ROMANCE: SHIFTER: Shifter to the Max Collection (Dragon, Bear, Wolf and Panther Shifter Romances) (Paranormal Fantasy Romance Collection) (78 page)

On impulse, Lillian crept out of bed and threw on a pair of jeans and a t-shirt. Even with all of the excitement, she couldn’t get the situation with Finn and Chachi off of her mind. She decided to let Caleb sleep in while she went to hunt down some more information. Dr. Rourke had warned her that his injuries had been so extensive that even with his remarkable shifter healing, it would take several more days before he was at full functional capacity.

Before leaving, Lillian scrawled out a short note on the kitchen table. “Going back to Carrie’s house. Will bring back coffee and something sweet to eat,” she wrote. Lillian strode out of the house wearing a wide grin on her face. There was one more question she’d forgotten to ask Carrie, and she wanted to do it in the safe-room.

This time, when Lillian knocked on Carrie’s door, something seemed out of place. Lillian knocked again and the door opened by itself.

“Carrie?” Lillian called, as she peeked her head into the house. Something about the cats made Lillian feel uneasy—they appeared stressed and on alert. “Carrie! It’s Lillian!” she called. Lillian continued to walk through the house, approaching the kitchen. There, in the dim light, she was able to make out Carrie’s form laying sprawled face-down on the kitchen floor. Lillian dropped to her knees immediately, and tried to turn Carrie over to see if she was breathing. When she managed to get Carrie onto her back, it was clear that the woman was dead. Her face was a deathly shade of blue, and her eyes were glossed over. Carrie’s lips were parted and her face was contorted into a horrible grimace. Lillian reached down grasping the radio at her side to call in for back-up.

At that moment, everything went black. Some kind of sack was placed over Lillian’s head and her arms were restrained behind her back. Lillian kicked wildly and screamed, struggling to get free from whoever held her against her will. From the back of the room, Lillian could hear a terrible laugh that sounded like Chachi. Then, there was a sharp prick of a needle being buried into the back of her neck. Lillian fought to stay conscious, but it was no use. The world faded into darkness.

Caleb woke with a smile and reached for Lillian. He had expected her to be lying beside him. Last night had been wonderful. He had finally been allowed to explore this woman who had dominated his thoughts for quite some time and the reality was so much better that he had imagined. He knew he was falling fast and hard, but damned if he could help it. The pillows smelled like her shampoo, and he wondered if they could shower together this morning. He was taking things slowly, maintaining control over his bear, but maybe he could get a little bit closer to her today if he was careful. Caleb reached over the side of the bed and pulled on his jeans. His bare feet stepped onto the coolness of the hardwood floor and he called out for her. “Lillian,” Caleb said softly. He waited for a response. Perhaps she was downstairs fixing them breakfast.

Caleb crept silently down the steps, unable to keep from smiling. He made his way to the coffee pot, filled the tub on top with water and waited patiently as the warm coffee dripped down into the glass container below.

There was an envelope on the table with his name on it. Perhaps she’d left a little love-note, or something. Caleb snatched up the envelope and tore it open. Inside there was a photo of Lillian, bloodied and bound at both her hands and feet. Her eyes looked as though she were pleading and at the bottom of the picture was a word written in black magic marker:
checkmate
.

part 3

When Lillian woke up, the first thing she noticed was the ice-cold floor beneath her. The right side of her face also felt strange—almost as if it were bruised and puffy. She couldn’t open her right eye all of the way, and each time she blinked a sharp pain ripped through her face. Lillian gently raised her hand to her cheek and winced. Perhaps they had simply just thrown her in here and maybe she’d landed on her face. After all, goons weren’t exactly known for their caring and compassionate nature—if that was who had kidnapped her.

Lillian sat up on the ground and her eyes strained to adjust to the lack of light. It was clear that she was in some kind of basement. The air was musty and smelled of mold. Lillian closed her eyes for one brief moment. She could hear the distant patter of rain outside, and yet the storm sounded as if it were far above her. There were a few puddles of errant rainwater gathered on the floor as well. For some reason, she immediately remembered that Carrie, her elderly psychic friend was dead. Yes, she had been in Carrie’s house when someone had placed a sack over her head and had forcibly taken her. Lillian assumed that she was now with Carrie’s murderers, but she couldn’t be sure. She had heard what sounded like a number of voices before they’d drugged her and dragged her out of the house. Then, the radio had been changed to some kind of religious sermon before she’d passed out. None of the voices sounded familiar. In fact, they didn’t even have the familiar accent of the mobsters she’d encountered earlier in the week. This was completely new territory.

Lillian looked down and realized that her shoes were gone—someone had taken them right off of her feet. The room was terribly dark, but she stood up anyway, determined to try and find a way out. Lillian reached out in front of herself blindly and felt her way along a cool wall in front of her. It was made out of some kind of brick, Lillian made a mental note of that, and judging by the coolness of the wall, she was almost certainly underground somewhere—in a basement of sorts.

