Kevin opened the door and swung the light in both directions. Finding no sign of Prescott, he dashed back to the other room. He didn’t hesitate. He sprinted toward the cages. “Dylan.”
Dylan continued staring at the ceiling for a moment. He blinked and slowly looked around. “Kevin?” His voice was raspy.
“I’m getting you out of here.” Kevin tucked the flashlight into the waistband of his jeans and grabbed the bars of the cage. He gave a good shake, trying to find the opening, a latch, something. The bars were welded together. There were no screws or other connectors, but there had to be an opening. Murmurs started beside him as the other men became aware of Kevin’s presence.
“Help us,” came a low voice.
Kevin got a look at the others. All were naked, battered, but alive. “I’m getting all of you out of here.” He faced Dylan. “Right now.”
Dylan gave him a slight smile. Not like the ones from when Kevin had first met him, but somehow more beautiful than any he’d seen before.
Kevin backed up and examined the cage.
“Here.” Dylan stood and pointed to a latch on the side. A lock held it closed.
“Keys?”
“In his pocket. He takes them with him, but he has another set he’s used before. I think he keeps them here, but I don’t know where.”
Kevin spotted a shelving unit. He searched the shelves but found nothing except several neatly stacked piles of clothes, each topped with a pair of shoes. He moved on to the workbench and scanned for the keys or a tool he could use on the lock.
An assortment of knives and clamps covered the table. All clean and lined neatly in rows. He threw open a wooden box. Condoms, lubricant, and dildos.
He couldn’t think too hard about anything he was seeing.
At the far end of the bench was an open toolbox with a hammer, pliers, and a screwdriver. Kevin snatched the screwdriver and returned to the cage with Dylan. He tried prying the lock apart. It wouldn’t budge, and the screwdriver was too large to attempt picking the lock.
Dylan spoke, his voice sounding more animated and stronger than when he’d first said Kevin’s name. “He has a room over there where he sleeps and where he takes us to go to the bathroom.” A door was tucked in the back corner behind the shelves.
“I’ll be right back.” Kevin handed Dylan the screwdriver. “In case he catches me before I get you out. The next time he comes near you, gouge his eyes out or something.”
“Okay.” Dylan gripped the handle of the screwdriver in his fist. “I will.”
Kevin went to the other door. He shone the flashlight inside. A small room, with a cot, a toilet, and a table that held several computers and other electronic equipment. All fairly normal except for…
The hundreds and hundreds of clippings and pictures tacked to the walls. Exterior and interior shots of the Haven. Printouts from Vargas’s records. Shipping schedules, liquor orders, lists of companies the club worked with, including the linen delivery service.
More photos on the next wall. Disturbing shots of the captured men from before and after Prescott had taken them.
But none of the men were in as many photos as who was featured on the last wall.
Kevin. Photos from in his apartment, more at Walter’s place and at the Haven. More than one picture had Walter at his side, a hole gouged right through the paper where Walter’s face had been.
That snapped Kevin out of it. He shone the flashlight over the desk and found a key ring with several keys. He grabbed the ring and raced into the other room.
At the sight of him, Dylan closed his eyes and huffed out a sigh of relief.
“Hurry,” another man said. Aaron Benton. The last man who’d been abducted before Dylan. He and the other three men were standing up in the cages as best as they could with the limited available height, holding on to the bars, tracking Kevin’s every move.
Kevin tried the keys one by one on Dylan’s lock. The third turned. He popped open the lock and left Dylan to work it off while he continued on with the keys to the next cage. A minute later they were all free. Dylan nabbed the shoes and pants from the shelves, passed them out to the others as he said, “There was another guy with us. Seth. Someone took him away, and we haven’t seen him since.”
“Vargas found him. He’s in the hospital.”
“He’s alive?”
“He is.” Kevin strode for the door. “Let’s get out of here.”
“Wait,” Dylan called out. “We need the code.”
“What code?”
“I ran from him once. The door leading upstairs is locked by a security system. You need an access code to get out of the basement. Plus he told me even if I got upstairs, I couldn’t get out of this building. Every exit’s locked the same way.”
