Page 148 of One Last Stand

“We need to get in there before Benton shoots them all.”

“I’ll call Dawson, get the APD out here.”

London got up. “Do it right now.”

Then she went into the shed, opened the root cellar door, and climbed down the stairs. She opened the hidden door and keyed in the code. The last time she’d tried, she’d broken the latch inside. The door didn’t budge.

Think.

She climbed up to the woodshed and found the maul for chopping wood on a nearby stump. She grabbed it and the sledgehammer.

“What are youdoing?” Flynn said, following her back to the root cellar.

“This is the tunnel to the house.”

London shoved the maul between the frame and the door. She picked up the sledgehammer. “Stand back.”

Then she slammed the hammer into the maul. It made a terrible clang, enough to carry to the house, but the door ripped open.

Flynn shone her light down the tunnel, but London knew the way and ran through it, the air still as clammy and rank as before. She keyed in the code at the far door, then opened it and found herself back in the office.

For a moment she debated turning on the power and lighting up the screens, but she’d seen the situation just fine already. Still, maybe there were more attackers?—

“Is this the tunnel to the sauna?”

She nodded, and Flynn headed in, so London followed her up.

They came out into the sauna room just like before, but now Flynn crept into the box, London behind her. The light from the other room didn’t reach the sauna but illuminated the horror in the entertainment area.

Boo was bleeding from the mouth, and blood covered her hands and shirt. She knelt above Oaken, who had rolled over onto his side, his hands tied behind him. He bled from a shoulder wound.

Axel lay on his side, as if he had tried to get up and had been kicked, given the welt on his jaw. He glared at Benton, the man’s back to London.

Moose, however, was still struggling, shouting. “Stay away from her. She’s not a part of this! She’s not even a part of the team!”

Maybe he was referring to Tillie, who had her hands up, the other man—right, the fiancé, Liam Grant—holding a shotgun to her chest.

London and Flynn crept out of the sauna into the pool room, huddled in the darkness under the pony wall.

“Can you get a shot off, take down Grant?” London said. Benton stood closest to the door. “I can get to Benton.”

Flynn nodded. “Except Grant is looking pretty spooked. He’s not a criminal?—”

“Now he is.”

“Yeah, but mostly he’s desperate. And that’s?—”

“Dangerous. People do stupid things when they’re desperate,” London said.Like faking their own deaths and forgetting who they are.

But London knewexactlywho she was. London, Laney, Delaney—but most of all, the woman who loved her team.

“I’ll provide the distraction—you shoot as soon as the door is open.” London hustled to the door.

Moose was still shouting. “Let her go! Just let her go!”

“Get on your face!” Benton said to Tillie.

As London watched, Moose rolled onto his back, and suddenly, his hands came free. He launched himself at Benton’s feet.

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