Solid as Steele (15 page)

Although he was certain he had them trapped, he
couldn't take a chance on anything now. He would have to go down there himself and end the game.

For the first time, he felt a sizzle of uncertainty. All along he'd had the upper hand with his victims, but Shepherd and Steele were not like anyone else he'd run through his maze.

They seemed to have an uncanny ability to avoid the traps he'd set. Like that plywood shield. It was almost as if they were expecting something to come down from the ceiling.

What the hell was going on? They couldn't know. Could they?

Still cursing, he watched the action below, judging the right moment to personally take command of the playing field.

At the end of the game, he'd always gone after the victims in the funhouse up close and personal, with knives. That way, he had the satisfaction of plunging the blade into their flesh.

With these two hard cases he wasn't going to take a chance on getting close enough for hand work. Better safe than sorry, he told himself. From a drawer in the wall unit, he pulled out a Sig Sauer and made sure the safety was off.

Then he flipped a series of switches on the control panel so that the final drama would play out the way he wanted.

When he was ready to leave his lounge, he looked at the monitors one last time to check their location before stepping into the hall.

 

J
AMIE GLANCED AROUND, TRYING
to orient herself, then gasped as she realized their position. “I've got a better idea.
If we go that way, we'll hit the front hall.” She pointed down the corridor.

Mack nodded, and followed her to the right. They came to a door that was locked, but Mack kicked it in and they plowed through into the foyer.

“Thank God.”

He dashed to the front door. It was secured with two locks, one a dead bolt that required a key. There were long, narrow windows on either side of the door, but they were sealed with plywood.

This time when he used his foot to try and bash through, there was no effect.

“We need something to use as a battering ram,” he muttered.

“I guess we go in the dining room after all. We can use one of the chairs.”

Jamie was already heading for the door that she'd used in her dream. It was locked, and it was solid. Too heavy for Mack to break down.

“Other way,” she shouted, heading for the hallway.

Before she'd gotten more than a few feet down the corridor, something shot down from the ceiling.

It was a feathered monster. A great black bird whose bill clanked with stainless-steel knives. As it came swooping down at them, she saw needle-sharp claws. Mack was looking the other way, and the thing was heading straight at him.

As the bird shot toward Mack, she shouted “Watch out,” and leaped toward him, pushing him out of the way and rolling as she hit the floor.

Mack hit the ground, dodging the talons, but one of them caught his sleeve and scraped across his arm.

Jamie gasped as she saw a line of blood.

“You're hurt.”

“It's nothing.”

He was just pushing himself up when a popping sound filled the air. Mack grabbed her by the shoulder, pulling her across the floor and farther into the hallway.

“What was that?” she gasped.

“He's got a gun.”

“He never did before.”

“Yeah, well, you didn't mention acid before, either. I guess he doesn't like the way we're getting out of his traps. He's still on the stairs. Can we get to the dining room?”

Jamie took a moment to orient herself. “Yes,” she finally said, pointing to the right and praying that she hadn't gotten twisted around.

She moved cautiously down the hall with Mack right behind her. “Stay away from the right-hand wall,” she told him. “There's a trapdoor somewhere along there.”

They hurried along the left side of the hallway, through the next doorway and into the dining room.

“Watch out for a spider,” she told Mack.

To trigger the mechanism, she waved her arm through the doorway, and the thing zoomed down. When it had landed on the table, she stepped into the room, glad that Fried hadn't activated the flashing lights.

Orienting herself, she pointed to another door at the far end of the room.

“That's the exit that leads back to the front hall,” she said, thinking that Fried wasn't going to hear her on his microphone. He was already down on this level. With a gun.

She glanced at Mack. “Is he out there? Or is he circling around, do you think?”

“Don't know.”

“Careful of the chairs. They may pull out by themselves and hit you.”

Mack kicked out a leg, making one of the chairs shoot away from the table. He avoided it and yanked another out of position, looking at the seats and seeing the knives that she'd told him about.

He worked to pull two knives loose, handing one to her and sticking the other in his waistband. Then he started moving the chairs, laying one across each doorway, a little inside the room.

“What can I do?”

“Can you bash out the lights?”

She reached for the candelabra in the middle of the table. It was sticky with artificial spider webs, but she grasped it firmly, swinging it at the chandelier, shattering the bulbs.

A noise in the hallway made her go rigid.

“Under the table,” Mack whispered.

She dived below the table, just as another shot rang out.

“Got ya.”

Obviously confident that he had them cornered, Fried came charging into the room. In the darkness, he didn't see the chair in his path and pitched forward, cursing as he came down on the carpet.

