Shadow of a Doubt (Tangled Ivy Book 2) (28 page)

“I swear, no one is going to take you from me,” I promised her.
At least, not while I am alive.
I’d die before I let anyone lay another hand on her.

Cautiously, she eased down onto the mattress, scooting it on the linoleum floor until it was closer to me. I smiled at her and went back to work.

I didn’t have a watch, but saw the sky begin to lighten outside the window. Ezabell eventually fell asleep, curled in a little ball on the mattress. The knots were making my fingers bleed, but I was almost there. Three more and I’d be able to slip the metal frame off.

Then I heard steps outside the door.

“Wake up, Ezabell!” I hissed urgently. I grabbed her and scooted her off the mattress, throwing it over the top of the cot and pulling her into my arms as the door opened.

Ezabell was silent. I was sure she was confused since I’d jerked her awake from a dead sleep, but her gaze was on the man standing in the doorway. She shrank farther into my arms.

“What do you want?” I asked the man. It was a different guy than had been in here earlier.

“Boss is making me bring you both food,” he said, “though I was
against it.” He smiled and it had a cruel edge to it. “I’ve found people tend to be more . . . agreeable when they’re hungry.”

I didn’t reply and he tossed a plastic bag at me. I caught it, but kept my eye on him. I didn’t like the way he was looking at Ezabell and my muscles tightened, ready to fight him if he came for her. But he left, the door closing and locking securely behind him.

From the bag, I pulled out a couple of shrink-wrapped sandwiches and gave one to Ezabell. She ate while I kept working on the cot. Finally, the last knot slipped free and I was able to get at the frame.

It was locked together, but if I used my feet against one side and pulled on the other, I had enough strength and leverage to pull the metal apart. It fell to the floor with a clatter. Afraid the noise would attract attention, I snatched up one of the rods and hurried to stand behind the door.

About three feet long, the rod was hollow, but sturdy, and I held it like I would a baseball bat. I waited a few minutes, but no one came. Lowering the rod, I breathed a sigh of relief.

Ezabell was watching me, her half-eaten sandwich held in her hand. Her eyes were wide and her face pale.

“Don’t,” she whispered. “They’ll get mad.”

I crouched down next to her. “That’s probably true,” I said. “But I have to try. If we want to get out of here, I’m going to need you to do what I tell you to. Can you do that?”

She nodded.

“Even if you’re afraid, or I tell you to run, I need you to do it, okay?”

She nodded again.

“Okay then.”

She looked scared, so I leaned forward and gave her a tight hug. “It’s going to be okay,” I said. “I’ll get you back to your mother.”

I stood behind the door and waited. The rod was tight in my grip as I tried to picture how it would happen. I only had one real
chance to disable whoever came in. I hoped it was the same guy who’d delivered the food. He’d had a gun in the waistband of his jeans and that would go a long way to getting us out of here.

Each minute that passed felt like an eternity, my ears straining for the slightest sound from the hallway outside. It was full daylight out by the time I finally heard the scuff of a shoe.

I took a deep breath, casting a quick glance to Ezabell. I knew she understood. It was life and death for us. Children who went through things like this, they knew perhaps better than adults the stark reality of do or die.

The knob twisted and the door swung open. I was in luck. It was the same guy and he was looking at Ezabell, who’d begun to cry.

“I feel sick,” she said, and I wanted to high-five her for her quick thinking. She’d immediately distracted him.

He took two steps toward her, by then realizing he didn’t see me. He started to turn, but was too late. I was already swinging with every ounce of strength and desperation in me.

The rod hit him on the side of the head, right at the temple. His head snapped violently to the side. Then to my utter shock and relief, he crumpled to the ground and didn’t move.

Both Ezabell and I stared for a moment, unable to believe our good fortune, then I sprang into action. I tossed the rod aside and grabbed the gun from his waistband. It was a large .38 and my fingers weren’t strong enough to check the cartridge for how many rounds it had, so I just hoped it was loaded.

