“Did you see a staircase in here anywhere?” When she looked confused, he added, “I thought maybe he might have the women kept under this place.”
Doubtfully, she looked around. I don’t think so. When I escaped and ran up those stone steps I was outside. I think…” Her gaze fixed on the enclosure next to them with its padded walls. “I think that might be his boot camp. And I know someone is in there. Thirteen, he called her. He said…tonight. We’d all be together tonight.”
Jude went to the door of the space. Instead of a doorknob it had a keyless entry. He drew a quick mental blueprint. The section of space they were standing in was L-shaped but small, the area taken up mostly by the cupboards, counter and the vessel he’d found Mia in. The way the next room jutted out it almost seemed as though it was barely an alcove. But there had to be an additional space inside it that was at least forty feet by ten.
“Can you get her out?”
“I don’t know.” He went over and scrutinized the padding on the wall. Slid his hand beneath it. “Concrete. The whole back wall is, so I imagine that these interior ones back here are, too.” He pulled out his phone to call Hunter. Noticed he’d missed a text a couple minutes ago. Likely when he was lifting Mia out of that sick bastard’s torture chamber. He read the message. Froze.
He’s coming.
Springing into action he hurried her out of the room with one arm clamped across her back. “Quick. He’s on his way.” He felt the sudden violent shudder that went through her as he rushed her across the garage floor to the gap he’d cut in the wall. Davis would pay. Dearly. But not until Jude was sure Mia was safe.
They heard a slight noise. A shoe on gravel, just outside the side door. “Get down and crawl through there. Head north, left, and run like hell. Hunter’s in the tall grass beyond the yard. Hurry!”
She crouched down to crawl through it. Hesitated. Turning, she rose to grab his arm, her voice insistent. “You’ll come right after me?”
“I will. Go!”
But she was barely through the hole when the side door pushed open. Jude had a split second to make a decision. And turned to face the man that was entering.
Anthony Davis took several steps inside before he stopped. Caught sight of the opening to his hidden room and his jaw dropped. “No!” His voice was anguished. Enraged. He started toward it. Noticed Jude.
“Yes.” He stepped away from the wall, saw Davis’ gaze go to the area he’d cut out of it. “You do have the damnedest time hanging on to her.”
“What have you done with Eleven?” The anguish was gone, leaving pure fury in the man’s tone.
“Mia.” Jude gritted the word as he stalked toward him. “Her name is Mia, you sick fuck. The only time you’ll see her again is when she’s testifying against you. But before things get that far, you answer to me.”
“You think I’m afraid of you? You? With your chewed up face, scuttling around stealing other people’s possessions?” Davis took two quick steps to the workbench. Grabbed a crowbar that was hanging above it. “I’ll smash your skull and go back to my party. Tell everyone I walked in on you as you killed Sullivan after he kidnapped the girl for you, then turned on me.”
Jude glanced at the car, realization blooming. “He’s in the trunk?”
Davis smiled. Came closer, hefting the instrument threateningly. “Where you put him. The two of you planned to frame me. You broke in to allow him inside.”
“Nice try.” He scanned the area for a weapon. Davis held the most lethal one. He went to the opposite wall and took down a spade. Cocked it like a bat and stepped toward the other man. “How do you expect to counter Mia’s version of events?” The rage drumming through him turned to ice. “The way you tried to drown her.” While Jude watched from afar wondering what the hell the man had been doing in the garage. A fist of guilt clenched in his chest.
“No one will listen to Eleven.” He came near enough for a practice swing, dancing away when Jude stabbed at him with the shovel. “The didn’t believe her last time. She has no credibility.” Davis swung the crowbar and connected with the handle that Jude held horizontally to take the blow. The vibration from the connection thrummed through the wood. He switched positions to swing it at the other man and caught him in the shoulder with the metal blade. Smiled at his exclamation of pain. “You’ve got a heavier weapon, but shorter reach.” They circled, each looking for an opening. Parrying. “You’re going to have to get closer than that.”
“Am I?” Davis swung again then backed up a few steps. “I like my odds.”
