Face of Danger (17 page)

Why would he leave without even looking for her? Did he think she would take off without him?

Anger, frustration, and not a little bit of fear rushed through her, making her flatten her hands against the side walls, using her arms to push up again but, even as strong as she was, she couldn’t shimmy all the way up there.

But that tunnel. Eesh.

She tried to go up again, made it a little farther this
time, braced her feet, and tried to reach the door above. Not a chance. Shaking, her legs gave way and she hit the ground hard, her knees buckling, one stabbed by a sharp stone.

A
stone!
Maybe she could throw it up and he’d hear it hit.

The rumble she’d heard earlier rolled through the ground. The ATV. He was back. “Lang!” She snagged the stone and pitched it up as hard as she could, crouching to the side as it clunked right back at her.

Something slammed, then more footsteps clunked above her. Whatever trap she’d fallen or been pushed into was probably invisible enough that he’d never think to look where he was walking. Without a clue as to where she was, he was no doubt heading off to look for her in the woods or in the swamp or somewhere in the hundreds of acres around them. He figured she’d ignored his command, broken his rules, and taken off for her own search of the woods.

She could just hear him making the wrong assumption that she was
being Vivi.

She had to get out of this, just to prove that son of a bitch wrong. The thought gave her just enough nerve to crouch down in the tunnel one more time. What was a rat or two compared to being buried alive and not ever getting to tell Lang he was wrong?

Spewing dust and spiderwebs and probably a few more pesky insects from her mouth, she got on her knees, using one hand to hold her phone as a flashlight.

Then she took a deep breath and started crawling. In her head she chanted an old Italian prayer to St. Jude, the patron saint of lost causes. It rose up from her memory in the lost cadence of her mother’s voice and guided her along.

C
olt called for another ATV and a search party immediately. Arms scraped by pines and vines, he rumbled around the bog, fury slowing giving way to fear with each passing minute.

What could have happened to her?

Gripping the handles, he maneuvered around a copse of trees, his eyes scanning the landscape. She couldn’t have disappeared. Unwanted images flooded his mind. Vivi held hostage. Vivi hurt. Vivi dead.

He waited for the kick of déjà vu, the flash of seeing Jennifer’s body on the road, the agony of feeling for a pulse that wasn’t there.

But for the first time in five years, that memory didn’t roll up like bile into his mouth. Grief didn’t consume him. Something else did. A feeling like he
cared.

Oh, Jesus, no, Colt.
Don’t go there. Not again. Never again.

He smashed his thumb against the accelerator like he
could crush the turmoil that thought caused, kicking the vehicle into the next gear, spitting pine needles and dirt as a possum darted in front of him, barely missing getting flattened by Colt’s ATV.

Was he out of his fucking mind? Falling for someone again? And not just anyone. No, Vivi Angelino certainly wasn’t just anyone. She was too much like—

His phone vibrated and he slowed just enough to grab it. “Yeah?”

“We found an ATV abandoned in a ditch.”

Shit.
Shit
. “Where?”

“About a half mile west of the bog, just across the road from the water. There’s a small lighthouse on a rise. The ATV was right under it.”

“No sign of her?”

“None. Whoever was driving it left by boat. Or swam. Or is out there on foot.”

She wouldn’t leave without telling him. She was reckless, but not stupid.

If anyone was stupid in this partnership, it was Colton Cautious Lang, who ought to know better than to
care
.

He arrived at the ditch in a matter of minutes, just in time to see a crew moving the ATV up through the soft peat of the outskirts of a bog, at a point where Nantucket jutted about forty feet into the Atlantic Ocean. A road separated the property from the water, and a single weathered dock extended past the shallows, which were dotted with a small, abandoned lighthouse.

His gaze drifted to the water. It was relatively calm and virtually empty except for fishing boats in the distance.

He’d never heard a motorboat, had he? Who could have taken Vivi and where the hell was she?

He went through the motions of examining the ATV, organizing the search, and arranging to have the Coast Guard search the waters. After more fruitless searching, he ended up back at the house, his whole body aching.

Someone took her
. Maybe Roman Emmanuel—maybe some lunatic who thought he’d snatched Cara Ferrari.