“Let’s go,” I said, grabbing her hand. We ran from the room, though I was careful to pull the door closed behind us. No sense making it easier for them to see we’d escaped.

I spent a precious few seconds orienting myself. We were in a long but narrow building. A quick glance out the window showed we were a few stories up, maybe three. Too high to jump onto the concrete below. We’d have to find stairs.

The hallway was dim despite the sunshine outside, and full of closed doors. I didn’t want to open doorways if I didn’t have to, so we ran down the hallway and again, were in luck. There were stairs in the very back. Narrow and wooden, they creaked as we walked down them and I cringed.

Ezabell’s hand was small in my sweaty palm, our grip on each other tight to the point of pain. I could hear her breathing, sharp little gasps that spoke of her terror.

But it was too much to ask for our luck to hold. When we reached the bottom floor, the only exit was back into a hallway and not outside, as I’d hoped. And I could hear voices.

“Ezabell,” I said. “Listen carefully. I’m going to try and clear a path, and I want you to head straight for the front door, okay? You run right outside and you find a woman, any woman, and tell her you’re lost and need your mom.” I knew that, statistically, a woman was more likely to help a child than a man. “Understand?”

“What about you?”

“Don’t you worry about me,” I said. “Remember our deal. You do as I say, okay? If I get out of this, I’ll be at my hotel.” Praying that was true, I gave her the address and room number, making her repeat them both until I was sure she had it. “Don’t hesitate when the time comes, okay?”

She nodded, albeit reluctantly.

“Good.” I took another breath and let go of her hand. “On the count of three. Ready? One . . . two . . . three.”

I didn’t throw open the door, but instead opened it normally, hoping to escape notice for as long as possible. We got ten feet before someone spotted us.

A man glanced up, saw us, and his eyes bugged out. He began yelling until I pointed the gun at him and pulled the trigger. Then he went down into the table behind him, both crashing to the ground.

“Run!” I yelled, and Ezabell took off. The front door was a shining white beacon at the end of the hallway.

Someone flung open a door and I aimed quickly, firing off another round, but it embedded itself in the wood.

I ran, too. Maybe I could make it out. Miracles did happen. Arms reached out and grabbed me. Blindly, I stuck the muzzle of my gun underneath my arm and pulled the trigger. The arms fell away.

Ezabell was nearly at the door when something hard hit me upside the head, knocking me into the wall. I lost my balance, and my grip on the gun, which went clattering to the floor. I dropped, scrabbling for it. My hand curved around the grip and I sat up, only to see everyone and everything had gone still.

Ezabell flung open the door and I felt a surge of triumph. But just as she stepped through, a man blocked her path. I gasped in dismay.

“Looks like your escape plan has gone awry.”

Jerking around, I saw Levin standing in front of an archway that led to what looked to be the kitchen. He was furious, his eyes narrowed and his cheeks ruddy with rage. Five men stood in various positions in the hall, all of them with weapons pointed at me.

“You’ve killed two of my men,” he said, pointing to the bodies on the floor. “The girl will pay for that.” He snapped his fingers and the man at the door grabbed up Ezabell, who screamed.

I didn’t hesitate, but lifted the gun I still held. The men watched, but I didn’t point it at Levin or any of them.

I held the muzzle to my own temple.

C
HAPTER
F
IFTEEN

L
et the girl go,” I said. “Or I’ll pull the trigger.”

Levin looked at me. “Why do you think I would care if you did that?”

“I’m not dumb,” I said. “I know the real reason you’re keeping me alive. You want me to give you what I gave to Vega. Software that’ll turn all those cell phones into biodata-harvesting devices.” I could tell by the surprised, then blank expression on Levin’s face that I was right. He thought I was some genius hacker. No need to disillusion him just yet. Not if it could save my life.

“What do you want?” Levin asked.

