Vote Then Read: Volume II

by Lauren Blakely

  She went to the elevator and hit the down button. As she waited, she realized this was the same bank of elevators that went to the basement where she’d encountered Chase. The medical clinic was just down the hall, but Chase wasn’t there. He’d been airlifted to Fairbanks within thirty minutes of his collapse.

  Odds of surviving cardiac arrest outside a hospital were slim, but she’d started CPR immediately, and a doctor had arrived with a defibrillator within minutes. Plus, he was young, and cardiac arrest had likely been caused by infrasound or something like it.

  Restarting his heart and getting it to stay beating was the first hurdle, which had been cleared. The second hurdle—getting to the hospital—had also been cleared. He had a chance, better than most.

  She needed to ask him what the hell he’d meant by, “I’m sorry, boss! I can’t do it. I won’t!”

  Do what? And who did he mean when he said “boss”?

  Alec? Nicole? Or someone else?

  The basement had been searched, and Keith and Alec had identified the spot where they suspected Chase’s assailant had stood. In all probability, the acoustic weapon hadn’t affected Isabel because a section of wall had blocked her from the weapon’s line of sight, and only a direct hit by the sound wave was harmful.

  The elevator door opened, and she stepped inside and pressed the button for the ground floor, where Alec’s suite was located.

  But the elevator skipped the ground floor and went straight to the basement. The doors opened.

  A shiver of fear swept through her.

  She was certain she hadn’t hit the wrong button.

  She told herself the prickles of fright were due to the basement being built into permafrost and a few hours ago she’d helped bring a man back from the dead just three feet away.

  She hit the button for the ground floor again, but nothing happened. She jabbed at it three times before giving up. With a sigh, she stepped from the elevator. She’d seen a stairway sign on the third-floor corridor. It couldn’t be far.

  Unfortunately, the basement layout didn’t match the upper floors, but she guessed she’d find the staircase to the left about fifty feet. She glanced that way, but the lit corridor faded into a dark, distant void. No convenient exit sign.

  She headed that direction anyway. There had to be a sign; a short section of wall was probably blocking it from view.

  Tinny musical notes—sounding just like her mother’s old record player—carried from the void.

  The notes took shape into a familiar tune. Shock jolted through her. The music was the opening notes to “I Am The Very Model Of A Modern Major-General”—the song she’d been singing in the forest right before she found Alec. Her heart hammered as terror rooted her to the spot.

  Lights came on in a row—as if the motion sensors had been triggered—and in the distance, she saw a man. Or at least she thought it was a man. A black mask covered his face, and something—like a gas mask?—covered his nose and mouth.

  Nausea hit, breaking her fear-induced paralysis. Pain exploded along her occipital nerve. She turned and launched herself toward the elevator but feared her gait was more stagger than run. Behind her, she heard footsteps. The pain in her head ratcheted higher.

  The elevator door remained open, and she pitched herself inside. As if drunk, she slapped a hand against the panel of buttons, praying she’d hit one that would close the door and this time the elevator would work.

  She tucked herself to the side to get out of the sound wave’s path and braced both hands flat against the wall. She focused on the panel, trying to decipher the blurred controls. She remembered reading that the fluid in the eyes expanded and vibrated with the high frequency, causing pain and interrupting vision. She couldn’t read but saw something red on the panel. Emergency call button? She slapped it.

  An alarm sounded.

  The rapid lyrics from “Modern Major-General” pummeled her, causing a spike in pressure on her brain with every note.

  She was trapped in a house of horrors.

  She covered her ears and screamed as the world faded to nothing around her.

  21

  Alec paused in the stairwell and listened at the door. Every cell in his body wanted to burst into the corridor, but he couldn’t be stupid about this. He had no idea what was on the other side of that door. The sound of Isabel’s scream through the elevator emergency intercom still rang in his ears.

  He nodded to Keith, who flanked the door to the right, and they both pointed their pistols at the ceiling in a ready position. Alec kicked open the door.

