Authors: Kelley Armstrong
So we played cards. And chatted. And curled up under the blankets together to rest.
When a guard came again, hours later, it wasn’t the same one. He wasn’t even wearing the same uniform, just standard-issue Nast security garb. When he approached our cell, he lifted a finger to his lips before we could speak, then waved us over close to the bars.
“Sean sent me,” he whispered. “He doesn’t dare come himself—his uncle has men watching for him. He’s in Miami with Bryce. I’m going to take you to him.”
When we hesitated, he said, “Sean says you both owe him now and that means he’s never riding Trixie again.”
Adam laughed. Trixie was an old nag at a ranch we liked in Colorado. The last time we were there, they’d sold the horse Sean usually rode, and he’d wanted to flip coins to see who had to ride Trixie. We’d refused. It wasn’t something anyone else would know about.
The guard unlocked the door. “Hurry. Captain Kaufman is waiting for you.”
As we stepped out, a voice floated from the next cell. “You’ll remember me, won’t you?”
“I will,” I said and stopped at his cell. “I’ll tell Jeremy you’re in here. He’ll do something about it.”
Miguel had moved back into the shadows. But as dark as this place was, my eyes had grown accustomed to the dim light, and I could see him plainly. Judging the age of a werewolf is a tricky thing. The man in the cell looked about the guard’s age—late forties, early fifties. His dark hair was barely shot with silver. He was an inch or so shorter than me, broad-shouldered with a muscular build. Blue eyes, but an average blue, nothing outstanding. I supposed he would be considered good-looking for his age, but I found it hard to see that, because I knew who this man was. Not Miguel Santos.
“Did I mention I used to spend summers at Stonehaven?” I said.
His lips twisted in a sardonic smile. “I find that hard to believe, my dear. The Pack does not—”
“They don’t like outsiders. A twelve-year-old friend of the family isn’t so bad, though, as long as she knows her place and treats them with respect. That’s one thing Clay made sure I knew. Treat Stonehaven and everyone in it with respect. I screwed that up once.”
“We need to
move,
” the guard whispered.
I continued, “There’s this bedroom, see. A locked bedroom. It’s the twins’ room now, but when I was growing up, it was always locked and when I asked what was in it, everyone changed the subject. So one day I used an unlock spell and broke in. Clay caught me. Gave me proper hell. But he did tell me whose room it was. He didn’t really need to, because I saw photos in that room and I figured it out. Do you know who I saw in those photos?”
The man said nothing, but his gaze settled on me and in that gaze I saw something colder than any glower from Josef Nast. It took me a second to find my voice. When I did, I leaned against the bars and whispered, “I saw
you
. And no, Malcolm, I will not tell Jeremy you are here.”
*
I asked the guard—Curry as he introduced himself—if my mother was down here. He said no, and he didn’t know where she was, but that Sean’s men were searching for her.
He led us down the corridor into an empty room with chairs and desks and an ancient refrigerator and microwave.
“The guards?” I whispered.
“Only one on duty. He was called from his post.”
I arched my brows. “It’s that easy?”
“To call him from his post, yes, because even if a prisoner does manage to get out, there’s no place to go except up—straight into Nast headquarters.”
“Seriously? We’re in the basement? How do they hide this?”
“It’s not just a basement.” Curry opened a door and ushered us into a long hall with rusty pipes overhead. “Do you smell the water? Best construction in the world can’t make this place any drier. Ninety-five percent of folks up top don’t know these cells exist. Another four percent were told it was closed down twenty years ago. That’s what Sean heard, too.”
“He never checked?” Adam said. That seemed odd for Sean. At one time, yes, he preferred to bury his head in the sand. That had changed, though.
“He probably did,” Curry said. “I know I did. But the old doors are all sealed. They made a new one. A hidden door from the processing room. Prisoners go in to be processed and sent to one of the prison complexes and then …”
“They’re misplaced,” I muttered. “Through a chute in the floor.”
“Something like that. Point is—” He opened another door and led us into what looked like a storage room. “The only way out is right through the middle of security central. And there’s no way to bribe or disable that many guards.”
“So how will we—?”
As we walked into the room, Captain Kaufman stepped from behind a wire rack stacked with boxes. He extended his hand. I shook it and introduced him to Adam.
