by Robin Perini
An energy pulsed from Deb. Gabe studied his ex-friend. Could Jeff Gasmerati be involved with Ashley’s disappearance?
Paretti tapped his forehead as if forcing his mind to work. “I like Point of Entry. Good game,” Steve said, his brow furrowing. “But not that I remember. Most of the communication came in from some guy Jeff called the Warden. Right before things went south, there was a flurry of calls that he kept very private.”
Deb sagged in disappointment.
“Where were the construction projects?” Gabe asked.
“Winslow, Arizona, got a lot of mention. Another was in southern Nevada. The only other one I could place was the last job. In Idaho, Ohio, Ontario, or something. I can’t remember for sure.”
“Idaho?” Gabe looked at Luke. “Ernie mentioned Idaho. It can’t be a coincidence.”
“I’ll start following the money trail, looking for dummy companies or manufacturing sites Jeff may be connected with,” Luke offered.
“The FBI and the Marshals are both checking for the same things,” Nick said. “If I can find out anything, I’ll let you know.”
A loud, shrill sound split the night.
Everyone, including Deb, had a gun in their hands instantly.
“What the hell is that?” Nick yelled.
Gabe raced to the kitchen and yanked open the back door. “Alarm. Sammy’s is on fire. Call 9-1-1. Zach—Hawk!”
Gabe sprinted outside. Deb ran after him, while Luke picked up the phone.
Out of the corner of his eye, Gabe saw Nick close the door, shutting Paretti out of sight.
Licks of flames showed through the bar’s kitchen windows. The four of them raced across the icy parking lot. Just as they got within fifteen feet of the door, the bar exploded.
The other kids called it the punishment room. It was next to the infirmary. Not a good sign. Ashley stared around the plain gray walls and at the long metal table in the middle of the room, complete with stirrups and straps to bind someone, if needed.
They’d shoved her into one of two chairs in the room and left her there. Her feet were cold on the concrete floor. She rubbed her arms and shivered.
She’d never been taken here. She squeezed her eyes shut. God, had they found out what she’d done?
Her leg bounced, but she knew better than to get up.
Footsteps sounded down the hallway, this time, not the rubber of combat boots, but the click of dress shoes.
She remembered that from the latest version of the game.
A loud click of metal sounded and the solid door swung open. Ashley’s heart thudded against her chest. Don’t pass out. Don’t pass out.
She blinked. Deb wouldn’t let these guys see her even break a sweat. Her sister was the most in-control person Ashley knew.
The Warden walked in, along with another man who didn’t look much older than her college friends. Both of them wore hospital clothes over street garb, evidently for protection.
From bloodstains? Ashley wondered.
Behind them came two guards who pushed Niko into the room in front of them. His left eye was swollen, his face bruised and bloody, but he didn’t look cowed. He wore the marks like badges of honor as he stood at the foot of the table.
The Warden took a file out and smiled. The grin made Ashley shiver.
Could blue eyes really be so dead that there appeared to be nothing behind them?
“So, Ashley Lansing, it seems we have a problem with your attitude. You insist on breaking the rules, no matter who gets hurt.”
“This time, Niko paid the price for talking to you too much. I have his word it won’t happen again. It better not. He’s out of chances. He was supposed to be monitoring your keystrokes, instead of giving you a guided tour of our facilities.”
A loud gulp sounded from her throat, and the man’s grin widened.
“So, you realize what you did.” He shook his head and clicked his tongue. “I don’t know why our most intelligent guests have to be taught the most difficult lessons. If you had just followed the rules . . .”
He slapped his hand against the door and a guard walked in with a tray of instruments.
Ashley’s eyes widened. Oh God. She’d watched enough television to know a scalpel when she saw it.
She swayed in her chair.
“Prepare her,” the man barked.
She jumped to her feet and headfirst barreled toward the open door. She shoved the cart out of her way, but Niko’s muscular arm grabbed her around the waist. She kicked and screamed, twisting her body against him, but he held her fast. His eyes indicating no emotion.
Tears streamed down her face. “No. Please, no!”
She yelled until her voice cracked, but it was no use. They stuffed a gag in her mouth and she bit around the sour-smelling cloth, nearly choking on it.
Moments later they wrestled her flat on the table, shackled her legs and arms to the frame, and cinched a leather strap across her waist.
The Warden and his medical assistant donned latex gloves and snapped the material against their skin. From behind him, an assistant walked in with a surgical gown.
The man slipped it on and a mask was tied over his mouth.
His ice-blue eyes stared down at her.
“Cut her gown off,” he barked.
They removed her top, leaving her breasts bare. He stared down at her nearly naked body. A tear squeezed out of the corner of her eye. Oh God. She wanted to curl up and die.
The assistant draped a blue cloth over her top half, a small hole cut in the side, then held up a syringe.
The Warden lifted his hand. “We won’t be needing anesthesia.”
