“If you keep your damn voice down,” Teddy whispered, taking Ben’s hand and allowing him to help him through the window.
Ben glanced about.
“Where to now, Mr. Sixth Sense?”
Ben had no idea, so he moved through the dining room until he discovered the blood smears on the floor.
“Whose do you suppose those are?” Teddy asked.
“Hopefully one of Marvin’s guys.”
“What if they’re not?”
“Does it make a difference?”
“I suppose not, though it would change our odds one way or the other.”
Ben moved slowly into the hallway, his Ruger up and clutched against his shoulder.
“Where’d you learn to hold a gun like that?” Teddy asked. “Old cop shows?”
Ben scanned the corridor that opened to the great hall. Nothing moved, but there were too many shadows, too much furniture for someone to hide behind. Ben had an unwonted memory of a time he’d agreed to a team BB gun fight with three other kids. When it had come time to figure out who would go hide and who would be seeking, the opposing pair of boys had been eager to hide. Ben hadn’t pondered why at the time, but as he and his partner had crept into a copse of trees crammed with hiding places, he’d realized why the other boys had wanted to go first. Moments later, Ben and his partner had been running and yelping, their chests and butts peppered with BB welts.
He felt very much the same way now, clumsy and conspicuous and certain at any moment that their opponents would be opening fire on them, only this time their retreat wouldn’t be full of laughter and curses; this time there wouldn’t be any retreat at all, only a sucking chest wound or a fatal headshot.
“See anything, Magnum P.I.?” Teddy asked.
“Would you shut the hell up?”
“Hey man, I’m not the one with second sight. I’m just followin’ your lead.”
“Then you figure out what to do,” Ben said in a harsh whisper.
“You go on up,” Teddy said, “and I’ll wait down here.”
Ben stared at him. “I’m waiting for the punchline.”
Teddy rolled his eyes. “The women gotta be somewhere, right? We stay together, we only cover half the ground.”
“We also don’t run the risk of bumping into each other by accident and blowing each other away.”
“Way you hold that gun, the only thing you’re gonna blow away is your face. Get the damned thing down, would ya?”
Ben shifted the Ruger.
“Okay,” Ben said. “I go up, you stay down.”
“I ain’t staying anywhere,” Teddy said. “I’ll take the first, second and third stories, you take the upper three.”
Ben nodded. “All right. Good luck.”
“We survive this,” Teddy said, “it ain’t gonna be luck.”
Ben watched him a moment longer.
Then he bolted for the stairs.Chapter Ten
Troy Castillo stood in the master suite, mutely agonizing over which way to go. He still couldn’t believe the castle walls concealed secret passages. Christ, like some old-fashioned horror movie. If he followed Rubio and Marvin into the tunnel, he’d be tethered to the scumbags. Worse, he’d be competing with them for Jessie. Granted, Rubio would likely be content to have his fun with Christina or Elena, but Marvin had his heart set on Jessie. And not just to rape her either. No, Troy had the distinct impression Marvin was about to get medieval on Jessie, and that simply wouldn’t do. Not until Troy took what he was owed from her.
He hated it, but there was only one thing to do. Biting back his pride, he jogged into the master bathroom and found Toomey just inside the room staring at him.
Troy felt a chill ripple through his body.
The idea whispered in his head, It isn’t Toomey.
Troy pushed the thought away, made himself stare into Toomey’s crazed eyes. Was it Troy’s imagination, or had the irises shrunk? And not just a little either. They were half the size they’d been.
His voice thin and weak, Troy said, “Where are they going, Griffin?”
Toomey’s grin broadened.
“I need to know,” Troy pressed. “Are they stuck in there? Or is there another way out?”
“Library,” Griffin said in a voice that bore no resemblance to human speech.
Had Toomey not been watching him like some sort of werewolf—my God, look at those eyes!—Troy would have shaken his hand or at least thanked him. But he was grateful to get away from that gruesome leer, elated to have somewhere else to go. He hoped Toomey was right about the library. If so, it might even be possible for Troy to smuggle Jessie into some secluded place where he could make good on his fantasies. Oh, how he would revel in her fear, her pain!
Giggling at the thought of her terror-stricken face, Troy gained the back staircase and raced toward the second floor.
“Hurry!” Elena called down the ladder.
Jessie shot a glance up and how slowly Christina was moving.
“Come on,” Jessie urged. They’d reached the third floor, but at any moment Marvin and Rubio would begin their descent too.
