“Are you telling me or asking me?” she says, sounding breathless.
“Telling,” I say, grinning and kissing the corner of her mouth before putting her back down onto the floor.
She looks a little dazed, and she confirms it when she mutters, “What just happened here?”
What happened was, she just became mine.
But I’ll let her figure that out for herself.
• • •
Ten of us storm inside the house. Never once in my life did I think I’d be working with a team of police, but here I am, and if it saves Elizabeth, then I’m perfectly okay with it. I had to compromise and promise them I’d stay in the back, out of their way. I get that I don’t know anything about their rules and regulations, but they’re stupid to underestimate me. I’m an asset and they should utilize that, not make it a point to tell me that they don’t want or need me here.
We kick in the door and enter the house, fanning out to cover all the rooms. “Put your hands up!” one of the officers yells when he comes across a man sitting on the couch in the living room. He puts his hands behind his head while two of the cops keep their guns trained on him. In any other situation, I’d have felt bad for the guy. He was just sitting there, trying to enjoy a beer, now he’s on his knees on the carpet wondering where he went wrong in his life. I stick with Jo, watching as each room is searched. No one else seems to be in the house, and the man they have is not the one on the gas station footage with Elizabeth, but that doesn’t mean he’s not connected in some way, or that he doesn’t know anything. We can’t miss any little details here, because something small could lead us to find her. If I’m given an hour alone with this man, I can find out everything he knows, without a doubt. However, I don’t think the cops would approve of my methods, and they’re the ones running the show.
For now anyway.
I’m walking down the hallway when I feel something under my feet, something different from the rest of the flooring, like there’s something under the carpet. I stop, pressing down hard on my feet, then test the area around it. It feels different.
“Jo!” I call out, bending down and touching the carpet with my fingers while she turns around and retraces her steps back to me. “There’s something under here.”
She pulls the knife from her boot and hands it to me. I cut through the carpet and sure enough, there’s a trapdoor under there.
“A secret basement?” I guess, ripping up more carpet to expose the entire door. When I touch the carpet near the skirting of the wall, I realize I didn’t need to cut up the middle, because I could have actually just lifted the carpet up from the side. It was just very well concealed. I share a look with Jo, who calls some of the team over. I lift open the door, and it makes a loud bang as it falls backward against the floor, exposing the opening. I look inside, but all I can see is darkness.
“Hello?” I call out. “Is anyone down there?”
“We’re here to help,” Jo calls out, which I realize is a smart move, because if any women are down there, I doubt that they’d want to hear a man’s voice right now.
When I hear a woman yell out, “Help!” Jo and I share another look.
Fuck.
“I’m going down,” she says, looking to one of the cops. “There’s a ladder. I just need a light.”
If she’s going down, so am I.
One day soon I’d love to say that line in a completely different context.
We’re both handed flashlights.
“Let me go down first, just in case,” I tell her softly so only she can hear. “Okay?”
What if there are men down there? What if it’s a huge drop? Too many what-ifs, and I don’t fuckin’ like it. I’ve never liked a woman like this before, and I’m sure as fuck not going to lose her when I’ve just found her.
I don’t wait for her answer, I just head down there. The ladder is wobbly, and I’m sure my weight isn’t helping, but I make my way quickly, then turn the flashlight on.
The sight before me has me wanting to kill someone with my bare hands.
There are three women here, all of them in separate cages.
Cages. Like they’re animals. They’re all dressed in white, and they all look like they could use a shower. Disheveled, dirty, treated like they are worthless.
And none of them is Elizabeth.
“Hey, it’s okay,” I say, trying to appear nonthreatening. “The police are here. You’re safe now.”
Jo comes down the ladder, and I help her when she reaches the end, placing my hands on her hips until she reaches the floor. When she turns and sees the women, she curses under her breath.
“Come on,” I tell her softly, holding her hand and walking over to the first cage. It’s locked from the outside with a latch, but the bars aren’t big enough for the women to be able to break out themselves. I open it, but when I reach inside for the woman, she flinches away. “I’m going to carry you out of here. Is that okay?”
She doesn’t reply.
She doesn’t do anything.
I look to the woman in the third cage, who is watching us warily but is very alert. “Will you let me help you?”
She nods. I open her cage, and she comes out. I carry her in my arms and walk to the ladder. “Do you think you can climb up? It’s all cops up there, so don’t be scared, all right?”
“Okay,” she whispers, and starts climbing up the ladder. I wait until she reaches the top, then turn to see Jo has coaxed the first girl out and is carrying her in her arms. The woman is about her size, but Jo carries her like she’s a child. How strong is she?