He leaned over her, holding a scalpel that glittered under the lights. “You tried to leave the assigned area, Miss Lansing. You met with your little friend with the mop again. You thought you weren’t seen. Had you planned to meet him there? You two think you’re so very smart, but you’re actually only arrogant. Don’t you know we are always watching? Floyd didn’t escape and neither will you.”
He stabbed the scalpel into her side.
Ashley lurched up from the table, trying to get away from the knife, the searing pain. Blood ran down the side of her ribs. The gag muffled her screams, but tears ran down her cheeks.
“Hold her,” the man muttered. “I don’t want any mistakes. I want this buried deep.”
He pulled a small chip from inside a vial.
She couldn’t see what he did with it, but a moment later he held up a long pair of forceps.
No! She couldn’t yell around the gag, couldn’t get any air. In her panic, her breathing started to grow laborious.
Her eyes grew wide.
The Warden bent over her and jammed a probe into the gash.
Her chest heaved and bile rose in her throat.
They ignored her.
If she threw up, she was going to die.
The Warden poked and pulled. She couldn’t stop the tears running down her face.
Sour burning erupted from her throat and she lurched again.
One last painful tug. “Oh for God’s sake. Take the gag out before she asphyxiates.”
The Warden rubbed something on her skin and placed a bandage on her wound. Then he tore off his mask and pulled out a file.
He held out photos in front of Ashley.
Deb. Walking into a bar. Going to work. Unlocking her apartment door.
“We’ll know your location every minute of every day, Ashley. You make one move out of line, you try to escape or hack our system one more time, and your sister dies.” He snapped off his gloves.
She lay there, panting. In too much pain to talk.
“Niko, do you have any words of advice for your friend?”
Niko’s words were cold and hard. “Don’t screw with us, Ashley. Do your job, and you
might get out of here alive. One more mistake, and your sister will never know what happened to you, if she’s alive to still wonder.”
“Ahhh, it’s nice to know the real Niko is back.”
The Warden turned to the other guards. “Take her to her room. If she resists . . .” He smiled. “Actually, I don’t think she’s stupid enough to do that again.”
Shrapnel flew toward them. Deb hit the ground as the fiery wood and metal sliced through the air. She lifted her head cautiously. Secondary explosions tore through both the front and back of Sammy’s Bar. The back of the building was engulfed.
She ran around front, her feet slipping on ice and chunked piles of snow. She fought for balance and moved on. Smoke and flames billowed out some of the windows. Patrons, some burned and bleeding, staggered out the doors or used chairs to break through the windows to escape.
“We’ve got to get everyone out,” Gabe yelled. He looked around. “Zach and Hawk are still in there!”
God.
She skidded to a halt. The main explosion had centered in the rear kitchen, but the front had suffered substantial damage as well. Cops and patrons helped drag the injured through the smoke, coughing and choking. A few people had collapsed on the ground.
A man with blood streaming down his face was kneeling on the asphalt, calling 9-1-1. Deb recognized him. He usually sat at the bar. She knelt beside him, amid the debris and broken glass. “Are there others left inside?”
The guy’s eyes had glazed over in shock, but he nodded. He keeled over and Deb caught him and laid him down, shoving some chunks of debris under his legs to elevate them.
Gabe, his brothers, and a few cops started back inside, though. Fire engine sirens screamed in the distance, but with all the alcohol inside, the place could light up any second.
They had to get everyone out. Fast.
Deb ran in the bar. Soot burned her eyes as she peered into the roiling clouds of smoke. A fire blazed hot in the corner, near the kitchen door. Hawk and Gabe held fire extinguishers dousing the flames. Nick and Luke were dragging wounded people out the door.
Zach Montgomery—she recognized him from movies and late-night television—carried a female deputy out the door.
Deb searched the rubble for signs of the injured.
She caught a glimpse of a polished black shoe. She shoved aside a fallen table. Hidden behind it, a cop lay flat, facedown. She knelt beside him, then turned him over. A huge gash marred the side of his head, blood covered his face.
His chest didn’t move. He wasn’t breathing.
She felt for his pulse. No heartbeat, either.
No time for CPR here. Flames were licking closer to this section. Quickly, Deb shoved aside another table so she could grab him under the shoulders and pull him out.
Gabe passed the extinguisher to Nick and ran to help her.
“We’ve got to get him out of here,” she wheezed, the smoke already affecting her lungs. “He’s not breathing.”
Gabe picked up the cop’s feet, and they raced out of the building.
She knelt beside him, placed her hands on his chest, and started CPR. “Gabe, get an ambulance here! Fast.”
He called a number. “They’re already on the way. You need help with him?”
“No, I got this,” she said, meeting his gaze. “Go save your bar.”
“A life is more important.”
“Then see if anyone else is in there.” She tilted the victim’s head back. “This is what I do. Go.”
She focused on reviving the cop. When her arms had nearly given out, the paramedics arrived and whisked him off in an ambulance. She hoped he’d make it.
Deb sat back on her heels, then stood, her knees a bit wobbly. She scanned the horrific scene, too much like the aftermath of an insurgent attack. Cops and ambulances everywhere. Burned and bloody people being shoved onto gurneys and into squad cars for trips to the hospital. She wiped the perspiration from her brow. The front of the bar smoldered now, the smoke no longer hellish black.