That was the only explanation that made any sense, and he wanted to shoot himself every time the words hammered through his head and kicked his heart.

Someone took Vivi.

He entered the kitchen, where Mercedes Graff sat at the long table in conversation with a man, who instantly stood.

“ASAC Lang?” he asked. “I’m Special Agent John Broder with IA. Can I talk to you?”

Jesus Christ, Internal Affairs,
now
?

“I have two minutes,” he said gruffly, striding to the industrial-size fridge. “I need water.” And Vivi. God almighty, he needed Vivi.

“The Sub-Zero’s been emptied out,” Mercedes said, pushing her chair back. “I’ll get you some from storage.”

“No.” Colt shot up his hand. “Finish your conversation with Special Agent Broder. I’ll get it myself.”

He needed a quiet moment to collect his emotions before he faced IA.

“Water’s in the pantry around the corner,” she said.

He headed there, yanking open the door to a dark walk-in storage pantry. He hit the lights and closed the door behind him, leaning against it for a second, waiting for the hurricane of anger and worry and frustration to pass.

Someone took Vivi.

The impact of it was like a suffocating squeeze on his throat, cutting off his air. Or maybe that was a fucking lump forming because just the thought of losing her—damn it! He lifted his fist and slammed it into the wall next to him, wobbling the canned goods on the shelves.

What if she was—

The wall vibrated again, just as violently as when he’d punched it. For a second he didn’t move, staring at the rocking bouillon.

Then he heard the thud—from the other side of the wall, making all the canned goods shudder again. This time the wall actually
inched out.
A can of corn toppled and clunked to the ground.

“What the hell?” he muttered under his breath, not wanting to alert whoever lay on the other side of that wall to his presence.

Slowly, he reached for his weapon, drawing it, unconsciously bracing his legs to fire.

The wall creaked and opened farther, pushed by someone on the other side. He raised his weapon, waiting for the intruder.

Hinges squawked. Very slowly, the secret, hidden door opened, someone panting breathlessly as he pushed. Someone…

Vivi.

For a second, neither of them spoke, too stunned at the sight of each other. Her hair was bedraggled, her face filthy, her clothes torn. He just stared, blinking, not able to believe what he saw.

“Vivi,” he croaked, that lump in his throat practically choking him.

She fought for a breath as she stepped into the pantry. “I found the security breach.”

She hadn’t been expecting him, and she sure as hell hadn’t been expecting
this
. Shock, a little horror, anger, for sure. But when Lang grabbed Vivi’s shoulders and yanked her into his chest, the move stole what little breath she had left.

“Jesus, Vivi, I thought you were dead.” He pressed his mouth to her hair and squeezed her harder.

“I thought I was, too,” she admitted, pulling away enough to see his face, dying to tell him what she’d discovered, but he cupped her chin with a solid grip.

“Dead,” he repeated as though he’d been holding the word in for a while.

“Hey, Cautious, have a little faith in—”

His mouth descended before she could finish the sentence. It was a harsh kiss this time, fueled by rage she could practically taste. This wasn’t affection, attraction, or relief. This was just… raw, and the sensation almost knocked her right back down to the tunnel she’d just crawled through.

Her lips burned and her heart galloped and her whole body wanted more. She fought that urge, instead flattening her palms on his chest, half to push him away, half for the thrill of feeling his heart in perfect, wild syncopation with hers.

“You need to see what I found,” she said breathlessly.

“What happened to you? Where did you go? Why the hell did you leave me?” he demanded, gripping her face, his expression so pained it was impossible to tell who exactly he was furious with: her or himself.

“I didn’t leave you!” She managed to wiggle out of his fingers. “I was on the porch deck when I fell or was pushed into some kind of secret opening to the tunnel. I was right under your damn feet, Lang. Didn’t you hear me screaming?”

He shook his head. “You think you were pushed?”

She dug into her memory, trying to capture the moment again. “It just all happened so fast I really don’t know, and it’s killing me. I was standing on the deck, the board under me kind of wobbled, then, wham. I was down. That tunnel must be completely soundproofed if you couldn’t hear me screaming. But more importantly, the bog house and this one are connected. You can get from there to here without ever stepping foot outside. Although”—she brushed some filth from her face and tried to bury the memory of just how many creepy-crawly living things she’d encountered as she powered through the drainage tunnel—“it ain’t a stroll through the park.”