Christina descended the rungs a bit faster, but she was still too slow. Jessie was sure the men would be visible above them any second now. Christina reached the third-story passageway and reached up to help Elena down.
“Let’s shoot them when they’re right above us,” Elena said.
Jessie considered. The idea wasn’t half bad. But what about the other two, what about Toomey and that traitor Castillo? Jessie and her companions would be stuck in here and the others could simply wait them out. And who was to say they’d be able to overcome both Rubio and Marvin? Once the shooting started, anything was possible. Better to get to a safer place…
“Listen,” Jessie said. “They’ll be down here any second now, so there isn’t time to argue. You two head that way”—she nodded down the passageway—“and I’ll continue down to the second floor. They’ll see me, but if you two are quiet they won’t see you.”
Elena opened her mouth to protest, but Jessie leaned forward and said into her face, “There isn’t time. I’m going to lure them down and shoot them if I can. You two go to the end of this tunnel, find the way out and then take the back staircase out of the castle. Make for the coast. If luck is on our side, we’ll meet up there and get the hell off the island together.”
Christina was shaking her head, but Elena seized the older woman by the wrist and dragged her down the third-story passageway.
Less than three seconds later, a voice from straight above Jessie said, “I hope you ladies are feeling romantic today.”
Rubio. The wretch.
“Come on then!” Jessie yelled up the ladder. “If you think you’re man enough to get it up.”
Rubio laughed delightedly. “Oh sister, I can’t believe you’re teasin’ me. You must be a fantastic lay.”
Jessie began descending the rungs. She was glazed with an icy sweat, but it seemed the two gangsters were going to take the bait. She reached the second floor, and then, making sure Rubio and Marvin were still following her, she began probing the walls for a place where she could push through. Almost immediately she spotted a vertical sliver of light. It had to be one of the trick walls. Suddenly sure one of the gangsters would grab her before she could escape the tunnel, Jessie put her hands on the wall next to the illuminated sliver and shoved. The wall moved easily, revealing a large room lined with dark bookcases. It was the library, of course, one of the many rooms she’d searched last night. Relief flooding through her, Jessie plunged into the murky room.
Straight into Troy Castillo’s chest.
She would have fallen backward had he not slapped an arm around her. He hugged her to him, grinning horribly. Jessie had holstered her gun, and now she reached down for it. But Castillo had his Glock in his other hand. H
e aimed it at her nose.
“Hey there, old friend.”
Jessie spat in his face.
Troy squeezed her against him, the arm like some terrible trash compactor. The man’s strength was unspeakable.
“You better wipe off my face, Jessie. You don’t spit on me.”
“Go to hell,” she said.
He squeezed her tighter. “Oh, are you gonna be sorry—”
A voice interrupted from behind her. “Thanks for the help, Castillo.”
Castillo spun her around and pressed the gun against the side of her head. Marvin stepped into the room, his revolver at his side and a devilish grin on his face.
“Maybe you didn’t hear me,” Marvin said, circling them slowly. “I said thanks for holding her. Now hand the bitch over and leave the goddamned room.”
Jessie’s terror was already extreme, but a new realization made her heart race even faster. Rubio was not entering the room behind Marvin. Which meant he had followed Christina and Elena.
“I don’t need long, Marvin,” Castillo said. “Just an hour or so, then I’ll let you have her.”
Marvin’s grin became incredulous. “An hour? Are you nuts? I want her now, Agent Castillo, and if you don’t wanna give her to me, I’ll make you give her to me. We clear on that?”
Against the top of her head, she felt Castillo’s face move back and forth in negation. “I’ve waited too long for this.”
Marvin raised his gun. “The girl.”
“Sorry. You’re gonna have to get in line.”
Marvin showed his teeth. “I said to hand her over, you cocky little prick.”
Castillo grunted laughter. “Says the five-foot-nothing guy to a man who could break him in half.”
Marvin’s eyes glittered. “You have any idea what I could do to you?”
She felt Castillo hesitate. “You can have her when I’m done. I promise I’ll leave her alive.”
In the meager light of the library Marvin’s eyes looked like black stones, the eyes of some deep-water predator. “I’m done talking. You give her to me or I’ll skin you alive.”
She thought Castillo might give in to Marvin then, but Castillo flexed his biceps, compressing Jessie’s windpipe. The gun ground into the side of Jessie’s head.
Marvin did not lower his gun.
For what seemed an endless moment, no one said a word.
Then Castillo chuckled. “Well, this is certainly a strange situation.”