“You did meet,” I said. “But you were unconscious at the time.”
“My apologies for that,” Kaufman said. “Those men weren’t part of my team. That isn’t how we do things.” He waved toward the cells. “
This
isn’t how we do things.”
“It’s how Josef Nast does things. And I’m betting Thomas knows this place is down here, too.”
Kaufman shifted uncomfortably. Even if he was loyal to my brother, he wouldn’t disparage the man who was still in charge.
“Just get us out of here,” Adam said.
Kaufman and Curry led us into more storage. No metal racks and neat wooden boxes here. This was a hole in the ground, stuffed with rotting crates and stinking of dead rats.
“Let me guess,” I said. “There’s a secret passage in here, right through the sewers.”
Kaufman flicked on his vest light. Curry did the same. I started to cast a light-ball spell then stopped. I could see fine by their lights.
Kaufman stopped in front of a door. A big, metal door, right there, plain as day. Beside it, a security scanner was set into the concrete wall.
“That’s a lousy secret hatch,” I said.
“It’s not a secret. Not to anyone who works down here.”
“Then how—?”
Kaufman took my hand and pulled it toward the box.
“Fingers outstretched please, Miss Nast.”
My hand went into the box. A mechanical whir. Something tapped my thumb. Then—
“Yow!” I yanked my hand out. My fingertip was bleeding. “If it requires virgin blood, you’ve got the wrong girl.”
Kaufman just stood there, ramrod straight, watching the door. I glanced at Curry. He was puffing softly, anxiety building to panic as we waited for …
Another whir. Then a clank. A green light flashed over the door. Kaufman grabbed the handle. As he glanced back at me, his gaze went to Curry, who looked ready to piss his pants with relief.
“I’m sorry, sir.” Curry looked at me. “I’m sorry, miss. I didn’t mean … I’m sorry.”
Kaufman pulled open the door as Adam murmured, “Nast blood.”
I shot him a puzzled glance as we walked through.
“The door lock,” Adam said. “It’s some kind of DNA reader.”
“It’s an escape route for the family,” Kaufman said as he prodded us along.
A door that would only open to those with Nast DNA. That’s why Curry had been worried. He hadn’t been certain I really was Sean’s sister, only that Sean himself believed it.
Speaking of which, “So there’s an escape route for the family that my brothers don’t know about? That doesn’t help them, does it?”
“They’d be told if the situation required it,” Kaufman said.
Yes, but it proved where Thomas Nast’s priorities lay. Better to keep the top-secret jail a top secret from anyone who might argue against it, even if that meant possibly denying his grandsons access to an emergency escape.
On the other side of the door, lights flicked on automatically as we walked. God forbid a Nast should need to carry a flash-light. Or learn a witch’s light-ball spell.
There was no stench of dead rat here. No dripping concrete walls or mud floor either. It wasn’t exactly a state-of-the-art
jetway, but it was clean, sterile even, a long metal tube with railings on either side as the floor gradually sloped upward.
We walked quickly, footsteps echoing, lights flashing off in our wake.
“Where does it come out?” I asked.
Kaufman didn’t answer.
“You don’t know, do you?”
“I knew nothing about the lower prison cells, let alone this escape route. Curry had been to the cells, but he didn’t know about this either. Your brother had to … persuade a retired architect to part with the plans. He didn’t have a hard copy, of course, but his memory was good.”
Or Sean made it good. Bribery or threats. Sean’s a carrot guy, but you can’t rise to his position without learning to use the stick, too.
Curry had said that Sean was in Miami, with Bryce. When he’d learned of our arrest, he would have called Thomas right away. There would have been some back-and-forth as Thomas claimed to know nothing about the operation, until finally he’d have said “Oh, right,
that
operation. I haven’t heard back from Josef yet.” A few hours would pass, then Thomas would confirm that we’d been taken. A lawful arrest. We were being brought to Nast headquarters, where the Cortezes could meet the Nasts to discuss the matter.
But before Sean or any Cortez got on the plane … Hmm, there seems to have been a processing problem. We weren’t where we were supposed to be. We’d be found, of course, in time. You can’t misplace prisoners. Not for long anyway.