Jude’s gaze went to the opening in the wall behind him. The other man was positioning himself to make a run for it, he realized. “Maybe you’ve got another weapon inside there. In case you need to protect yourself from the women you’ve tortured for years.”
“Taught.” The man punctuated the word with a swing that Jude warded off. “Perfected. They are thankful for being selected. There’s not one who will say otherwise.” Unexpectedly he launched the crowbar at Jude and he ducked. It missed his head and slammed into his shoulder. Shockwaves of pain eddied down his arm. He launched himself at Davis, still carrying the shovel. The man scrambled for something in a box on the shelf. Then turned, a gun aimed at Jude’s midsection.
He skidded to a halt. Backed up.
“I think you’ll agree the odds are in my favor.” Davis stalked toward him.
Time slowed. Jude’s training in close combat situations clicked in. There were handgun disarm techniques, but the timing was crucial. The move dangerous. “The question is, do you know how to use it?” He inched closer as he said the words.
“Want to find out? Get on your knees. Now. Now!”
“Okay, take it easy.” Slowly he started to a kneeling position. Davis was following his movement closely. “Don’t sho—” Jude lunged forward, grabbing for the man’s wrist at the same time Davis pulled the trigger.
* * * *
The shot echoed across the grass. Some of the party guests turned. Others fled behind the house. Mia and Hunter had been running across the tall grass beyond the garage, away from the property. The sound halted her in her tracks. She jerked around. “Jude.”
Hunter stopped, too. He was bare-chested, having given his shirt to Mia, and his jaw clenched as he looked behind him. Then after a fraction of a moment, he put his arm around her and propelled her forward. “He’s fine.” She heard the lie in his words. “My job is to get you out of here.”
Twisting away she spun and sped back the direction they’d come. He hadn’t followed her. Hadn’t gotten away and now… Panic fueled her feet, gave them wings. He had to be all right. Had to be had to be had to be…
A force nearly knocked her off her feet before two hard hands gripped her. “You’re not going back there.” Distant sirens sounded. Moments later they were followed by the flash of strobes. The lights were visible before the police cars could be seen coming fast down the ribbon of road in front of the property. “You have to go back for him,” she told Hunter beseechingly. “He’s you friend! He could be…” Her brain reared away from completing the thought.
“You’re my job right now.” But the man’s face was grim as he changed position and led her toward the ditch where they could hail one of the cruisers. And nothing Mia saw in his expression countered the sick twist of dread that was welling inside her.
…you and I will just be beginning…
There was an insidious fear spreading through her system that his promised beginning was never going to materialize.
* * * *
The scene at the Davis house was chaos. Mia stared out the window of the cruiser at the mob of people clogging the drive. Some were attempting to get in their cars, but two police cars strategically blocked the end of the drive. Mia searched in vain for some sign of Jude. Didn’t see him.
She opened the door and got out. “Mia.” Hunter was one pace behind her, his hand on her arm.
“No!” She whirled on him then, her tone fierce. “The police are on scene and you don’t get to try and stop me. I’m warning you, Hunter. I will hurt you.”
His gaze went beyond her. He raised his hands in surrender. “You win.” He smiled. “I guess he can handle you from here.”
Spinning, she looked in the direction of his gaze and her heart flipped. This time when she took off running, Hunter didn’t try to stop her.
The police did. She dodged one who was securing the outer perimeter. Didn’t make it past the next. She struggled in the man’s grasp, drinking in the sheer joy that was Jude. On his feet. Unscathed. His expression was sober as he talked to a policeman.
Until he saw her. His gaze went intense. He strode away from the officer, who called after him, his strides eating up the distance across the lawn. He broke into a trot. Mia calmed in the officer’s grasp until the man loosened his grip. Then she pulled away to race across the grass toward Jude.
The tears running down her face felt foreign. But his arms were familiar. And when they closed around her to hold her close, it felt like coming home.
* * * *
The victim Davis had held in the room he’d used as boot camp had been rescued right away. But it had taken another day to find the spot where the other women were imprisoned, because The Collector wasn’t talking. And right now, three days after the arrest, watching the video of that scene was enough to have nausea churning.