A shot exploded to Jessie’s right and then Marvin was flailing backward, his feet tangling. He half turned as he fell, his chest gushing a merry red color, and his head cracked the side of a coffee table. Jessie figured the knock on the head wouldn’t bother Marvin too much. He’d been shot through the heart.
She and Castillo turned at the same moment and beheld Teddy Brooks, who shifted his gun toward Castillo.
Brooks said, “That’s how I deal with a conundrum.”
Castillo’s powerful arm squeezed her tighter, the gun digging into her hair like some burrowing animal.
Brooks nodded. “Now if you don’t mind, Agent Castillo, I think it’s time to let the lady go.”
“Sure, Teddy,” Castillo said and jerked the gun at him and fired. Brooks dove behind one of the reading chairs. Castillo tore off four shots before yanking up on Jessie’s underjaw and backpedaling them both toward the open passageway. She and Castillo thumped against the tunnel wall, then Castillo reached out with his gun hand and, using two strong fingers, drew the wall closed.
She heard Brooks shout something at them, but the wall clamped shut and she was swaddled in shadow. Castillo moved the gun under her chin, dug the barrel into her soft underjaw. Jessie stifled a groan.
Castillo said, “Have I got a surprise for you.”
Jessie swallowed, told herself no matter what happened she wouldn’t cry.
But Castillo pushed his groin into her rear end. His sour breath puffing across her face, he said, “You’ll never guess who it was that killed your daddy.”
Jessie’s eyes widened in horror.
“Nothing like the chase,” the raspy voice said. “I can’t wait to see which one of you’s a better screw.”
Christina suppressed a whimper. Elena was dragging her on through the tunnel, but what did it matter? Since stepping foot on this island, the feeling had been growing in her that all this was fated, that the manner of her death was merely a formality, that her doom had actually been sealed all those years ago the night she’d permitted her husband to murder Rosa Martinez. Didn’t Christina deserve this? Didn’t she deserve to be killed off by a man who was in some ways just like her husband? No, Stephen Blackwood had never murdered anyone before that night—at least not to her knowledge. And it was obvious that Rubio was a monster, the kind of man who reveled in others’ terror and got his kicks inflicting pain. Yet it hadn’t taken much to nudge Stephen into the same sadistic behavior. Nor had Christina lifted a finger to intervene. Not when Stephen was bludgeoning Rosa with his fists, not when it became apparent—
“Move, damn you!” Elena growled.
It brought Christina back to the present. She scampered through the tunnel behind Elena, the huff of Rubio’s breathing behind them amplified by the enclosed space.
“Where are we—”
“Up the ladder,” Elena said.
They reached the terminus of the passageway, and then Elena was climbing, skittering up the iron rungs like some sort of weightless spider. Christina mounted the ladder as well, did her best to follow. They scrambled higher, back up to the fourth floor, and kept going. Below, Rubio’s steam-shovel breathing drew ever closer. Elena passed through the floorhole to the fifth floor. Moments later, Christina followed. She could hear Rubio behind them, the iron rungs creaking under his weight. She was halfway up the fifth-floor passageway when a hand clamped on her ankle. She screamed. In the semidarkness of the passage she saw Elena glance down at her in horror, and then Rubio was hauling Christina down, spinning her as she clanged down the rungs, fruitlessly attempting to cling to each one as Rubio’s inexorable strength brought her into his arms. Her heels hit the floor and she would’ve fallen had Rubio’s big arms not encircled her, his ursine form instantly pinning her to the iron rungs. His tongue trailed sluglike over her cheek, his breath like sewage on a torrid day. His corpulent gut drove her against the ladder, his hips already dry-humping her like some horny adolescent.
“Aw, lady,” he groaned between sewage-smelling licks. “I never had one as rich as you. I cut up your boy once, you know that?” His stinking tongue flicked, smeared. “Now I get to stick it in his mom. This is gonna be AWWWWWW—”
His head jerked away, a shadow passing over their heads. He blundered back from her and fell clumsily onto a twisting figure.
Elena. She’d climbed down the rungs, seized Rubio’s black hair and leaped over him without letting go. The pain had been severe enough to break Rubio’s hold on Christina, but now the small woman was trapped beneath Rubio’s heavy body. Elena was clawing and slapping him, but he shot an elbow back and caught her hard in the side. Elena slashed at his face with whirring hands, but Rubio was turning, regaining the advantage.
