Cut & Run (57 page)

Zane stood and drew a steady breath to speak. “Luckily, you don’t have to worry about that,” he said softly, then he pulled the trigger.

Henninger’s body jerked and thumped to the floor. Gathering himself, Zane went over to the window to search for the signal blocker. Finally, he found it and yanked the cord out of it, then grabbed the phone out of Ross’s limp hand and hit buttons with his thumb as he swayed dangerously. He sank to his knees as his entire right side throbbed and burned viciously. The call was answered immediately. Zane gave the codes for officers down and perpetrator down, and then the location to the best of his knowledge before tossing the phone onto the coffee table, still open so it could be traced.

Painfully, he pushed himself to his knees and crawled to check Ross for a pulse. Grimacing when he found none, Zane shifted awkwardly and moved to Sears. She was gone, too. He hung his head, an agonized whimper escaping. He looked back at the murderer’s body. No need to check a pulse there. The feeling of grim satisfaction gave him the strength to grab for the book he’d left in the armchair. The answer was in there, somewhere. He felt sure Henninger had thought of Ty as another victim, not just someone in the way. Sitting there sprawled on the floor, he started paging through it again, shaking as he prayed it would give him some clue.

“Fuck all,” he hissed toward the body. “God, please ... Ty...,” he whispered as he kept turning, story after story, anguish encroaching as no inspiration hit until he couldn’t hold it off anymore. It gripped him hard, and he curled in on himself, hot tears slipping loose and dotting the pages. He could hardly think through the pain and loss of blood.

Defeated, he looked up at Henninger’s body. Blood was matted in his hair. Ty’s blood? More stained his hands, along with traces of what looked like grit and dust from where he had laid on the concrete of the parking deck.

348 | Madeleine Urban & Abigail Roux

He must have taken Ty down with chloroform—because Zane knew Ty would have hurt him badly if he had tried some other method—hidden him away, then hit himself in the head just hard enough to make blood flow. All he had to do was lay on the ground pretending to be unconscious until someone found him.

The tears gave way to an ill resignation as Zane’s eyes continued down the killer’s body, looking for some hint. Henninger had been on his knees and fallen backward, his heels pushing to one side as he had died.

It took a long moment for Zane to register what he was seeing. The bottoms of Henninger’s dress shoes were covered in gritty, gray mud. It was ground into the treads and covered the insteps. Zane pulled himself closer, almost out of energy. Reaching out slowly, Zane drew shaking fingers down the sole, and they came away covered with thick, damp mud. He stared at the dead body. They were in the city, and it had been dry all week. Where would he find fresh mud?

"They even kept the original tunnels below the building intact…."

“Jesus,” Zane hissed, grabbing for the book, ignoring the gritty muck coming off his hand onto the pages. He found what he was looking for:
The
Cask of Amontillado
. “Jesus!”

Lurching to his feet, Zane collapsed again with a harsh cry, catching himself on the couch’s arm with his good hand. He was too weak, and he hurt so badly he could barely tolerate it. He focused on the one thing he could. Ty.

Ty would be going crazy, stuck somewhere small and in the dark, like in the story.

He needed something to pump him up until he could get to Ty.

Stumbling into the bedroom, he made it to the nightstand and swiped up the bottle Ty had given him. Pulling the top off, he saw the caplets marked OC inside and shook them all out onto the bed. Ten pills. Without a thought to the dosage, he scooped up a handful, tossed them in his mouth, and started chewing. The dry, sharp chemical taste filled his senses when he swallowed, and he pushed himself out to the front room again and found his gun and the bloody knife. He grabbed Sears’ gun for good measure and drew a deep breath as he felt the first wave of drug-induced energy. He wove dangerously as he headed to the door, the drugs already taking effect since he’d bypassed the time release by chewing them up. By the time he got to the elevator, the high was rushing through him.

“I’m coming, Ty,” he murmured to the closing elevator doors. “I’m coming.”

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TY struggled and called out for help until his voice was hoarse and his abused wrists were dripping blood down his arms. The chains held fast, though, and nothing but the flicker of the candle noticed his distress.

Soon he found himself hyperventilating, and he forced himself to breathe slowly in a desperate attempt to calm. He would surely die if he didn’t remain calm. He closed his eyes, but realized immediately that the darkness felt heavier without the light of the candle. He opened them and stared longingly at the bricks. They were so close in the small space, but still unreachable.

