted, trying to gauge the size of her surroundings, but couldn’t. Something about the room felt…off.
Another click, and more lights successively flickered to life. Tess could only stare in horror as the room kept growing. They weren’t standing in a room at all. Her thought about them digging a hole to China hadn’t been that far off the mark.
They were standing at one end of a tunnel. One with no end in sight.
Two large blue golf carts stood twenty feet away. Another bad sign. If they needed golf carts to get to wherever they were going, then the end zone had to be pretty far away.
The old mobster had taken a page right out of a drug lord’s playbook and dug himself a tunnel. A tunnel to where?
The door behind them clicked shut. They were underground. Radioactive or not, the subcutaneous tracker in her arm might not have enough juice to send a signal back to Matt’s receiver, which meant…
No one would know where she was or where they were going. That was why Pritchard hadn’t been worried about the police presence camped out on the front lawn. It didn’t matter.
Her breath quickened. Cold sweat broke out on her forehead. Soon, she and Jesse would disappear, and Eric would never know how to find them.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Eric paced in front of the house, never taking his eyes off the front door. Tiger stayed with him, occasionally stopping to smell the air, but his dog didn’t hit on anything.
He glanced at his watch. Five minutes had passed since Tess had entered the house. Five of the longest fucking minutes of his life.
The curtains in front of the windows were drawn shut, and none of the spotters he’d stationed around the house with long-range scopes could see inside. Overhead, the whop-whop from the chopper told him their eye-in-the-sky was nearby.
He clicked the radio. “Got anything?”
“Negative,” the pilot came back. “No movement at the back of the house or in the orchard.”
“You still got her?” he called out to Matt, who’d been keeping tabs on Tess via a handheld monitor. Matt gave him a thumbs-up that did nothing to quell the rising worry in his gut.
Something wasn’t right about this whole thing. He could feel it in his bones. They’d expected the body wire to be found, so it hadn’t surprised him that the sound had cut off so soon. That wasn’t what bugged him. It was Harley. The man might be psychopathic, but he wasn’t stupid. He wouldn’t have set this up if he didn’t have a plan.
He strained his ears, but nothing came to him. Not even Tiger’s ears twitched.
Another glance at his watch. Barely a minute had gone by since the last time he’d checked it. This whole thing stank to high heaven.
“Uh-oh.” Matt held the monitor in a different direction then walked in a slow circle. “Eric, I lost the tracker.”
“What?” He stalked to Matt and looked over his friend’s shoulder. Aside from the green background, the blip that had been there on the monitor was gone. “How is that possible?”
“It’s not,” Matt said. “She has to be in that house.”
Sonofabitch. He snapped his head up and stared at the front door. “Fuck it, we’re going in.”
“Got your back,” Dayne said.
Eric and Tiger charged to the door. He pushed on the door latch, but it was locked. He unhooked Tiger’s leash, stuffing it in his pocket as he ran to the nearest first-floor window. He pulled a flashlight from his belt, shielding his face while he slammed the back of the flashlight against the glass. The window shattered. A few shards flew at his forearms.
Drawing his weapon, he whipped open the curtains, then aimed inside. Empty.
Working quickly, he cleared any residual shards from the sill then holstered his weapon and hauled himself up and into the house.
He hit the floor hard, rolling then jumping to his feet while redrawing his Glock. Nothing moved. Nothing made a sound. He walked quietly to the front door, twisting the deadbolt and opening the door to let his friends inside.
Tiger charged in first, then stopped short, searching until he found Eric.
He motioned with his hand for Nick and Matt to search the upstairs, while he, Dayne, and Kade searched the main floor.
Less than a minute later, Nick and Matt, along with their K-9s, Sheba and Saxon, met him in the foyer, shaking their heads.
“Upstairs is clear,” Nick said. “No sign of anyone.”
“All rooms on the main floor are clear.” Eric’s eyes settled on the one remaining door they hadn’t gone through. He yanked it open, aiming his weapon and flicking on the wall switch at the top of the stairs. “Tiger, revieren.”