Christina lunged forward, reached between Rubio’s legs and seized his testicles. Rubio’s legs banged together, but Christina’s arm was slender enough it didn’t matter. She squeezed and tugged at the same time, exerting every bit of her strength in an attempt to tear Rubio’s scrotum off. The big gangster was doubling over, completely unmindful of Elena now, but beyond him in the murk, Christina could see what Elena was doing.
Christina gave Rubio’s balls a final yank—Rubio screeching in a voice that sounded like a power saw cutting through sheet metal—then dove toward the base of the ladder.
“You fucking—” Rubio had time to say, then the blast erupted in the narrow passageway, bathing them
all in a brilliant flash of light. Rubio’s arms flew up as he stumbled forward. His big body rammed into Christina’s balled-up form, but he wasn’t trying to violate her this time. He slumped onto his side and arched his back in agony. His feet scrabbled like startled hermit crabs, one big arm impotently pawing his lower back.
Where Elena had shot him.
“Aw Jesus,” Rubio groaned. “Aw Christ, lady.”
Christina squinted as a column of light appeared to her left, Elena opening the hidden door to one of the bedrooms. The master suite, Christina realized with a jolt.
“It’s not fatal,” Elena said. “At least not right away.”
“Shoot him again,” Christina said. “Kill him so we can get out of here.”
But Elena shook her head. Her expression in the pale bar of light made it plain she had no interest in fleeing the tunnel.
“What then?” Christina asked.
Instead of answering, Elena took two strides toward Rubio, raised one shoe and stomped on the side of his head.
Rubio let loose with a string of obscenities. They were all familiar to Christina, those words, but spoken by Rubio’s raspy, pain-racked voice, they were somehow filthier and infinitely more objectionable.
“…fucking cocksucking bitches,” Rubio howled. “Oh, you stupid cunts!”
And that did it. Christina wasn’t a prude, but there had always been something about that last word that set her teeth on edge and made her want to hurt the person uttering it.
Without thinking, she stood, raised a heel and stomped on Rubio’s nose. There was a crack, and then Rubio was buzzing out a phlegmy scream, the bullet in his back momentarily forgotten.
“Shut up!” Elena shouted and delivered another kick, this one to the meat of his lower back.
Bent nearly backward, Rubio warbled in anguish. Christina made a fist, punched him as hard as she could in the gut. Rubio sobbed. Christina felt a flush of pleasure at this and decided to follow it up with a smart kick to the head. Rubio covered his face, exposing his stomach again, the shirt hiked up to reveal a fish-white midriff. On the instant Elena leaped into the air and came down with both shoes on Rubio’s white belly. The big man doubled up and broke loud, explosive wind. That set both of them off in gales of laughter, and as they laughed they braced themselves on the sides of the passageway and stomped on Rubio’s convulsing body. His struggles began to abate, so Christina dropped to her knees next to him and began hammering at his face. She sliced her knuckles open on Rubio’s teeth, but soon they were torn free of the gums and Rubio was choking on them, coughing against the torrents of blood gushing into his throat. Elena fell to her knees beside her, joined her in pulping Rubio’s head. They continued to work on him, bashing his vile face into a glistening soup, and at some point Christina realized she was still laughing and screaming now too, and beside her Elena was slathered in the dead man’s blood, her shirt torn open to reveal blood-slicked breasts. Elena stared back at her, her eyes gleaming with joy and ferocity. On impulse Christina lunged forward and planted her mouth on Elena’s, and Elena buried her hands in Christina’s long hair, Christina driving Elena backward, their bodies rising, Christina pinning Elena to the wall, her hand plunging under the waistband of Elena’s sweaty pajamas, cupping her sex, grinding her. Elena’s tongue wrestled with hers, their faces jammed together, Elena’s hands grasping Christina’s large breasts, squeezing them, twisting her aching nipples, but Christina was on fire, she needed more, all of it. She ripped down Elena’s pants, her underwear, and then her mouth was clamped over Elena’s sex. In moments Elena came, her climax a shuddering, tortured moan that went on and on. Christina started to rise, but Elena shoved her backward, away from the ruin of Rubio’s body. Christina watched with languid eyes as Elena got on her knees before her, clutched the sides of Christina’s shorts. Christina raised her hips to help the shorts off, then she lay back as the medium began to pleasure her, teasingly at first, the supple, pouty lips dotting the insides of her thighs with kisses, then the head settling in between her legs, the pulsing, throbbing pressure of Elena’s lovely tongue.
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