The growing rasp of Adam’s breathing told me he was finding this long uphill trek tough. By the time we made it to the top, he looked ready to keel over.
“Give us a sec,” I said.
“I’m fine,” Adam said. “I can rest when we’re safe.”
The exit door had another blood tester. It opened for me, too, and we came out in a room that looked so much like the entry point that I almost wondered if this was yet another diabolical twist of engineering—make it seem like you’re climbing to freedom, only to put you back where you began. Even Kaufman stood there, gaping around, until Adam tried to push past and the officer resumed the lead with a gruff, “Allow me, sir.”
As we stepped from the secured passage, Kaufman and Curry took out their guns. It seemed odd, seeing weapons in the hands of supernaturals, but I suppose it was our way that was truly odd—the archaic refusal to use anything but supernatural powers. Guns would stop an attacker faster. More permanently, too, which may be why most of us clung to the old ways.
We crossed the room, expecting to find an exit. There wasn’t one, and we kept circling, only to end up right back where we began.
“Um, sir …” Curry said.
“There
is
an exit,” I said. “We just need to find it. Since the room is obviously empty, I say it’s safe to split up. Adam? Sit.”
He lifted his eyebrows. I took his arm, led him to a sturdy crate, and whispered, “Please. Before you fall over.”
He listened. Playing tough guy was fine if it kept us on the move. It wouldn’t be so fine if we had to make a difficult escape and he collapsed.
As the officers scoured the walls for hidden doors, I turned my gaze upward. The ceiling was at least twelve feet from the floor. I cast a light ball and scanned the darkness overhead. Sure enough, there was a trapdoor.
“They aren’t making this easy, are they?” Adam said as he peered up at it.
Curry shook his head. “It can’t be that difficult. Thomas Nast isn’t a young man.”
I walked over and cleared the old crates and boxes obviously left to make this look like a storage room. Only when I moved my light ball right to the wall did I see rungs.
Kaufman wanted to go up first, but this was where supernatural power trumped firepower. I could cast my sensing spell at the top and make sure all was clear. Or I could if the spell worked. I didn’t tell him that part.
I climbed. Then I cast. I could pick up the faint pulse of life. Faint meant distant. No one was right above us.
I tested the trap door. Below, Kaufman reached up to tap my ankle—he wanted to go first. I was only making sure the door didn’t need an unlock spell. It didn’t, so I let the guy with the gun go ahead of me.
Once Kaufman reached the top, he cracked the hatch open, then slowly lifted it. Curry had his gun raised with one hand, the other flexing beside it, ready to activate some half-demon power—ice, fire, maybe telekinesis. He didn’t need to. The room above us was clear. Kaufman climbed through, then waved for Curry to come next, so he could stand guard while Kaufman helped us out.
I went last—I wanted to be beneath Adam, in case he lost his footing. He didn’t. He went up and through, and so did I, coming out in …
Another storage room—of some kind of fast-food restaurant, the wire racks around us stocked with boxes of cups and napkins.
Adam pulled a bag from an open box. “After thirty-six hours without caffeine, I’m thinking maybe I’ll take this along.”
It was coffee beans, marked with the logo of a California chain. Reading the label on another box, I ripped it open and tossed him a tiny bag.
“Try those.”
“Chocolate-covered coffee beans. Even better.”
We let Kaufman and Curry case the room. We didn’t quite see the point. It was roughly twelve feet square. The hatch had been under a section of tile that lifted when we came out, then seamlessly settled back in place. There was only one door.
That was all just a little too simple for the security guys, who apparently had to make sure there weren’t booby traps waiting to blow up a hapless barista.
“It’s a coffee shop, guys,” I said. “I can sense people outside. Patrons. Drinking coffee. If I listen carefully, I can even hear them talking. As for why the Nast top-secret executive escape hatch exits into a coffee shop …”
“They own the chain,” Kaufman said.
“Seriously? No wonder Sean always takes me to these. Cheapskate.”
Kaufman shushed me politely, then listened at the door.
“Lot of patrons for this hour,” Kaufman said.
“There’s a show gets out at midnight around the corner,” Curry said. “They come here for coffee and dessert. I had to wait twenty minutes for a coffee on my midnight break last week.”