His K-9 charged down the stairs. Eric followed, as did everyone else. The basement could have been on the cover of Man Cave Magazine. Considering the room was fully finished with carpeting and wood paneling, the air was unexpectedly damp. Seconds were all it took to clear the room, along with the two small adjoining bedrooms and a bathroom.
While the dogs waited for their next commands, Eric did another three-sixty, still not believing what he wasn’t seeing. The basement was filled with five federal agents and their K-9s, but no Tess and no one else.
Tiger trotted around the perimeter of the room but didn’t indicate the presence of explosive odors. With no immediate threat, they holstered.
“How is this possible?” He still couldn’t believe it and kept turning his head, as if he expected Tess to jump out from beneath the long leather sofa pushed up against the wall. “We searched every room in the house, and the chopper verified no one escaped out the back.”
“Then she’s gotta be here.” Nick shook his head, looking just as worried as Eric felt.
“Somewhere,” Kade added. “But where?”
“We always knew this house had secrets,” Dayne said. “Disappearing evidence. Disappearing people.”
“We’ve got two of the best search dogs in the country.” Matt tipped his head to Sheba and Remy. “Do you have something of Tess’s they can pull a scent from?”
“No, I—” The scarf. “Stand by.”
He bolted up the stairs, taking them two at a time. There was no need to look behind him. Tiger was right there with him.
He charged out the front door to his SUV and grabbed the scarf Tess had left on the seat. Seconds later, they were back in the house.
His friends and their dogs were waiting for him in the foyer. He re-leashed Tiger then held out the scarf, allowing Sheba and Remy to press their noses against it. The dog’s nostrils flared as they inhaled rapidly, taking in Tess’s scent.
“Such,” Dayne said to Remy.
“Stopa,” Matt said.
Eric didn’t know what to expect, but what happened next wasn’t it.
Both dogs spun and led the way back down the stairs to Mangano’s man cave. Eric, Nick and their dogs, along with Kade and his white shepherd, Tango, remained out of the way, standing by the bar.
Sheba and Remy put their noses to the floor, then in the air, sniffing every stick of furniture and walking swiftly around the room.
“C’mon, c’mon,” Eric muttered. The dogs had led them down here, so there had to be some kind of secret room, one expertly hidden because neither he nor his friends had picked up on anything out of place.
Sheba and Remy circled several more times, then slowed, honing their tracks to one side of the room.
“They’re getting closer,” Kade said.
Both dogs sniffed the carpet in approximately the same area, even bumping noses a few times. They lifted their heads by one section of paneling, then sat, staring at the wall.
“There’s gotta be a trigger,” Nick suggested.
“Trigger my ass.” Eric dropped Tiger’s leash and began kicking at the paneling.
Beside him, Nick and Kade handed their dogs’ leashes to Matt and Dayne then joined in, pounding their boots against the wall. The wood was thicker than expected, with very little give. Eric kicked harder until he heard a sharp crack. He focused on one area where the grain was beginning to split. A louder crack sounded as the panel finally split down the middle.
Nick and Kade backed off so Eric could focus his kicks on that one section. Eventually, an entire section of panel gave way, leaving a gaping hole in the wall. Damp air flooded the room.
With his right hand, Eric whipped out his Glock. His friends already had their weapons out, trained on whatever was behind the wall. But there was nothing except total darkness.
Eric grabbed his flashlight. Five beams clicked on.
“Holy cow, Batman,” Dayne muttered.
“It’s just like a drug-smuggling tunnel.” Nick’s tone was one of disbelief.
They raised the beams higher, trying to determine the extent of the tunnel, but there was no end in sight.
“Oh, man,” Kade said. “This thing goes on forever.”
Eric aimed his flashlight up and to the sides, illuminating a crudely dug, unlined tunnel, tall enough to stand in and wide enough to drive a car through. Long, twisted roots stuck through the sides and ceiling.
His foot contacted something on the ground, and he refocused his light. Sticking up through the dirt floor was a thick piece of wood, attached to which were outlets. Not standard electrical outlets, but for plugs much bigger. Beside the outlets were two power strips. “It’s a charging station.”