“I want you to let the girl go,” I said. “Or so help me, I’ll blow my head off right now and you’ll be left with nothing.” I wasn’t bluffing. It would be easier than Levin could possibly imagine to pull the trigger and end everything.

“You’ll cooperate if I let her leave?” he asked.

I nodded. “I’ll do whatever you say.” It was a small price to pay. Ezabell was an innocent victim. She deserved her freedom.

A moment passed, tense and pregnant with anticipation as everyone waited to see what Levin would do. I watched him for the slightest sign that he’d try to double-cross me. If he so much as winked at one of the men, I’d pull the trigger. Part of me almost wanted him to.

“Agreed,” he said at last. He looked to the door. “Put the girl down,” he ordered. “Let her go.”

I watched as Ezabell was set on her feet. Uncertain, she looked at me.

“Go,” I said. “Run.” I prayed she’d do as I’d told her, and in the next instant, she did. Springing for the open doorway, she was through it and gone. No one tried to follow her.

I breathed a sigh of relief as two men approached me. I made no move to fight them as they took away my gun and pulled me to my feet.

“I expect your full cooperation for that,” Levin said. He was close enough for me to smell the scent of his cologne, overly sweet and heavy.

“I gave you my word,” I replied. I was glad my hunch had been right, though a part of me longed to have escaped. I didn’t know what Levin had in store for me, but I could well imagine it.

“Get her cleaned up,” Levin said. “Make sure she doesn’t escape again. We have business to attend to.”

The two men shoved me down the hallway into another room that was much better than the first I’d been in. A huge bedroom complete with a bathroom that had every luxury you could imagine.

“Clothes are in the closet,” one of the men said. The two exchanged glances, then one of them left. I looked at the remaining guard.

“Aren’t you going to leave, too?”

He shook his head. “Eyes on you at all times,” he said.

Nice. I knew what that meant. No privacy, period.

I tried to close the door when I went into the bathroom, but he stopped me. “Door stays open,” he said.

He was a rough-looking guy with dark hair and eyes. Only a few inches taller than me, he still outweighed me by at least a hundred pounds. There would be no getting away from him, especially when his gaze followed my every movement.

I really had to use the bathroom, but didn’t want him watching. I brushed my teeth instead, hoping he’d sit down or glance away or something. He didn’t.

Bodily functions could only be denied for so long before there really wasn’t a choice any more. My cheeks burning with embarrassment, I had to pee with him watching me. It was worse than I thought it’d be, more humiliating than some of what Jace had done to me.

The man’s attention didn’t waver as I washed my hands and face. My shirt had been shredded earlier and I kept it pulled closed, but hurried to rummage through the closet for something else to wear. There were no bandages for the cuts on my stomach, but they’d stopped bleeding. After I’d cleaned them, I found a pair of jeans that fit me, and a long-sleeved shirt. I tried to block out the weight of the guard’s gaze on me, but it was hard.

Finally, I was as cleaned up as I was going to get while having someone watch me.

“What now?” I asked, careful to stay beyond the guard’s reach.

“Now we wait.”

Turning away, I paced the room, keeping the guard in my sight at all times. I didn’t want him sneaking up on me. His khaki cargo pants didn’t hide the erection he’d gotten while watching me dress and I was leery of what he might do. I was hungry, but my stomach was twisted into knots. Had Ezabell escaped all right? Maybe she’d gone for help? But the minutes crawled by with no change.

A knock on the door startled me and I stopped mid-step. The
knock was merely perfunctory, it seemed, because the door swung inward to reveal Levin.

“Time to pay the piper, my dear.” He motioned to the guard, who got behind me and gave me a slight shove forward. I followed Levin back down the hallway to another room—a study or den maybe. The room contained a desk that held a computer, and various chairs scattered around; books with titles I couldn’t read lined the walls.

A large television screen attached to the wall was tuned to CNN. A reporter was talking but the sound was muted, not that it mattered because everyone could see the headline blaring out the news: