Colton's Last Stand

by Karen Whiddon

  Sometime later—she had no idea how long—the sound of the door opening at the top of the stairs caused her to jerk upright. The sudden movement brought a stab of agony, but she pushed through it. Alert, she listened. She knew she had to come up with some sort of plan of action in case Micheline or Leigh showed up and tried to get her to ingest some sort of toxin.

  Two voices, both male. Bart and Randall. She’d need all her strength if Bart tried to hurt her again. She couldn’t allow her pain to distract her.

  They’d been the ones who’d taken Jake away on the stretcher. Did that mean they were bringing him back? Surely not. If anyone had ever needed to go to the hospital, Jake had.

  Much cussing ensued as the men slowly made their way down the stairs. Fiona managed to prop herself up into a sitting position so she could see. Sure enough, one of the men appeared, moving slowly since he carried one half of the stretcher.

  Finally, they made their way to the bottom of the stairs. Jake lay, still unconscious, on the stretcher.

  At least he appeared to have been cleaned up. Worried sick, Fiona watched as they carried him back to the empty cell he’d occupied before. Setting the stretcher down, one man unceremoniously rolled Jake out and onto the floor.

  “Is he alive?” Fiona asked, drawing the attention of both Bart and Randall.

  “He is,” Bart answered, his smirk and leer making her skin crawl. “He’ll probably be around long after you’re gone. He’s way more valuable to Micheline than you’d ever be.”

  Randall laughed at this, pushing his glasses up his nose. The other two men simply stood there, expressions bored, waiting until they were given the okay to leave.

  “Come on,” Bart finally said, when she didn’t give him the reaction he’d evidently been waiting for. “We’re done here. Let’s go.”

  They clomped back up the stairs and left, locking the door behind them.

  Damn. Scooting across the concrete floor, she tried to peer around the dividing wall separating her cell from Jake’s. But she couldn’t.

  “Jake,” she said, raising her voice. “Wake up.”

  “We’re all awake now, lady,” Underhill complained. “Would you mind keeping it down? I’m trying to get some sleep back here.”

  “Wouldn’t you rather get out?” she countered.

  “Hell yes, but how do you think you’re going to manage that? Even if you could get out of the cell, there are two locked doors between this basement and the main house. If by some miracle you were able to make it through those, there are cameras everywhere between there and freedom. They’d grab you before you made it anywhere near an outside door.”

  Wisely, she didn’t share the fact that she possessed a key to the double doors. “You’d be surprised at what I can do,” she said instead.

  Underhill laughed and didn’t reply. The other prisoner, the poor woman in the last cell, didn’t make a sound at all.

  As the hours passed, Fiona would have thought the pain from her broken ankle would have subsided. Instead, it seemed to intensify. She’d never broken a bone before, and how badly it hurt came as a shock.

  Finally, she drifted into a kind of uncomfortable doze. But every movement, no matter how small, brought a sharp reminder of her now swollen and black-and-blue ankle. She’d had to take off her shoe earlier, and now even her sock felt too tight.

  When the door at the bottom of the stairs opened, she pushed herself up onto her elbows, muffling a groan at the pain. No way did she plan on letting Bart catch her unprepared.

  Instead of one of Micheline’s male henchmen, Leigh came through the door, striding directly to Fiona’s cell. She stood a few feet back from the bars, as if she thought Fiona might reach through and grab her.

  Fiona spoke first. “Please tell me you’re here to get me medical help.”

  Instead of answering, Leigh just stared, frowning. The look of distaste on her perfect features made Fiona’s skin crawl.

  Not knowing how to react, Fiona settled for refusing to break eye contact. Simply staring back, she wondered how long this would go on.

  Finally, Leigh shook her head. “I have just one question,” Leigh said, her cold tone dripping disdain. “Why? Why would you do this to us? After all we did to help you? We took you in, set you on the path to becoming a better you, and you betray our trust? Why?” Her voice rose with the final sentence.