  In smooth choreography, they slipped through the opening, Alec first, Keith at his back. Just like they’d done in Yemen a lifetime ago.

  Also like Yemen, the basement appeared empty of Tangos.

  This section of basement was dark—too dark—and he glanced up at the lights. Both the corridor lights and the exit sign were out.

  The elevator alarm continued to wail. Isabel lay slumped in the opening, one leg protruding, preventing the door from closing. Only years of training stopped him from diving to her side. He had to ensure the area was clear first.

  Keith checked the corridor while Alec cleared the elevators. Empty. He dropped to Isabel’s side. Her chest rose in a regular cadence. She was breathing.

  Thank God.

  “Isabel?” he said, gently tapping her cheek. He ran his hands down her body, searching for wounds, knowing he wouldn’t find any. This had all the earmarks of infrasound, which meant she’d likely come to but would feel sick and disoriented. Would she remember what happened?

  The alarm shut off abruptly. Alec looked up to see Keith at the controls, resetting the system. “Thanks.”

  Isabel groaned and rolled to her side. A good sign.

  “Let’s get her to the clinic,” Keith said.

  Alec scooped her up and stood. She lay slack in his arms as the doors slid closed.

  Keith used the intercom to instruct security to send in the team waiting to search the basement. This search would likely be as fruitless as the last, and the person who’d assaulted Isabel could well be on the team, but they had to try.

  Alec shifted her weight, cradling her against him. Her eyes fluttered open. She whimpered and tucked her head into his chest. “The light hurts,” she muttered.

  “Do you remember what happened?” he asked.

  She nodded into his shirt and whispered something.

  “What is it, honey?”

  “Take me out of here.” Her words were faint, a dry rasp.

  “I’m taking you to Dr. Larson.”

  “No. I can’t stay in the compound.” Her voice rose, gaining strength. “They attacked my cabin so you’d bring me here. They want me here. I need to leave.”

  Alec wanted to deny her point, but she could be right. Why had they attacked her cabin? To steal her laptop? That made no sense. The information on her computer—evidence she’d been sneaking onto Raptor land for months—was moot now. Harmless, given that Alec couldn’t press charges for the restraining order violation even if he wanted to. And he didn’t want to.

  “You need to see Doc Larson,” he said.

  “We can’t trust him. We can’t trust anyone. I’ll be fine. I just need to sleep. Then I’ll feel better.”

  “My quarters,” Alec said to Keith. “Ground floor.”

  “No. Alec. I have to leave.”

  “I trust Keith and Ethan, but I can’t spare them to guard you outside the compound. I have soldiers arriving in a few days. We need to be ready. You aren’t safe alone in your cabin.”

  “I’ll go to another prove-up. One no one knows about.”

  “You’d be isolated. Alone. Anything could happen, and I couldn’t be there to help you. You’ll be safe in my quarters. With me. Tomorrow we’ll figure something else out.”

  She held his gaze, her eyes were so bleak, so tired, it broke him a little bit. Finally, she nodded.

  The door slid open, and he stepped into the corridor.
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br />   “I can walk,” Isabel said, and she wiggled to indicate he should set her down.

  “Why walk when I can carry you? I owe you for dragging me through the woods.”

  “If you think carrying me through a building with elevators and smooth, level floors makes up for my dragging your heavy, ungrateful carcass across miles of woods…”

  “One mile of woods.”

  “It felt like fifteen.”

  Like seeing her chest rise and fall when she’d lain on the floor in the elevator, the teasing was a relief. She wouldn’t be Isabel if she didn’t tease him, and he wouldn’t have her any other way.

  He carried her into his suite and straight to his bed. The second time he’d deposited her in a bed and wished it were for other reasons.

  He nodded to Keith, who pulled out a scanner to sweep the room for listening devices. “Room’s clean of bugs,” Keith said.

  Alec called security. “What was up with the elevators?” he asked.

  “Near as we can tell, sir, the moment Ms. Dawson stepped inside, all elevators were switched to ‘fire emergency lock’—they were called to the basement and locked with doors open.”

  “How did that happen? Someone pulled an alarm?”

  “No, sir. If they had, we’d have known the elevators were offline before Ms. Dawson hit the emergency call button. It appears someone hacked our system and had access to the elevator controls.”

  Given that Alec and Keith had been in the security room trying to figure out what happened to the camera feed when Johnston collapsed, and that the elevator controls were in the security room, he had to agree. The two men working in security couldn’t have locked down the elevators without him noticing. Could they?

  “Upload the video camera feed from the elevator and the basement corridor cameras to the Raptor FTP site.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  He hung up and dialed Lee Scott, the computer security specialist who’d locked down the system after the major hack in July. He answered immediately. “Lee, there’s been another breach.”

  “I was just on the phone with your security team and see it on the shared screen. No doubt it came from inside.”

  “Can you fix it?”

  “Not from here.”

  “How soon can you get to Tamarack?”

  “I’ll look up flights. Tomorrow evening, probably.”

  Keith tapped him on the shoulder. “Josh and Sean are taking the BD-700. They were supposed to depart in an hour.”

  To Lee, Alec said, “The company jet is heading this way. How soon can you get to Dulles?”

  “This time of night? Forty-five minutes.”

  “Give yourself time to pack, make it ninety. The jet will be waiting.”

  Alec hadn’t even hung up with Lee before Keith was on his phone with one of the pilots explaining that they needed to wait for a third passenger.

  Calls completed, Alec said to Isabel, “Tell us what happened.”

  She sat up in the bed and took a sip of water from a glass Keith handed her, then leaned against the pillows and launched into her story. When she told him about hearing the song she’d been singing in the woods, he swore. “They heard you. They were there the entire time.”

  And now they’d used that to torment her.

  She nodded, pulling the bedding closer around her as she did so. She finished her nightmare story, and Alec itched to pull her into his arms but didn't think she’d appreciate that in front of Keith. He had to remind himself that she had a reputation for being reserved, even standoffish with others, because she wasn’t that way with him.

  She took another sip of water. “I’m feeling better. It seems like it’s wearing off faster than when they attacked my cabin. But then, I also remember everything that happened this time around.”

  “Let’s see what the video cameras picked up.” Alec opened the feed on his laptop.

  He’d spent good money on new cameras throughout the compound when he took over, and the feed was crystal-clear color. The elevator doors slid open. Several moments later, Isabel stepped out. She left the range of the first camera. Alec paused that video and switched to the corridor recording.

  Isabel froze, fear plain on her face.

  “I wish we had sound,” Keith said. “Then we could figure out where the music came from by checking which cameras picked up the noise.”

  On the screen, Isabel grimaced and staggered to the elevator, and everything played out as she described. After she collapsed, nothing moved for several minutes until Alec and Keith entered from the shadows.

  Alec opened the video link for the elevator. It matched the footage from the corridor camera. Isabel staggered inside and hit the buttons. She hit the red emergency button, which set off the alarm, and opened the intercom to Isabel’s scream, alerting Alec in the security room.

  He frowned. He’d hoped they have some glimpse of the masked man, but he’d remained in the shadows, away from the cameras.

  Keith cleared his throat. “Rav, we need to cancel the training. It’s not safe here. For anyone.”

  The words settled in the room, drifting like falling feathers, when they should have landed with the force of a brick. But deep down, Alec had known since he swam down the frigid river this was the inevitable choice.

  He wasn’t just going to cancel the training; he needed to close the compound. “Looks like you’re getting your way after all, Isabel.”

  22

  Isabel dreamed about Vin. She hated waking from those dreams, the abrupt return to a world in which he was gone, after she’d had moments of joy at seeing him again, of believing that the last year had been the nightmare, and the dream was real.

  Now here she was again, post-dream, and depressed. No. Not depressed—at least, not this time. Tonight, she was pissed. Vin was gone, and the people who had stolen him from this world were messing with her. They’d hurt her, repeatedly.