Tim Henninger—and Ty was still trying to get his mind around how horribly he had misjudged the kid—had left everything incriminating inside Ty’s tomb with him. His plastic protective gear, his tools, the bucket of drying mortar, and probably the cruelest of all, the keys to Ty’s shackles, just out of reach on the ground.

Ty looked back at the candle with a growing sense of calm. He was going to die here. In the dark. He swallowed past the tightening of his throat and watched the candle. The flame had weakened alarmingly, and now its circle of light didn’t even reach Ty’s feet. As Ty watched it, the flame went blue, stuttering in the growing darkness.

Ty took in a deep breath of the stale, damp air.

His head shot up at the sound of a voice echoing faintly on the other side of the wall. Was he hallucinating? He could have sworn that he’d heard a shout somewhere in the distance. He stared at the brick wall in front of him, shaking convulsively with cold and encroaching shock. At his feet, the tiny flame spit and flared violently, then sputtered one last time and died.

He tried to call out for help, but his voice was gone.

The desire to simply close his eyes and let sleep take him over was almost overwhelming. Ty cocked his head as he heard the sound again.

“Zane,” he whispered to the hallucination, the sound barely a word as his head spun and he gasped for the nearly nonexistent air.

ZANE emerged into the darkened basement, lit only by a couple of bare, hanging light bulbs. He was shaking again, this time with manic energy 350 | Madeleine Urban & Abigail Roux

instead of pain and exhaustion. The drugs had taken hold quickly and adrenaline and chemicals shot through his body at warp speed. He walked past the large furnace, looking around quickly, gun in his hand. He had no idea if Henninger had an accomplice or not. He came upon a long, ill-lit hallway that had doorways covered by chain-link fence on each side. Storage units.

“Ty!” Zane yelled, his voice echoing through the large space as he moved down the hallway. The echo was the only thing that answered his calls.

Finally, he spotted a darker hole in the wall at the end of the hallway, one that wasn’t lit at all. Tunnels, Henninger had said.

Zane couldn’t see into the rough-hewn passageway, and he quickly started patting his jacket pockets and found his lighter. Thank God he’d talked Ty out of making him stop smoking. Annoyed with the restraining sling, he pulled his arm out of it and dropped it, then held up the flaming lighter and looked down at the dirt. It was gray, just like Henninger’s shoes.

“Ty!” he yelled again, heading into the catacombs, bypassing the insets filled merely with old crates and construction debris.

Walking in long strides, hurt arm raised to shelter the flame, Zane almost kept going before he noticed that he had passed a space of wall where an inset should have been. Backtracking, his heart plummeted as he saw a square of clearly new brick in the wall.

“Ty….Ty!” he yelled, running to the inset and touching the wall. The mortar was wet. He pulled out his knife and started prying at a brick with one hand and pushed it in. He heard it thump to the ground inside the little alcove, accompanied by the rattle of plastic. Then he dislodged another, and another.

From inside there was a clank of chains and a soft groan.

Zane frantically started pulling at the bricks, easily ignoring how they scraped and cut into his hands. The bricks reluctantly pulled loose; the mortar was closer to setting than not. When he had a rough opening, Zane leaned over with the lighter.

“Ty?” he rasped, pulse pounding with adrenaline.

Ty was strapped to the wall of the tiny alcove, his hands stretched out to the sides and above his head, blood running down them and clotting at his wrists. His feet were spread shoulder-width apart, shackled to the wall so that he couldn’t even kick out, and a rope around his chest kept him from sagging forward. Everywhere the restraints touched him, there was blood. His head was bowed, his chin resting on his chest, and his fingers hung limply from his Cut & Run | 351

shackled hands. He didn’t move, but a small groan told Zane that he was still alive. Barely.

Glancing around inside the alcove, Zane saw the plastic and the bucket of mortar. He cursed under his breath before seeing the candle and a rusted set of iron keys. “That son of a bitch,” he breathed. Leaning over the bricks, he reached to light the candle so he could pocket the lighter and start digging at the bricks again. The drugs filtering through his system built up his manic concern, and he worked feverishly, heedless of the pain or his ever-increasing heart rate and lightheadedness. Once the hole was big enough that he could get a leg in and duck under, he did so, which put him right up against his partner. There wasn’t much room. There wouldn’t have been much air, either, and just standing there made him claustrophobic.

