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But if he hadn’t left yet, they still had a chance to grab Gayle and avoid walking into what might be a trap. Although leaving his garage door conveniently open was probably a trap, too. It couldn’t matter. Marcus was right. Based on the look of the cage in the video, Gayle was in the basement. They had to go in.
The house itself was simply massive. Built in the Tudor revival style so popular in Cinci
There was a large picture window along the back wall whose glass had been shattered. Shards of glass littered the grass, and the opening was now covered with plywood. The window had been broken from the inside out, the broken area visible against the plywood as no one had finished removing the remaining glass. The hole was large. Body-sized.
A strangled gasp caught her attention, and she turned to find Marcus staring at the corner of the driveway closest to the open garage door. Blood stained the concrete in a wide swath, as if someone had dragged a body through the open door.
Marcus’s face had grown pale in the growing moonlight. ‘Not Gayle,’ he whispered. ‘It can’t have been Gayle.’
‘No,’ she agreed softly. ‘They won’t kill her until they get you. So let’s find her before that happens.’ She drew her weapon and started for the door, keeping her back to the wall, but Marcus hadn’t moved.
He frowned. ‘This feels too damn convenient,’ he said, his whisper almost silent. ‘The power going off just when we need to get through the fence? Leaving the door open for us?’
She’d thought the same thing. ‘He doesn’t know we know about this place.’
‘Or he didn’t. He could have seen Kate doing her perimeter check. Hell, he could have seen us approach on the main road.’
She blew out a breath, trying hard not to be exasperated. ‘Entirely possible. This could totally be a trap.’
‘I’ll go in,’ he whispered. ‘You stay here.’
Ah. He was protecting her. I don’t think so. ‘No. You go high, I’ll go low. Now.’
He closed his eyes for a second, and when he opened them, she saw utter focus and concentration. Gun in his hand, he eased around the garage corner and through the open door.
Soundlessly he crept through the enormous garage, following the bloodstain that stretched from the corner of the driveway to the middle of one of the empty bays. In the bay was a pool of drying blood. Clearly a body had been moved from the garage. The forensic guys would have to determine where it went after being dragged off the driveway.
Scarlett took a photo of the bloody swath, then used her hands to measure the width of the stain. She held them up to show Marcus that whoever had been dragged was much wider than Gayle.
Understanding flickered in his eyes, followed by relief. ‘Not Gayle,’ he mouthed, then grimly pointed to the van parked in one of the six bays. Scarlett recognized the vehicle from the security video taken outside the Ledger’s loading bay. Sweeney had driven it to slaughter the Ledger’s employees and to abduct Gayle.
The license plate was different from the one captured in the security video. Someone – likely Sweeney – had changed the plates. Scarlett snapped a photo of the new plate in case things went south. If Sweeney managed to get by them and escape, she’d have to call in a BOLO.
Marcus moved quickly and quietly, opening the van doors to shine his flashlight around the interior. No Gayle. There was a bloodstain on the carpet, but the blood had dried. Had it been Gayle’s blood, it would have still been damp. Whoever had bled there had done so fifteen hours or more before.
‘Demetrius?’ she mouthed, and Marcus shrugged, then reached into the open driver’s-side window and brought out a set of keys, pocketing them. Scarlett gave him a nod of approval.
Marcus proceeded to the door that led from the garage into the laundry room. Again he took high, she low. For the first time she was truly seeing the former Army Ranger at work, and she was more than impressed. She’d known he was stealthy and capable, but while she’d had to develop a relationship with her other partners, she and Marcus seemed to flow together like two streams meeting in the woods.
They encountered no resistance, the house having a too-quiet, abandoned feel. With the power out, there wasn’t a single sound – not a hum from the fluorescent lights nor the low drone of an AC fan. The silence was oppressive.
Marcus’s lips thi
They moved from the laundry room into a grand foyer. Twin staircases curved upward, where they were co
They found what they thought was the door to the basement off the foyer, but it turned out to be the kitchen. Marcus went in first, giving her the sign that he’d located the basement door. Scarlett pulled the kitchen door closed behind them, covering Marcus as he opened the door to the basement. Steep stairs disappeared into inky blackness.
This would be the dicey part, walking blind down a flight of stairs, not knowing what they’d find below. This could be the trap. Scarlett pointed at Marcus to take the stairs. If Gayle was downstairs and incapacitated, he would be able to carry her. She pointed to herself and the door. She’d stay up top and guard the entrance. It would be too easy for someone to lock them in if they both went downstairs.
She listened intently, not hearing a sound as Marcus navigated the stairs as silently as he did everything else. She drew a breath and prepared to wait.
Cinci
Wednesday 5 August, 11.20 P.M.
Ken buttoned his shirt, listening for any stray noises downstairs. He’d heard nothing since the power had gone out. He’d jumped from the shower and done a check of the property from the upstairs windows but had seen no one, so he’d gone to his room and quickly picked out clothes in the dark. But he wasn’t dismissing the danger.
That the power had gone off now was not coincidental, and he wondered if Sean had made it happen with a timer. Or if his son had a confederate. Except that at this point there wasn’t anyone left to be his accomplice.
He let out a breath. Except for Decker and Trevino, the second of Burton’s two ‘green’ guys. Sean was supposed to have checked into Trevino. Ken cursed himself for having underestimated his son. Then he cursed himself for underestimating Reuben.
His jaw tightened. Reuben had probably laughed at Ken, knowing the video he held was a real ace in the hole. Ken thought he might be more pissed off that he hadn’t thought to do the same to Reuben.
He finished getting dressed, then checked his tracking program on his cell phone. Decker was at the downtown office, just as he said he’d be. Joel was at his home, as he always was. Looked like those two would be the last men standing after Ken left for his retirement. They could keep the company, or what was left of it. At least until Alice got out of jail.
He didn’t have a tracker for Trevino’s phone. The guy had been too low on the totem pole to warrant his attention. Ken knew that if he ever got into business again, he wouldn’t make the same mistake. Nobody would fall below his radar.
Still hearing nothing downstairs, he grabbed the suitcase he’d just finished packing when Sean had interrupted him earlier, drew his gun and crept down the stairs. He had barely enough time to go to Shawnee Lookout and get into position in the spot he’d chosen in advance. He’d have a perfect view of the park’s entrance and a clear line of fire to anyone standing there. He’d do the job, get in the van and drive straight to Toronto.