  They’d terrified her and made her feel helpless, exposed. Vulnerable. All the things she’d felt when she was fourteen and lost her parents. But then her big brother had changed the entire direction of his life to prevent her from going into foster care.

  She was mad as hell now.

  She glanced at the clock on the nightstand. One a.m. She was alone in Alec’s bed; he slept on the couch in the sitting room—guarding her even in his sleep while the compound was still full of mercenaries who couldn’t be trusted.

  She sat up in bed, pulling her knees to her chest. She was wide-awake, riled, and a man she was intensely attracted to slept mere feet away. Would Alec be willing to engage in a bout of angry sex to break the tension coiled in her body?

  Not that she was angry with Alec. Her rage was reserved for Vin’s killers.

  It infuriated her that she was now afraid of the basement. And the elevator. And Pirates of Penzance.

  Masks were also on her shit list.

  She opened the nightstand drawer and pulled out the box of condoms.

  Angry sex could be just the thing to calm her down. Then she could sleep again.

  She threw back the covers. It was her move. Alec had insisted upon it. Anger was just the excuse she needed to squelch the guilt that was holding her back.

  She eased open the door and crept into the sitting room, moving slowly so she wouldn’t wake him if she changed her mind at the last second.

  She rounded the foot of the couch and stopped short at what she saw. Her cat, Gandalf, was curled in a ball and sleeping on Alec’s chest.

  “Please tell me you’re here to take this damned cat off me so I can sleep.” Alec’s voice was a whisper in the quiet room, and she smiled, realizing he was trying not to wake said damned cat.

  The angry haze that had driven her here faded as she took in the scene before her. Her cat. Asleep on the most gorgeous naked chest she’d ever seen.

  She was a little jealous of Gandalf.

  “Sorry, no. I came out to ask for angry sex. I didn’t realize Gandalf was here.”

  “I s
ent two men from security to pick him up. I figured after what you’d been through, you needed him. You were asleep by the time they delivered him, and I didn’t want to wake you.” He grimaced. “He’s spent the last two hours kneading me and walking across me like I’m his personal sidewalk. He finally went to sleep about a half hour ago.”

  She couldn’t help but grin. Alec lay pinned on the couch, clearly uncomfortable. Gandalf looked light and fluffy, but he was heavier than he appeared under all that fur, and he slept on Alec’s heart as if he owned it. “He’s a pest when you’re trying to sleep. I never let him in my bedroom at night.”

  “Thanks for the warning,” he said dryly. He held her gaze in the darkened room. LED lights on various electronic devices provided just enough illumination. “What was that thing you said about angry sex?”

  She set the condoms on the coffee table and scooped Gandalf from Alec’s chest. “Forget I said anything.” Gandalf made a disgruntled sound at being woken; then he must have smelled her, because he settled down and purred.

  Alec took a deep breath—probably his first since Gandalf used him as a mattress—and sat up. “I don’t think I will.” He shifted his legs to the floor. “Why angry sex? Why not just sex?”

  She dropped onto the end of the couch where his legs had been and settled Gandalf on her lap. “Because I’m mad. I dreamed about Vin again and woke up pissed. I’m so mad at everything that’s happened. I’m afraid of the basement now.” Her voice rose as the anger came flooding back, causing Gandalf to tense. “And elevators! I feel like a piece of my security and sanity has been stolen from me, on top of having my brother taken. I just want to punch someone.”

  Alec slowly rose from the couch and paused in front of her, looming in the dark room. “Here’s the deal, Iz. We’re taking the elevator to the basement so you can shoot the shit out of some targets and get rid of some of that rage.”

  He extended a hand toward her.

  She hesitated but then set Gandalf aside and took his hand. He pulled her to her feet, bringing them so close she had to lean back to meet his gaze. He steadied her with an arm around her waist as he studied her face. His mouth slowly curved in a carnal smile that triggered a flutter in her belly.