  So much drama. With a Herculean effort, Fiona managed not to let her face reveal any expression. “Leigh, are you aware you’re part of a cult?”

  Leigh’s face contorted. “AAG is not a cult. I wish everyone would stop saying that. We do so much good, helping people—”

  “Find their best selves,” Fiona finished for her. “I know, believe me. Cut the nonsense, Leigh. You need to strip the blinders off your eyes and sit down and take a long, hard look at what you’re a part of. If Micheline goes through with this little born-again gathering she’s planning, you’ll be an accessory to multiple murders. Do you honestly think she’s going to stick around to see the results of the horror she’s unleashed? Do you?”

  Something—Fiona wasn’t sure what—flitted across Leigh’s expression. Realization, maybe? Fiona could only hope.

  But immediately, the stubborn, intractable look came back. “Everything Micheline does is for the good of the AAG.”

  This time, Fiona refused to let a comment like that slide past. “Is it now? Do you truly believe asking your followers to commit a mass suicide is a good thing? Bilking confused and lonely college kids out of their money with a bunch of false promises, is that a good thing? Tell me, Leigh. Honestly. Tell me some real and true good things the AAG has done.”

  Leigh opened her mouth to speak. And closed it. When she finally did offer up her thoughts, her tone carried way less confidence. “What about our seminars? We help people feel good about themselves. We give hope, often to those for whom there is no hope left.”

  “Reciting from the leaflet?” Fiona asked dryly, moving just enough to set off more throbbing in her ankle. She sucked in a breath, trying like hell to ignore the pain, but perspiration broke out on her forehead just the same.

  “What do you want, Fiona?” Leigh dropped all pretense of her gung-ho attitude. “What’s your angle in all of this?”

  “I want it to stop, that’s all. The taking advantage of innocent people, the bogus seminars, the baby switching and now extorting for money. Most of all, I don’t want a bunch of misguided people to keep being bilked out of their life savings with some vague promises of a better version of themselves.”

  Leigh recoiled. “Is that really what you think of us?”

  “I’m locked up in a basement cell with a broken ankle,” Fiona replied. “From what I saw, Jake was beaten to within an inch of his life. Even though he’s back in the cell next to me, I still don’t know if he’s received any kind of medical care. How about you let a doctor take a look at my ankle, maybe put a brace or a boot or a cast on it? Then maybe I’ll be a tiny bit more inclined to think better of you.”

  But Leigh had already started backing away, eyeing Fiona as if she was something she’d found living under a rock.

  Once Leigh had gone, Underhill chuckled, a dry, rasping sound. “She’s never going to believe the truth,” he said. “None of them do. That’s why Micheline picks them. She knows how to zero in on the neediest ones.”

  “What about you?” she asked, genuinely curious. “Why work here?”

  “I needed a job,” he said. “They hired me for security. It was a decent gig, until I got greedy. When I realized what kind of moneymaking scheme Micheline had going here, I decided to try and get some of that cash for myself. I’d been pretty successful at it for a while, shaking down the newbies.”

  “Until I caught you.”

  “Yeah.” He went quiet for a moment, and then started coughing. “She didn’t like me beating up t
hat kid. I was just shaking him down for cash. You turning me in was a death sentence, you know.”

  “Why?” she asked. “You don’t think she’ll let you go?”

  He laughed, or tried to. It turned into a bout of coughing. “Nobody gets to leave here. This is Micheline’s death row. Anybody she throws in one of these cells knows too much to ever see the light of day.”

  A chill skittered down Fiona’s spine.

  “Most die of something else. Like you, with your broken bone. Maybe infection will set in. Me, I got some kind of cold that moved to my chest. Bronchitis now, maybe. Eventually pneumonia. They don’t treat you for anything. Hell, they barely even feed you, and some of the slop they bring isn’t even edible.”

  “Except Jake,” she pointed out. “They took him for medical help.”

  “Yes, they did. Which means Micheline has some use for him. Otherwise, she’d have left him there to rot in his own blood.” His next fit of coughing left him gasping for air.

  The bleakness in Underhill’s voice gave Fiona pause. The FBI would be looking for her, she knew. However, they wouldn’t be aware anything had gone wrong until it was too late. She had to figure out a way to get out of here on her own. She had to stop Micheline’s rebirth gathering before it was too late for all the poor souls she’d managed to dupe.

  Chapter 13

  When Jake next stirred, he swore he heard Fiona’s sweet voice, calling his name over and over. Dream? Or reality? Opening his eyes, he tried to sit up and the entire room spun. What the...? Then, everything that had happened came rushing back. Whatever had been in that shot that woman had given him had done a number on his equilibrium. Among other things.

  Where was he? Squinting, he tried to make out his surroundings. Sore and nauseated, he realized they’d taken him back to his small cell down in the basement.

  “Jake, are you okay?” Fiona’s voice, sounding as if it was coming from the cell next to him, which most likely meant he was hallucinating, too.

  “Jake?” Her voice broke as she tried again. “Please, answer me.”

  He frowned, not sure if what he heard was genuine or a product of his drug-addled imagination. “Fiona? Is that really you? What are you doing down here?”

  “It’s me,” she replied. “And they locked me up right after they beat the crap out of you. I’ve been trying forever to wake you up.”

  It took him a moment to process her words. Locked up. Fiona had been put into a cell, too. His gut clenched.

  “I was so afraid they’d killed you,” she continued. “Especially when you wouldn’t respond no matter how many times I called your name.”

  “They drugged me. Not sure with what. How long was I out?” He glanced around, taking in the off-color artificial lighting. “I imagine it’s hard to tell time down here.”

  “It is. The lack of natural lighting makes it impossible to even guess if it’s day or night.” She sighed. “Still, I’d have to say you were unconscious for several hours. What did the nurse say? How do you feel?”

  He told her everything that had occurred while he was up in the sick bay, or whatever they called it here.

  “Micheline came to see me,” she said. “She’s decided not to go with the fake-baby plan after all. She says she has someone inside Colton Oil who is going to tell them that I’ve convinced you to join in on the mass suicide. She’ll offer to stop the scheme if they wire ten million dollars to an offshore account.”

  “Ten million?” He winced. “That’s a lot of money. And why is she making you out to be the bad guy in all of this?”

  “My cover is blown. She wants to make damn sure the Coltons won’t want to rescue me. She even said something about making me be the first one to die.”

  Heart racing, he cursed. “We’ve got to get you out of here.”

  “My ankle is broken,” she said, her voice steady, which made him love her even more. “They won’t let me have any medical attention, so even if I could unlock this cell door and crawl my way up the stairs, I’d be moving so slow even a grandmother with a walker could catch me. I’m pretty sure escaping is out of the question.”

  “Then what?” he asked. “What’s the plan?”

  “I don’t have one,” she finally admitted. “Of course, I’d love it if the FBI magically realized I was in trouble, but honestly, by the time that happens, it will be too late. The Gathering for Rebirth is Friday.”

  “How many days?” he asked.

  “Two.”

  “Two days?” Horrified, he tried to push past the mind fog from whatever drug they’d given him.

  “Yes. And they’ve got something like seventy-five people signed up. My only hope is Leigh. She came down here to question me after Micheline. Leigh’s gullible and a bit naive. I pushed her to really think about what she was doing. Though she still denies that she’s involved in a cult, I’m hoping she’ll take a long look at what’s going on and figure it out.”

  In another cell, someone started to laugh, a raspy, wheezing sound that quickly turned into a breath-choking cough.

  “That’s Underhill,” Fiona explained. “The guy who was beating up the college student. Apparently, Micheline locked him up here and he got sick.”

  “Really sick,” Underhill clarified, in between bouts of gasping for air. “I think I have pneumonia. In fact, I’ll probably be dead before she even gets a chance to force me to drink her poison.”