Mack was on him in an instant, striking at him in the back of the neck with the knife.

Jamie sprang forward, her own knife in her hand. Without any hesitation, she chopped down at the killer, hitting him in the back, wincing as she heard the blade clash against bone.

Fried lay sprawled across the chair. Mack pulled the gun out of his hand and turned him over, then yanked off his death mask. He sucked in a sharp breath when he saw the man's face.

“What is it, Mack?”

“He was in the restaurant when I picked up dinner the other night.”

“Do you think he knew who you were?”

“He didn't act like it.”

Blood leaked from Fried's mouth, but he managed to give them a parody of a smile.

His eyes went to Jamie. “Were you here before?”

“Yes.”

“How…?”

“In my nightmares.”

“I…knew…something.” He closed his eyes. Then they snapped open again. “You haven't won. It's not over…” he gasped before he went still.

Jamie looked at Mack. “What does that mean?”

“I don't know,” he answered. “But we'd better get the hell out of here.”

Cautiously, he opened the door to the hallway. When he saw nothing there, he picked up a chair and went toward the front door, where he began bashing the chair against the plywood that covered the windows. The plywood was screwed tightly to the wall and held fast.

“Help. Let us out of here. Somebody let us out,” Mack shouted.

To Jamie's astonishment, a familiar voice answered.

“Mack?”

“Brady?”

“Yes. We were trying to get in without getting you killed.”

“Fried is dead,” Mack answered.

“Can you open the front door?”

“I don't think so. I can't open the windows down here either.”

He was about to say something else when an explosion rocked the house.

The first one in the basement had been a fake, designed to scare them. This one was real. The whole structure shook, and Mack and Jamie clung together. When the floor stopped vibrating, flames were already shooting up from a heating vent and smoke was pouring into the hallway.

“What happened?” Jamie gasped out.

“He must have had some mechanism set to go off if he didn't return to his command post. Or maybe he had some kind of button in his pocket that triggered the mechanism when his grip relaxed.”

The floor beneath their feet had turned hot. Flames were eating their way up the walls.

“What happened?” Brady shouted from outside.

“Explosion in the basement. Fire. We're going upstairs,”
Mack answered. “Call the fire department.” Gripping Jamie's hand, he started up the stairs.

She stumbled after him, her mind trying to take in what had happened. Against all odds, they'd killed Fried, but he had still reached out to finish them off.

Smoke rose around them. When Mack stopped moving, Jamie bumped into him.

“Door,” he said. “It's locked.”

She moaned, then began to cough.

“Take shallow breaths. He must have the key. I've got to go back and get it.”

“No! You can't go down there.”

“I have to.”

“I'm coming with you.”

“The hell you are. Stay here.”

He turned and dashed down the stairs, but she couldn't let him go alone. And what good would it do anyway? If something happened to him, she was still trapped.

She could hear him coughing as he disappeared into the smoke. When she lost sight of him, she got low to the floor, knowing that the smoke would rise.

Agonizing moments ticked by. Finally she thought she saw him crawling back toward her through the smoke. Before he reached her, he collapsed, his head hitting the floor.

She wanted to cry out. But she didn't dare waste the breath. Crawling forward, she grabbed his arm, pulling him across the floor as flames licked up the walls.

“Mack. You've got to get up, Mack,” she begged.

He lifted his head, looking at her, then firmed his lips. She knew he was making a tremendous effort as he pushed himself forward. They both climbed the stairs on hands and knees, the smoke rising with them.

Finally she bumped into the door.

“The key. Where's the key?”

He held out his fist. Opening his fingers, she found the key he was holding. Somehow she fumbled it into the lock and turned. To her vast relief the door opened, and she tumbled through, then turned to help Mack. He tried to crawl forward, but he had obviously come to the end of his resources.

With all her strength, she pulled him, lugging him through the door and slamming it shut behind them, blocking the smoke.

She dragged clean air into her lungs. But they weren't safe yet. The door had stopped the smoke, but it wasn't going to stop the fire.

Mack had pushed himself up and sat with his head against the wall. She let him stay there for a few moments, then tugged at his arm.

“We have to get out of here.”

“I know.”

“Can you climb out a window?”

“I hope.”

She had started across the floor when a figure loomed in front of them, and she screamed.

“It's okay,” the man said. “It's Brady Lockwood.” He reached out to steady Jamie. “We found a ladder outside and climbed up.”

“Thank God.”

Mack pushed himself up.

“Are you okay?” Jamie asked him urgently.

“Yeah.”

“You just have to climb down,” Brady said. He helped them to the window, and when she looked out Jamie wanted to scream with relief.