“Not now. The whole damn force is looking for you. For Cara,” he added, pulling her from the door. “Everyone needs to know you’re safe.”

“No, wait. We don’t want anyone to know about this breach. More importantly, if someone pushed me, Pakpao wasn’t working alone. Someone could still be on this island right now.”

“Or got off by boat. We found the ATV near a dock at the western edge of the property, by the water.”

“Don’t stop that search, then. If someone pushed me, they might still be in the area. We could catch them.”

He considered that, and nodded. “Show me, fast.”

“Follow me.” Behind the door was a small landing, then steps that led down to the tunnel. “My phone’s just about dead. You have yours?”

He reached into his pocket and pulled out a tiny halogen flashlight. “Yes, but I also have this.”

“Remind me never to make fun of former Boy Scouts again.” She guided him down the stairs. “There’s another door down here—I saw it. But I couldn’t get it open, so I just kept going until I found the kitchen.”

He peered down the narrow tunnel. “This is a heck of a way to avoid cameras.”

“Plus I’m pretty sure Cara Ferrari doesn’t brave spiders and rats to avoid the glare of the spotlight.”

He slowed his step. “You braved spiders and rats?”

The tiniest note of admiration in his voice almost buckled her. “Don’t sound surprised. I’m tough.”

“No kidding.” He put his hand on her back as though to guide her, but it felt far more like protection—and affection.
Nah
. He was just relieved he didn’t have a dead backup on his hands. L.A. wouldn’t like that.

“We can easily go through this part of the tunnel, although you’ll have to crouch down a little—it’s barely five feet high. But at the other side, where it connects to the bog house, it’s no more than a drainage pipe, which yours truly traversed just to come back and torment you.”

“You shouldn’t have left my side.”

She stopped, letting her jaw drop. He was going to make this
her
fault? “
You
told me to wait outside.”

“Don’t you carry a weapon?”

“Don’t worry, I’m never leaving home without it again. Come on.” She led him deeper into the tunnel. “But I want to know where that other door leads.”

“I really thought you took off on the ATV,” he said, sounding like that was about the closest thing to forgiving her without actually saying it.

“I know you did, and the need to set you straight was the only thing that kept me going down there with the hungry rats.”

He gave her a gentle hug, bent over to fit under the tunnel’s low ceiling, making them eye to eye. The light, even pointed downward, cast a shadow on his face. She reached up, half wanting to reassure him she was fine, half just wanting to touch him. His skin was rough, his jaw set.

“Are those whiskers, Lang? You
were
worried. You put off the afternoon shave.”

His lips tipped with a smile she could tell he didn’t want to give in to. “I was more pissed than worried.”

“Yeah, I can tell.”

“I was.”

Pissed enough to kiss the holy hell out of her—for the second time today. “I’m starting to think you like me now that I look all glamorous. Wouldn’t that be just like a man?”

“I hate to break it to you, but you don’t look anything near glamorous right now. Where are we going?”

“C’mon.” She marched forward, brushing an imaginary spider from her face. “You know, after being involved with the building of a skate park, I can appreciate what a marvelous engineering feat this is.”

“Like a residential version of the Big Dig,” he agreed. “Why would someone go to this much trouble just to have a secret way into the house?”

“I don’t know, but I really want to know where this door leads.” She stopped at an alcove with a simple wooden door.

“This is probably how Pakpao got in and out, or he came through the drainage pipes like you did.”

Vivi froze, grabbing his arms. “Oh my God, Lang. Roman’s alley!”

“What?”

“Pakpao said…” She squeezed her eyes closed, trying to remember his exact words. “Roman’s alleys. That’s how he got in. This tunnel must be Roman’s alley. Maybe this is what he needs the key for. To get into this room!”

Lang pushed at the door with his shoulder as Vivi started feeling along the walls for another way to open the door. In a few seconds she found it, a small latch on the wooden jamb.