“I didn’t need a code to get down here.” Kevin knew what that meant before he’d even finished speaking the words. Prescott had expected him to get out of the van and follow. He’d left the door open for Kevin. When Prescott came back into the room, he would know Kevin was there. How were they going to…
“The tunnels. There’s a hole in the floor right before the basement door.”
“I didn’t see a hole,” Dylan said.
“It was covered up when I got here but it’s not anymore. There’s a ladder leading down into some tunnels. We can get out of the building that way.” Kevin spun around and headed for the door. Only…
The door was closed. He didn’t remember shutting it when he’d entered the room. He tried the doorknob.
Locked.
From behind him Dylan whispered, “There’s no other way out of this room.”
Chapter Thirty-Two
Walter tucked the GLOCK into the back of his waistband and maneuvered the chair into place. It took some effort to get the access door leading to the shaft open and to heft himself up and onto the top of the elevator car, but the adrenaline surging through him helped him manage it in no time.
The shaft was dark. Some light came up through the open panel of the car, but not enough to get a good look around. He pulled out his phone and used the light from the display as a flashlight. Beside him a rope was tied to a metal bar that ran the width of the elevator. He followed the length of it to the far corner where the rope lay in a loose pile. Next to it sat a portable pulley system. Prescott must’ve used the rope and pulley to drag his unconscious victims up through the opening.
But even with the pulley system, how had Prescott gotten down past the elevator car? No matter what floor he was on when he climbed out the top, he’d have to somehow get past the bulk of the car to get to the basement level of the elevator shaft.
Walter stood and searched the closest wall. No space to use the pulley system alongside the car. No access ladder. No way to scale down the side. Several cables ran vertically down the shaft wall. He gripped each cable in his hand as he inspected it. The last one wasn’t a cable but a rope painted black to blend in with the others. It continued up toward the floors above and then down alongside the car. Walter yanked on the rope. It had been secured somewhere in the darkness above. He held on and lifted off his feet, testing his weight.
He continued his search along the wall. Not far from the rope, in one corner of the shaft, there was a large, square notch, leaving a generous gap between the wall and the car. Even a man the size of Prescott had probably fit. Most likely he’d lowered his unconscious victim down through the opening first, then followed.
Walter peered into the space below. Nothing but a black abyss beneath the car. He couldn’t climb down and hold his phone. He stashed it in his pocket, double-checked that the GLOCK was still tucked in his waistband, and clasped the rope. The light from the open door on top of the elevator car grew faint with each shift farther down the rope. Darkness engulfed him as he moved past the car.
He continued until his feet found solid ground. Despite the air circulation built into the elevator shaft, this far down, it smelled dank and earthy.
He got out his phone and turned on the display. A sheet of plywood lay flush with the floor in the opposite corner. A mound of dirt and chunks of debris were piled beside it like someone had jackhammered their way through the concrete. He pulled up the plywood, revealing an opening several feet wide that went straight down.
He had no idea what he’d find the minute he climbed through the opening or how far down the drop was, but he couldn’t waste any time.
After he had the phone tucked away, Walter braced his hands on each side of the hole and lowered himself into it. He dropped to a dirt floor and reached for the GLOCK without delay. Using the phone as a flashlight again, he scanned the area around him, the gun at the ready.
He was alone in a dank room filled with aged wooden shelves and dusty bottles of booze.
He raced across the room to the lone exit, a locked steel door. Obviously a recent addition given the age of its surroundings. The handle had a push-button security lock. He backed up and gave a good kick beside the lock with the heel of his shoe. No luck.
He got a better look. A commercial-grade door that opened inward. Not impossible to break down, but it’d be tough.
Nonremovable hinge pins. A keyless mechanical digital lock with keypad that required a code to unlock the door from either side. Pickproof and bumpproof. He couldn’t randomly try numbers. Too many combinations. Besides, most of these locks were designed to automatically disable if a wrong code was entered multiple times in a row.
He dialed his phone while he searched the room for something to use on the lock or the door.
Skipping formalities, Vargas answered in a whisper. “The police are here.”