  “I believe him,” Fiona said quietly. “He sounds pretty ill. And that poor woman in the back cell. I wouldn’t be surprised if she isn’t already gone.”

  Jake felt in his pants pockets. No phone. Of course they’d taken it.

  “There’s no cell service down here anyway,” Fiona said when he told her. “Believe me, I tried. If I could have called out, the FBI would already be storming the place.”

  Still trying to clear the last of the cobwebs from his brain, he thought for a moment. “There’s got to be a way out of here,” he finally said, wondering why he seemed to be slurring his words. “We’ve simply got to come up with a plan.”

  Fiona didn’t respond. He could guess what she must be thinking. They were both injured, and even if they could figure out a way to unlock their cells, they wouldn’t get very far.

  While he knew Fiona well enough to know she’d put up a hell of a fight when they came for her, that broken ankle would hinder her abilities.

  A wave of dizziness hit him, so strong he had to close his eyes and lower his head in case he passed out.

  He must have briefly lost consciousness, because the next thing he heard was Fiona’s voice, once again calling his name. He tried opening his mouth to answer, but he couldn’t get his vocal cords to respond. Instead he found himself sliding back to the dark oblivion. He wanted to fight but didn’t seem to be able to summon up enough strength.

  * * *

  Despite Jake’s worrying lack of response to her requests for him to answer her, Fiona refused to give up hope. Most likely, whatever drugs they’d injected into Jake were causing his lapses from consciousness. She refused to consider the very real possibility that the severity of his head injury might be the cause. She knew head wounds were prone to bleeding a lot, so Jake’s definitely could have looked worse than it actually was.

  They were in dire straits, but she had to believe they’d make it out. She wasn’t about to die, not now, especially not at the hand of a narcissistic psychopath like Micheline. Holden would try to reach her and when he couldn’t, realize something was wrong.

  Time locked up in her cell passed slowly, but her best guesstimate would be that at least one day had passed since they’d brought back an unconscious Jake. He seemed lucid now, though he still slept a lot, which worried her. From what she’d been able to see, he’d received some sort of head injury, and with a lack of any real competent medical attention, that could go south fast.

 
At least her ankle had stopped swelling, though the pain remained at an eight out of ten. She could only hope moving around on the broken bone didn’t make it worse, but since she had little choice, she kept it off the floor as much as she could.

  At least Micheline had put little toilets and sinks in the corner of each cell. Trying not to think of what might be on the floor, Fiona crawled back there only when strictly necessary. Mostly, she lay with her back to the wall, facing the front of her cell, so she could at least be ready whenever they came for her.

  As if she’d summoned someone, the door finally opened. Luckily, it was Randall rather than Bart. As usual, he seemed awkward and uncomfortable, barely able to make even the smallest bit of eye contact.

  “T-minus twenty-seven,” he announced to no one in particular.

  Twenty-seven what? Hours?

  “Are you talking about the mass suicide?” Fiona asked, deciding to be direct rather than talking in euphemisms.

  Randall flinched. “Wow. I’m not sure I’d call it that, but yeah. The Gathering for Rebirth is in twenty-seven hours.”

  “Are you going to take part in it, too, Randall?” Fiona asked, holding on to the bars as she struggled to stand. She finally managed to get up, using only her uninjured leg, keeping the broken ankle up off the floor.

  He didn’t answer. Still avoiding eye contact, he busied himself with checking some storage bins on a long, metal table.

  “You don’t seem to be the gullible type,” Fiona pressed. “More of a thinking man, at least that’s how I see you. Why would you want to ingest poison, just because some egotistical blowhard of a woman told you to?”

  Randall snapped his head up at that. “Don’t talk about Micheline like that,” he ordered. “She’s a good person.”

  “Is she? Are you aware that she doesn’t even intend to be anywhere near here when all her poor followers die? She’ll be hoofing it to the Caribbean, along with the ten million dollars she asked the Coltons to wire her.”

  “What?” Randall blinked. “No, you’re wrong. She’s going to pass out the elixir herself. She told me so.”