In the distance she heard a siren.

“Fire department,” Brady said.

He helped her across the window sash, and she began climbing down the ladder, holding the rungs in a death grip, looking up to make sure Mack was following. Another man was holding the ladder at the bottom, and she recognized Hunter Kelley.

They made it to the ground, and she saw she was in the front yard of a gray Victorian mansion.

“Washington Street,” she wheezed. They were smack in the elegant part of town.

Firemen rushed toward them. “Are you all right?”

“We are now,” Mack answered.

“You were in there?”

“Yes. We need to call the police. The man who's been dumping bodies in the mountains is inside. He kidnapped Ms. Shepherd last night. Then me. Tell the cops we're safe.”

Jamie wanted to be alone with Mack, but she knew they had breathed in a lot of smoke, and Mack had hit his head. They needed to see a doctor. She also knew the police were going to have some questions about how they'd gotten involved with Fried. As she thought back over everything that had happened, she took her bottom lip between her teeth.

Mack was immediately on the alert. “What's wrong?”

She leaned toward him. “Maybe…” She paused a moment and whispered, “Don't tell them about the dreams. I don't want to get into that.”

He nodded. “Yeah. The cops will have the same questions that I did. But how did we get dragged into this?”

A plausible answer leaped into her mind. “The newspaper articles. I was checking on cases involving Craig. I saw Lynn and Jeanette's names.”

“Good thinking.”

They had no more opportunity for private conversation because paramedics were rushing toward them.

In no time, Jamie found herself on a stretcher. And then EMTs were checking her and Mack out as they rode to the hospital.

She was glad she'd had the chance to talk to Mack at the house, because the police interviewed them separately in the emergency room, asking questions about how they'd ended up in Fried's funhouse. Their stories matched well enough to satisfy the authorities.

Three hours later, she and Mack were finally released by the cops and the medical staff. She thought they'd get to have a private conversation, but she'd forgotten about Hunter and Brady, who were waiting for them, along with Max and Jed.

“You're cleared to go?” Jed asked.

“Yeah,” Mack answered. “And the cops are satisfied with our account of what happened with Fried.”

“We've pieced it together from your files,” Hunter said. “But you need to write it up.”

“I will,” Mack said. “But I'd like to wait a few days. I'm still too close to being a rat in Fried's maze.”

“Nobody else got out of it alive,” Brady said.

“The others were alone. Jamie and I worked as a team,” Mack answered. “And we surprised the bastard by knocking down one of his walls and using the plywood as a shield.”

“To keep acid from falling on us,” Jamie added.

The other detective winced.

“Acid?” Jed asked.

“Yeah. I guess that was his desperation move when he saw we were smarter than he thought.”

“I can see why you'd like to distance yourself from it,” Hunter said.

Jamie looked from him to Brady. “Thank you both for getting us out of the fire. I know you risked your lives to do it.”

“I was just holding the ladder,” Hunter said.

“Do you want to go to the Randolph Research facility?” Max asked. “It's not too far from here. And you could relax there.”

“If it's okay, I'd rather just go back to our hotel,” Jamie said.

“Sure. We'll give you a ride back and have Mack's car brought to the lot,” Hunter offered.

“Thank you.”

“Your purse was in your mother's house,” Brady added, holding it out to her.

Jamie felt her chest tighten as she took her bag. “I wasn't thinking about that. How…how did we get checked into the hospital?”

“We took care of it. Your information was at Light Street.” Hunter shifted his weight from one foot to the other. “Your mom was worried about you.”

Jamie sucked in a sharp breath. “I wasn't thinking about her, either.”

“We told her you're fine.”

“Thanks so much.”

Brady turned to Mack. “I'm afraid anything you didn't bring out with you burned up in the house.”

“Better my wallet than me.”

Jamie reached for his hand and clasped it tightly. She wanted to hold him in her arms, but not until they were alone. And he must be having similar feelings about wanting privacy.

Max and Jed left to drive back to Baltimore. Brady and Hunter drove Jamie and Mack to the hotel.

They were silent in the back of the car. Silent in the
lobby and silent in the elevator. Jamie used the key card in her purse to let them in. As soon as Mack had closed the hotel door behind them, she thought he would pull her into his arms. Instead, he stood with his hands at his sides and asked, “Are you trying to hide our relationship from our friends?”

She drew in a quick breath. “No. Of course not.”

“But you didn't want to go to the Randolph facility with me.”

“I…didn't think I could handle it yet.”

“Because you still think it's wrong to be with a guy who…was in love with you when you were still married.”