Gabe came over and stood beside her, his stance stiff and unyielding.
“Are your brother and Hawk okay?”
“Yeah. A little singed, but fine.”
“What happened?”
“Gas explosion in the kitchen. Both the cooks and several patrons are dead. A lot more are injured, everything from broken bones and third-degree burns to shrapnel and glass lacerations. Some of them aren’t going to make it.”
He rubbed his face with his hands. “God, I never meant for this to happen.”
“Was it an accident?”
His regret-filled gaze rose to meet hers. “No, I really pissed somebody off.”
* * *
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
* * *
THE BREAKFAST SMELLS of the cafeteria didn’t make Ashley’s mouth water. They just made her sick. She shuffled through the double doors to the lunchroom. With every step, pain pierced her side. She couldn’t see the wound or get to it. The Warden had cut her just far enough back to be out of reach.
She wanted to dig the chip out, but she’d been warned. They’d know if she tampered with it. She was tethered to this place now.
In fighting, she’d created a prison with another set of bars.
The doors swished behind her, but instead of low conversations of kids pretending to be normal, she entered into an eerie silence.
The lunchroom was quiet except for the sound of spoons and the occasional plastic cup on the hard plastic tables.
No one had forks or knives.
Ashley slowly made her way across the room. She could feel the tension rise. Several teens glared at her. This place was bad enough. Ashley’s troublemaking had brought the full fury of the Warden down on them.
Any whispers. Punishment.
Any note-passing. Punishment.
A failure on a level. Punishment.
And Ashley had somehow become the leader of the troublemakers.
By the time she reached Justin’s table, she thought she might pass out. She sat across from him. He lowered his gaze, then made a quick scissor motion with his fingers.
She nodded. Yeah, they’d cut her.
The muscles in his jaw pulsed. His gaze narrowed on the guards, skewering them with hatred. They both knew she couldn’t leave with them as planned. The chip set off the sensors and then acted as a tracking device.
He frowned, then sat back, sadness lining his face. He didn’t want to leave without her. She placed her hand on the table, inches away from his, for just a moment.
She needed him to leave. Needed him to get to Deb.
They’d never touched or kissed since they’d been here, but he still made her feel things she’d never felt before.
She just wished he could hold her, make her feel safe for a second. None of them were safe, though.
She flicked her gaze to Dave, snagging his attention, then back at Justin. Shielding her hand from view, she briefly made a walking motion on the table, then rested her hand on the table and gave a quick thumbs-up. They would leave through the C2 exit tonight.
As long as she did her part.
She’d already programmed the C grid to shut off. The timing had to be perfect. This was their one chance.
The redheaded guard slammed his hand down on the table between them. Then he grinned and gripped his baton. He slapped the wood against his palm and gave them all knowing glances.
He didn’t have to say a word. He’d love to beat the crap out of them.
Everyone lowered their gazes.
The spoons stilled. The room had gone silent, the tension unbearable.
After several minutes, he walked back to his post. Utensils scraped against the plates again.
The moment the guy turned his back, Floyd, sitting at the table opposite Ashley, winked.
She
had to wonder if, after his brother’s murder, he’d gone a little crazy. Or if he just didn’t care anymore.
Floyd had been here longer than almost anyone. He knew this place. He was the one who had warned her that the Warden had cops and FBI on the payroll, that once they got out, they had to find someone they trusted.
Justin had promised her he would find Deb—and no one else.
Ashley shifted in her chair. The movement pulled at her side and she winced. Floyd gave a slight cough. She looked at him, eyes wide. What was he doing?
He lowered his head and she followed the movement to his hands.
His finger barely stirred, but he tapped out a message in Morse code. Mail sent yesterday.
The package to her sister.
He knew? If Floyd knew, who else?
Panic made her cheeks flush.
OK, he tapped out.
But would her sister understand the message? Ashley could only pray. If Justin and Dave didn’t make it . . . that package might be their only hope.
A few familiar guards entered the room, this time bearing automatic weapons.
The room went silent again.
Whispers had circulated since she’d arrived that something huge was going down. Guards with guns. It didn’t look like it was going to be a lot of fun.
Ashley swallowed hard.
If the Warden was turning this place into an armed camp, maybe she’d been wrong. Maybe it would be better if her sister stayed away.
The charred shell of Sammy’s Bar looked even worse in the light of day. The stench of soaking, burned debris filling the parking lot made Deb’s stomach roil. This was Denver, Colorado, not a war zone, and yet, it looked like a drone had hit the place.
A shiver skittered down her back just before a warm hand touched her shoulder. “It’s a mess, isn’t it?” Gabe’s warm breath teased her ear.
“You can rebuild,” she said.
“Maybe.”
She looked over her shoulder at him, at his fatigue-filled eyes, at the hurt just beneath the surface. She saw depths in Gabe that she hadn’t expected. Especially after last night.