For a moment, Lillian’s mind wandered back to Caleb. In her mind, she pictured his beautiful face, and imagined the disappointment he might feel in realizing that she had disappeared—perhaps, for good. Maybe he would blame himself and think that he had somehow driven her away. On the other hand, maybe these people might dump her body in front of Department 99’s headquarters when they were finished with her. Lillian winced inwardly. No—Caleb was a smart man. Eventually he would put the pieces of the puzzle together and would realize that something very serious had occurred. Caleb would never stop hunting for her killers if things ended with her death, she knew that much for certain.

The basement had a strong smell, which was terrible. There stench was moldy, but there was something else there too, something a bit more sinister. Was it the smell of rotting flesh? Lillian doubled over and vomited. As she threw up, all kinds of terrible fears ran rampant in her head. Department 99 had trained all of its agents on how to escape in the unlikely event that they were held hostage, and Lillian struggled to think back to that day in the classroom. The instructor had suggested that they try and fight their way out at any cost, and then try to find a way to signal Department 99’s extraction team. Yet she didn’t have any tools. She didn’t have anything at all. Still, her instructor had insisted that there was always
something
that could be used to an agent’s advantage. She just needed to figure out what that was. Maybe she could lure one of her captors into the room and snap his or her neck. Maybe she could throw a handful of dirt into one of the captors’ eyes—that might buy her a little bit of time. No. Those plans were foolish, at best.

Even from within the damp basement all of those ideas seemed foolish and almost insane. Throwing dirt into a person’s eyes was a surefire way to piss them off. And sure, maybe she could snap one neck, but what if three or four men came into the cell at one time? How was she going to signal someone when she couldn’t even see her hands in front of her face? Yet, somehow, Lillian started to steel her will. She had to be tough now. If she showed any weakness, her captors might try and use those things to their advantage. In her mind, she pictured an image of Caleb. What would he do if he were in this situation? How would Caleb save himself? Caleb would save his own life at virtually any cost.

Lillian slumped down to the ground and started to listen intently. She closed her eyes, because they weren’t useful in the pitch-black darkness anyway. Lillian strained her ears to try and hear in the faraway distance. At first, she noticed the drip drip drip of some water on the far side of the room. That was good information. Then, Lillian was startled when she heard groaning nearby.

Very quietly, Lillian stood back up, and made her way over to where she thought she heard the groaning noise. She felt her way along the stone wall and was surprised to find that the texture of the wall changed into plywood on that side. Someone on the other side of the wall was groaning. Maybe it was a trick her captors were using to try and get more information out of her, but it could also be someone in a similar predicament.

Lillian leaned her ear up against the plywood and started to listen quietly. The moaning was so garbled that she couldn’t quite make out of the voice belonged to a male or female. Yet, for a moment, terror shot through her body. For a second, she imagined that it was Caleb moaning on the other side of the plywood wall. Lillian wanted to say something. She needed to know if it was him. Her mind was starting to play tricks on her in the darkness, and Lillian needed to have some sense of certainty about her environment, no matter how small.

Instead of speaking, Lillian raised her fist and softly knocked on the plywood wall four times in a row. The groaning stopped immediately. The person on the other side of the wall seemed to be listening, or waiting for her to make a second move. Lillian took a deep breath and knocked decisively again. Then she heard some kind of movement on the other side of the wall. It wasn’t walking—no; the person on the other side was crawling over to the plywood. This time, four knocks came from the other side of the wall. “Caleb, is that you?” Lillian whispered. There was no response.

After a long while, she knocked twice and the person on the other side of the plywood wall copied her. Lillian’s heart sank and leapt for joy all at once. Caleb would not have reacted that way. If it were him over there, surely he would have said something to her. Inwardly, she felt despair—yet she forced herself to try and be glad for him too. It was a good thing that he hadn’t also been kidnapped. Yet, a part of her selfishly had hoped that he was there with her. She could face almost anything with Caleb by her side. Yet, he wasn’t by her side. He was probably back in bed, or sitting on the front steps wondering why she had left him without so much as an explanation. He was probably heart-broken or feeling regretful about their little make-out session.

Finally, Lillian worked up enough courage to try and say something to the person on the other side of the wall. “Hello,” Lillian whispered. There was a pause on the other side, and then a cough. “Hello,” a male voice answered cautiously. Lillian could tell by his accent that he wasn’t a native English speaker. His voice reminded her of a friend she’d met from the Honduras. “Who are you?” Lillian asked. The man on the other side of the wall took a deep sigh, as if he had to consider how to answer this question for a long time. Lillian could hear him sucking at the air. Then slowly, he answered her. “My name is Armond,” he said in his beautiful accent. “Armond, do you know what this place is or why we’ve been brought here?” Lillian asked.