“Ty?” he whispered, gently cupping his chin and raising it, praying he wasn’t too far gone. Ty’s head was heavy in his hand. But another groan came from his cracked, dry lips and he stirred.

Breaths harsh, Zane carefully lowered Ty’s chin before moving to grasp for the keys he had seen lying on the ground. Fussing and cursing the locks, he started with Ty’s feet, then moved to unlock the shackles on one bloody and cut-up wrist.

He’d struggled, Zane noted with a lurch of his stomach. Oh, Lord, he’d struggled. Zane’s heart hurt with the mere idea of how hard Ty must have fought to cut into his wrists and chest like he had. When Ty’s body sagged, Zane draped the free arm over his shoulder and fought to unlock the last shackle. The other man collapsed against him. Trying to pull him free, though, Zane couldn’t get him away from the wall. He fingered the rope, and with a growl pulled out one of his knives and cut through it. Glancing to the uneven hole, he gathered Ty against him and turned them both toward it.

“Zane,” Ty breathed pitifully, the tortured sound barely audible.

The sound of his name almost tore Zane’s heart out. “I’m here, baby.

I’m getting you out of here,” he promised.

Ty seemed to be coming around, gasping at the stale air as if it were the sweetest thing he had ever tasted. “Are you real?” he asked Zane as he tightened his weak grip. His words were hardly recognizable.

Zane’s laugh was tinged with a little desperation. “Yeah. I’m as real as it gets, baby,” he answered, stopping at the bricks. He drew several fast breaths, gritted his teeth, and lifted Ty totally from the ground. He moved very slowly and cautiously to step over the broken wall, setting his feet amongst the tumbled bricks, where he stumbled.

352 | Madeleine Urban & Abigail Roux

Ty’s feet hit the uneven ground as Zane set him down, and he sank to his hands and knees. “Henninger,” he gasped as his head swam. “It’s Henninger,” he said urgently, his voice still hoarse and abused from the harsh chloroform and the desperate shouting for help.

Collapsing to his knees beside him, both of Zane’s hands hit the ground in an attempt to catch himself. The jarring didn’t hurt, and neither had the lifting. Instead, he felt hot, dizzy, and lightheaded. His pulse raced dangerously, and his gut burned with nausea. He was buzzing all over. He knew what was happening.

“Dead. He’s dead,” Zane bit out viciously as he tried to remember when he’d last eaten anything solid and how many of what kind of pills he’d taken. There had been a whole handful, but his memory seemed bright and fuzzy.

Ty blinked at the man, both of them on their hands and knees and looking as if they’d just lost the fight rather than won it. He swallowed and nodded, unable to think of anything to say as confused relief washed through him.

Zane curled his hand around Ty’s, looking up with glazed eyes. “I’ve got to get you out of here,” he said roughly as another strong swell of adrenaline and haze swamped him. He just barely quelled the impulse to laugh hysterically. “Running out of time.”

“What’s wrong with you?” Ty asked. His head was clearing and he was beginning to actually function once more. “Did he hurt you?”

Zane managed to shake his head and climb awkwardly to his feet, helping Ty up as well, and they leaned heavily on each other as they started moving toward the dim light. Zane was sweating now, and his arms and hands were clammy and trembling even where he held Ty tightly. “After I took him out, I could hardly move. I took the pills you left me so I could find you.”

“All of them?” Ty asked in horror.

Zane actually laughed; a high, thin noise totally unlike him.

“You’ve overdosed,” Ty murmured. “Fuck,” he groaned as he tried to gather his strength and take more of Zane’s weight. He stumbled with the attempt.

Managing a weak chuckle, Zane tried to hold on, but his entire body was shaking uncontrollably. “I’ve had worse.” Not really, though…. “Had to get here. Had to find you.” He lurched to the side as dizziness hit him, and both men fell to their knees, neither one strong enough to fully support the Cut & Run | 353

other. “You were in the dark.”

They stayed there wallowing for too many moments before Ty pushed himself up and grabbed Zane’s uninjured arm to pull him to his feet weakly. “Come on,” he murmured. “I thought I’d never see daylight again; I can’t die in here with you now.”