“Gibson?” Walter asked.
“No. Detective Ulrich.”
Henderson’s partner.
“He’s locked down the club and has a slew of uniformed cops with him. They’re searching for you. They found that cop Henderson. He was murdered. They say—”
“That I did it. Did you tell them where I was?”
“No. I didn’t think you’d want them to find you just now. But if you need their help—”
“No.” Walter couldn’t get arrested. They might not search for Kevin right away. They might not believe him that the tunnel to access Prescott was on the other side of the door to the room he now stood in.
“Where are Gibson and Tucker?” he asked Vargas.
“They were here, but the detective isn’t letting anyone in. Not even Gibson.”
Walter kept his gaze locked on the closed steel door before him. It was all up to him now.
* * * *
Kevin stared at the door of Prescott’s prison and tried not to panic. He needed to think. What would Walter do?
“Do you have a plan?” Dylan asked.
Kevin faced him. All five men were staring at him, waiting. Aaron had a firm grasp on his tennis shoes in both hands. Dylan had the screwdriver clasped in his.
Yeah, a plan would’ve been a good idea.
The whistling seeped in through the closed door.
“He’s coming.” Aaron sounded close to the panic Kevin had been trying to avoid.
“What do we do?” Dylan whispered. He searched the room around them.
The whistling grew louder.
“I can distract him,” Kevin said. Walter was really going to kill him. “I’m new, and he says he’s been waiting for me. When he gets back into the room, I’ll get him to come farther inside before he can shut the door. You guys make a run for it.”
Dylan squinted at him like Kevin had lost his mind. “That’s a crazy-ass plan.”
Aaron nodded. “We should stick together.”
“You’re all weak. I’m not sure we could overpower him.”
“We could try,” Dylan said.
“I’m not taking that chance. I’m fast, and right now I’m stronger than all of you.” The whistling came through even louder. Kevin stepped back from the closed door. “Trust me. I’ll get away from him and follow you.” He handed over the flashlight to Dylan. “When I have him away from the door, you run, get everyone to the tunnel.”
“Where does it lead?”
“To the Haven. I don’t know how far, but it should take you there.”
Dylan’s jaw dropped. “There’s a way to the Haven from here?”
“I’m guessing we’re in one of the abandoned buildings nearby.”
“All this time?”
“I think so. You should be able to get into the elevator shaft of the club’s basement. That’s how he’s been getting back and forth. That’s how he brought you here.”
Aaron crouched and tugged on his shoes. Dylan bent to help him, but Aaron seemed determined to do it on his own. Kevin understood. Some things a man had to do for himself. Aaron stilled when the whistling halted outside the door.
Kevin pointed to the corner of the room opposite the cages. If they hid there, the door would block Prescott’s view of them when he opened it.
The men headed for the corner. Except Dylan.
Kevin mouthed,
I’ll be right behind you
. He faced the door and heard Dylan scramble to the corner.
Keeping the row of cages behind him and the door in front of him, Kevin backed up. He could do this. Prescott was obsessed with him. Wasn’t that what all those pictures in the other room meant?
The door swung in, and Prescott glared at the empty row of cages. Until he caught sight of Kevin.
Slowly a smile formed.
“Welcome home, boy.”
Chapter Thirty-Three
Home? Fuck you, asshole.
Kevin tried to keep still, but his entire body quivered with fear. He forced in a deep breath. He could do this. He
had
to do this.
He glanced over his shoulder toward the cages behind him, taking a couple of steps to the right in the process to keep Prescott’s back toward the men in the far corner. Kevin gestured to the cages. “You think you’re going to put me in one of these?”
“I am.” The smirk on Prescott’s lips grew. “You’re bolder than Dylan, and that’s saying a lot.” He came forward another step. “Where are my other boys? They can’t get out of this building, so you might as well tell me.”
“I thought you wanted me.” Kevin turned his back on him. A gamble. His only hand to play. He walked to the last cage in the row and ran a hand over the cool steel of the bars. “What if I told you that you didn’t need the cage for me?” Kevin held his breath, the quiet lingering longer than he thought he could stand it.