Armond surprised her with a chuckle. “I took my wife on vacation in Brazil three years ago and she had a heart attack while jogging on the beach. Soon after, some men showed up in the hotel room, and then I woke up here. No explanation—no nothing. I’ve been in here for over three years.”

Lillian’s face twisted. All this time she’d assumed that they were in a basement located in Kansas City, but in reality they could have been anywhere in the world. There was another thing that terrified her about Armond’s story—he’d been there for such a long time, and no one had found him.

Lillian looked around; her eyes were unable to see in the darkness. She wondered if Armond had spent those three years in the same impossible darkness. “My wife was a beautiful woman,” Armond added, almost as an after-thought.

Lillian got to work. “We need to figure out why we’ve been captured, Armond. Do you have any ideas? What kind of work do you do? I need you to tell me as much as you can about this place.” Lillian whispered. There was another pause on the other side of the wall as Armond considered Lillian’s words. He too worried that this could be some kind of trick—yet at this point, it didn’t really matter. They had already taken everything from him, and he had nothing left to lose.

“I’m no one special. I’ve never done anything remarkable during my entire life.” He said, sounding defeated. “Why do you think these people took notice of you?” Lillian pressed him. She could hear his voice crack slightly on the other side of the wall—something about it made her think of Caleb and long for his touch. He would know what to do. He would have at least formulated some kind of plan by now. “I never did anything special. I just fixed cars for a living and kept to myself mostly,” Armond said. “I probably shouldn’t be telling you this, but I guess it doesn’t matter much because she’s dead anyway…my wife worked for the Secret Service. She was the smart one. She was brilliant.”

Lillian nodded to herself—now they were getting somewhere. So, perhaps this was an attempt to get information out of them, or maybe ransom from the United States. “Has anyone else come and gone, since you’ve been here Armond?” Lillian asked. He made a slight sound before answering, and Lillian could tell that the topic pained him greatly. “There have been a few that have come and gone from the room you’re in now, and a few that have come and gone on the other side of my other wall. I’m in the middle of two rooms. There might be more, but I know there are at least three.”

Lillian nodded, making a mental note of this information. Now, she had at least some kind of an idea of the layout of the place. She had only one plywood wall, which meant she must have been at the end of some kind of corridor. There were at least three rooms to her left, and probably nothing but solidly packed dirt to her right.

“How do they give you food and water, Armond?” Lillian asked. “It comes from a trap door above us,” he said. “When do they feed us? Is there a schedule?” Lillian asked eagerly. “There seems to be no pattern to it at all,” he said sadly. “What do you think this place is?” Lillian asked. Armond paused for a minute. “I think it’s two things actually,” he said. “I think it’s some kind of a betting ground—some kind of an illegal ring to make money, and I also think it’s a convenient way to murder the people you need to get out of the way,” Armond spoke sadly.

Lillian was surprised by his answer. “If this were some kind of a killing ground, I’d think the turn-around would be pretty high. You’ve been here for three years,” Lillian said, trying to sound confident. His voice grew quiet, “You haven’t heard the things I’ve heard. This is a bad place,” Armond said—more to himself than to Lillian.

Suddenly a slot opened up in her ceiling and a small bag dropped down. The bag contained a bottle of water and some kind of sandwich. “I just got some food,” Lillian said to Armond. “Smell it first,” he said. “Sometimes they use the food to drug you, and when that happens people don’t usually come back.”

Lillian lowered her nose to the sandwich inside the plastic baggie. It smelled like some kind of disgusting bologna. There was no mustard and no mayonnaise—just a single piece of lunchmeat slapped between two dry pieces of stale bread. Lillian could smell the preservative in the meat, and the salt…but there was nothing that had a decisively chemical scent to it, and so she bit into the sandwich impulsively.

The water was a bit more suspect. The plastic seal around the lid of the water bottle was already broken, and the water had a strange taste to it. Had Lillian been able to see in the darkness, she might have been able to read the brand of the water—thereby helping her make some determinations about her location.

As Lillian munched down on her sandwich, she asked more questions. “Do they ever turn the lights on?” she asked. Armond coughed in the darkness. His cough sounded faraway and desolate. “Don’t eat all of your food at once. I know it’s tempting, but you need to ration your food and water. It could be days before they come back,” he said. His words seemed to spring her back into reality. She had already consumed over half of the sandwich, but she stuffed the remainder back into the plastic bag. “If you leave a little piece out, you might be able to catch a rat for extra protein,” Armond sighed again. Lillian thought of Caleb. Surely, he would know what to do. At the very least, she would feel safe enclosed in his muscular arms.

When Caleb saw the envelop with the photo of Lillian inside of it, his mind went into a panic. Obviously, she had been kidnapped—but who had done this, and why? Was all of this happening because of the stupid Chachi mystery? It didn’t make any sense. There had to be something more. Lillian hadn’t done anything to anyone. Was someone using her to try and make him suffer? A multitude of questions whirled through his head.