The property had been in the Davis family for generations. The original ranch house had once graced the acres. The local history archives described what a showplace the property had been, with one of the few underground barns in the country. It had once been attached by tunnel to the house so the family didn’t have to go outside for chores in the harsh Nebraska winters. Nearly one hundred years later the house was gone. And the buried barn had become a playground for a madman.
“He’s a sick son-of-a-bitch, but ingenious.” Police investigator Dale Carter watched the video with them. “See this structure directly over it? It houses the water and electrical connections. Mrs. Davis claimed Anthony built the place as a hunting cabin, but there’s barely space for the utility hookups inside.” He sent a quick glance to Mia. “If this is too difficult…”
Jude’s hand reached for hers under the table. Interlaced their fingers. “No.” She’d watch it through, squelching the memories the scene evoked. “If it was once a barn, how did the animals get in and out?”
The man fast-forwarded to shots of the exits. One had two big double doors that looked like an entrance into the back side of the hill. There had been no sign of them in the barn. Davis must have sheet rocked over them when he’d built the shower and the discipline storeroom.
“Here’s the exit you would have escaped from.” She squeezed Jude’s hand as the next part of the film showed a large door fitted at a slant into the front of the slope. “That isn’t the original door or frame. You can see that this was custom made.” Another shot showed it lying next to the yawning stairway. “He put in deep panels that would hold soil and used them for planters. So when it’s closed it looks just like the rest of the pasture. You can’t tell that the door is even there until you’re right on top of it.”
It’d been unsecured but heavy when she’d run up those steps. He hadn’t gone back to lock it. Why bother when the interior door was secured? She could watch all of the footage on the computer with an almost clinical detachment until they got to the part where the women were being led up those stairs. Traveling the same path Mia had taken five and a half years ago.
A sob caught in her chest, and she swallowed hard, beating back emotion. She watched them ascend that stairway one at a time, each wrapped in a blanket. Mia saw familiar faces. Some she didn’t know. All shielded their eyes when they reached the bright sunlight they hadn’t seen for years.
“Is Davis talking yet?” she asked.
Carter’s mouth twisted. “That’s not going to happen. He’s got some fancy LA defense attorney burying us in paperwork. Doesn’t matter. Thanks to you two we had a good idea of where to start looking. There’s enough to convict the guy.”
“Explain the Eldon Weale connection to me.” Jude’s question gave her an excuse to take her gaze off that video, even while she felt like a coward for doing so.
Carter leaned back in his chair. “Had the Jackson Hole police pick him up but when we served the warrant on his two houses, we didn’t find anything that led us to believe he knew anything about these women being held.”
“He received the shipments for the drugs used on them,” Jude interjected. “Had a mail drop in another state to do so.”
“Yes, and we found a shipment still waiting for pick up when we went to check it out. We found plenty of other stuff, too.” The sergeant shook his head in wonder. “I mean, here we have these two guys living in town and we have no indication of what’s going on beneath our noses. Davis was using the credit cards he took from some of his victims and buying items online before they were cancelled. Then Weale repackaged them to sell on eBay. Eldon admits he thought Davis was possibly using client information to run a scam, but I guess as long as he got the extra cut he didn’t ask questions.” Jude snorted and the man gave a wry grin. “Yeah, it’s weak but that’s his attorney’s problem. We’ll keep poking at him, especially once we get the records from his mail drop.”
“The card use would have muddied the waters for investigators looking for the missing women.” At least it had for hers, she’d been told. “I think he might have tipped off paparazzi in my case, claimed to have partied with me in Vegas or LA.” And the tabloids had aired the stories with their usual lack of compunction for facts.
He leaned forward to open a file folder and push it toward Mia. “This is a photo of a map we found in Anthony’s office.”
She picked the picture up and stared at it. And knew without being told what the numbers on it meant. When Jude saw it he glanced at her, concern in his expression. She gave him a tiny shake of her head. She was all right. Finally.