Page 44 of Spies Like Us

“Do we know who that is?” I ask.

“Yeah, she works at the Life Lounge with Anders. Her name is Carla,” Ryland answers. “He said she is always timid and withdrawn, and flinches at the slightest sound.”

“Well, that would explain why,” Max says dryly, pointing at the screen as we watch her gather a robe and head through a door in the room, which I’m assuming is a bathroom. We didn’t actually check those out.

“And there are hundreds of these in that cupboard. I even found the one labeled with my name.”

“Did you grab it?” his brother asks him, and he shakes his head.

“Not yet. If they notice it’s missing, it’s going to be a problem. Now that we know how to get in and we have access cards, it won’t be a problem to retrieve it.”

“Shall we check the elevator?” Ry suggests as Lathan turns everything off again and places the thumb drives back where they were.

“Nah, it’s not too late, and people might still be around. We don’t want anyone seeing us use that elevator. I think it’s safe to say that it’s in the movie theater or arcade somewhere, if the one you guys used was in the back of it. Did you go far?” Max asks me, and I shake my head.

“A hundred yards or so.”

“Maybe tomorrow night, we can pretend to go to the movies and sneak out and snoop around topside. Monday should be a slow night at the cinemas.”

“Maybe we can ask Mac to join us. None of them work on Monday nights,” Lathan suggests, and I smother a smirk. He’s smitten with our temporary team member. I can’t say I’m not. I’d be all for making it more permanent, but we need to wait and see what Miller decides. He’s going to make it painful for all of us while he pulls his head out of his ass.

“Do we want to poke around some more?” Ryland asks as we leave the office, Lathan flicking all the light switches and plunging us into darkness again. Ry switches the flashlight on and leads us back the way we came.

“I don’t think so. We found what we came for. I poked around while Lathan was scanning through the computers. There is nothing else to see here, except maybe the rooms we passed on the way in,” Max says behind me.

“No need. Ry and I already did. Individual rooms for sex, some that are little disturbing, and a medical center.”

“A medical center?” Lathan sounds surprised. “Why would they need that?”

We get to the door that leads to the hallway and file through, Ry closing it behind him. “For the same reason there are drains in some of the rooms. Dark and depraved shit happens in some of them.” Ry’s words are flat, but you can hear his disgust.

“Fuck, that’s not good. Maybe we should rethink Mac’s and Miller’s involvement.” Lathan sounds worried. Before I can tell him what I told Ry, Max chimes in.

“Don’t worry. Hopefully I’ll get an invite this week, and I can keep an eye on the two of them. If I don’t, we will rethink the plan. I won’t risk either of them.”

We pass through the storeroom and out into the tunnel system again, walking back in the direction of the library. The only sounds are our quiet footsteps and my own breathing. We get to where it branches off to the library, but I stop when I hear noise again. It’s louder this time, and I can tell it’s definitely not wind in the tunnel.

“I hear something. Someone is down here.” I point in the opposite direction we just came from.

“The cells should be in that direction,” Lathan says. “That’s the direction Billy and Ashley came from with Bishop’s body.”

“Let’s check it out, but go slowly,” Max says, pulling his gun from his holster.

The four of us creep along the tunnel. It’s actually quite a distance, but we must be moving across the other side of town toward the forest where the ranger station is. The sound gets louder the farther we go.

It sounds like voices murmuring, but then it stops. We continue to creep forward, and we arrive at the section of tunnels where the cells are. Staying back, away from the cameras, the four of us stop and stare at what we find. Three of the ten cells are occupied. There are people lying on the beds in each of the cells. I can’t make out their sex or features because I’m not close enough, but I can clearly see the IV line going into each of their arms, rendering them unconscious.

“It couldn’t have been them that we heard,” I whisper to Max, and he shakes his head.

“No, we’ll get Lathan to check the footage when we get back to the house.”

“Should we rescue them?” Lathan asks, but Ry shakes his head.

“If we do, we’ll tip off the ring to our involvement. We need to leave them for now, unfortunately.” I can’t see Lathan’s face, but I can feel the tightness in his body at the idea of leaving them.

“They are well looked after. It looks like they have a catheter in as well. That takes some medical knowledge. We need to do a deeper dive into each of their backgrounds to see who has those skills,” Max says thoughtfully.

“Yeah, Ry and I were discussing that earlier too. If they are as brutal as we think they are, then someone is patching people up,” I reply.

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